Baby Jesus is officially here, y’all. Get your pancit-eatin’, lechon-balat sneaking ass to church, but then let’s party. Maligayang Pasko, madapaka!! This is what’s on our tree this year, Manila edition. Click for a full-size pic. Yes, it’s a “pine tree” with white and glitter sprayed tips for snow effect. Putting this up made me … Continue reading What’s on your Christmas tree, Philippines?
Beyond the brown sugar and coconut milk, my aunt said, any available fruit or vegetable may be used for the Filipino ginataan recipe below, like taro root (gabi), corn (mais), even mongo beans or guava (this last one she said was especially good). The important things are that, like the work of a farm, everyone pitches in – peeling, chopping, dough-ball rolling – to do a little something to make the dish a sweet success and that the ingredients are local, seasonally available, excess crops.
Eating seasonally and locally makes sense, right? In much of the world, this is the only way to eat. In fact, in America, we are used to eating out-of-season, faraway and/or foreign. Continue reading “How to Cook Ginataan Bilo-bilo, a Filipino sweet soup snack”
Some believe that the only truth is our bodies. And others see the truth in our souls.
One place where the possibilities of those truths connect is in a cemetery. Is it macabre, gothic, or just plain creepy to visit a cemetery in another culture, where you don’t have loved ones buried? Perhaps. Risking all those judgements, I present: Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Continue reading “Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris. Who do you remember and how do you keep their spirits alive?”
It’s late October and many of my friends are buying their fake blood and zombie costumes and pulling out their Michael Jackson’s Thriller long-format tracks. Oh, and of course, getting ready for the World Series. (sigh.)
But here in the Philippines, we’re already looking forward to Christmas. Soon as one of the so-called -BER months (SeptemBER, OctoBER…) takes a turn on the calendar, Filipinos dust off their parol, traditional star-shaped Christmas lanterns made of bamboo and colorful paper or capiz shell. A cartoon Pasko countdown finishes the tv evening news broadcast – seventy days na lang! In the malls, the soundtracks change from pop hits like Gangam Style to classic carols like Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Ironic, of course, because it doesn’t get colder than the high 70s in Manila. Continue reading “60 Days to Christmas! Pasko and Bibingka time!”
