When we last hung out five years ago, chef Robert Menor and I were in Walnut Creek, California, in the mansion that bangus built, that is, the house of the family behind Filipino American distributor and manufacturer Ramar Foods. In 2014, I founded Filipino Kitchen, a Filipino American food events and media group. Much of Filipino Kitchen’s work involved partnering with fellow Filipinxao diaspora chefs, writers and cultural workers and practitioners. Throughout California in spring 2015, Menor, chef AC Boral and I collaborated on pop-up dinners and Kamayan nights, communal feasts where the repast is laid upon banana leaves and participants eat with their hands. Rob and I were just getting to know each other then, and I felt his strong connection to his Ilokano heritage (from the ethnolinguistic population in northern Luzon, Philippines), which we share.

Ilokano-ness was something that I hadn't explored with other FilAms. Menor told me about growing up in Stockton, California: his memories of his uncles, his first heroes, with loosies hanging from their lips, feet slipped in tsinelas and beat-up Jordans as they slaughtered goats,

burning off the fur with blowtorches. Slaughtering any animal for food in our culture is sacred, the bigger the animal the more revered the occasion. Kalding (goat) are animals that do especially well raised in the mountainous areas in Ilokandia around Baguio and the Cordillera

Mountains. Kaldereta is an adaptation of a Spanish colonizer dish—ingredients like olives and tomatoes are a giveaway—yet pairing it with the goat makes it completely Ilokano. As Rob told me stories of his childhood that morning, we got high overlooking the San Ramon and Ygnacio Valleys. We had no idea what lay ahead, but we knew where we were in the present, and we liked it.

Adoboloko—Menor’s Instagram handle—has always inhabited many worlds. The “adobo” comes from his Filipino side; the “loko” comes from his Latinx ancestry. Some people say the word “Ilokano” came from the Spaniards calling us crazy.

“I’m from Puerto Rico, from Mexico ... from the ghetto,” says Menor in tercet, the last in reference to Stockton.

Menor and fellow contributors to the award-winning anthology, "The New Filipino Kitchen: Stories and Recipes From Around the Globe" took the book on a DIY tour after its launch in September 2018. Entries in the book were gathered from around the diaspora; Menor’s contribution was part memoir, with a recipe that hearkened to his Stockton days at Papa Urb’s Grill: Adoboloko pulled pork adobo sliders.

The book tour kicked off in the Bay Area. Oakland-based Charleen Caabay—former owner-executive chef of the restaurant Kainbigan and Damo Edibles, now cofounder of the People’s Dispensary—had been offering Filipino cuisine made with cannabis for about four years by then, after hours at Kainbigan. After learning how to extract THC from cannabis, Caabay rocked a lot with OG Kush and Sour Diesel. “It gave such an uplifting feeling, and was a fan favorite,” she says. Caabay shared this with Menor along with an 8-ounce deli container of cannabutter. In Ilokano, we have a saying: Agas iti bagi amin nga kakanen, “Food is medicine.” He started to ask himself, how could this ingredient help our people?

Menor credits Caabay for showing him the way: Filipino food prepared with cannabis. What possibilities could exist in the nexus of these two powerful culinary traditions? “She would always kick the knowledge to me, she would always put it down,” says Menor. “I soaked up all of that. It was a bunch of little things, but it really added up to me.”

While Menor had long been an advocate for Filipino food—particularly for Ilokano cuisines, unadulterated and unsterilized for the white gaze—and had also been a student of cannabis, two years ago he started putting them together. He created Filipino canna desserts like

kutsinta (steamed rice flour cakes with brown sugar and lye), bibingka (aka “budbingka,” glutinous rice cakes baked in clay pots lined with banana leaves) and the now Insta-famous Ube Doobies, a chewy brownie-like treat made from shredded purple yam.

The DIY book tour brought Menor and his fellow contributors together for rendezvous in New York City and Richmond, Virginia, along with other cities. While all the tour stops were chosen for their sizable Filipinxao American communities, those two cities had particular

cultural significance for Menor; he was cooking and reading in the lands that birthed and nurtured the likes of Missy Elliott, Timbaland and Biggie Smalls, just to name a few. “Meccas,” he says.

These locations heightened the meaning and the significance of bringing his food and stories to audiences of predominantly Filipinxaos in diaspora. To him, a recipe is just another form of a mixtape: It’s childhood memory, accessible ingredients and samples of what’s handy, everything subject to local context and macro-level systems. These tour dates—bookstore signings usually paired with ticketed pop-up dinners in the Before Times—were opportunities for Menor to share his edibles with his culinary peers.

Following a stint in Cincinnati working on a restaurant concept that ended up falling through, Menor returned to Chicago resolved to lean into his own project. He enrolled in Oakton Community College’s Cannabis Dispensary and Patient Care Specialist course. Shortly after, he found the right name for his brand of Filipino-inspired edibles: 8th Street Treats, named for his childhood home in Stockton.

Kaldereta nga Kalding

1 pound goat meat, ideally a mix of bone-in and boneless pieces

1⁄2 cup cane vinegar, Datu Puti if possible

3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided use

1 large russet potato, peeled, cut diagonally into 1⁄2-inch slices

1 large carrot, peeled, cut diagonally into 1⁄2-inch slices

1⁄2 small red bell pepper, finely diced

1⁄2 small yellow bell pepper, finely diced

2 large shallots, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups water

1⁄2 cup tomato sauce

6 tablespoons of fresh or canned Filipino-style liver spread

such as Palm or Reno

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 bay leaves

2 fresh habanero chilies, seeded as desired, minced

3⁄4 cup Spanish olives

2 tablespoons cannabutter or cannaoil*

1 cup shredded queso de bola, Edam or cheddar cheese

Rice for serving

Put goat meat in bowl; cover with vinegar. Let stand one hour; drain and pat dry.

In large saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add potatoes and carrots; cook, stirring, until browned. Remove and set aside. Add 1 tablespoon oil and bell peppers; cook and stir until softened; set aside, separately from potatoes and carrots. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Add goat, shallots and garlic; brown meat on all sides. Add water, tomato sauce, liver spread, soy sauce, pepper and bay leaves. Heat to boil; reduce heat. Simmer gently, uncovered, 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Add potatoes, carrot, habaneros and olives. Simmer until potatoes and carrots are tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Stir in bell pepper and cannaoil; remove from heat. Sprinkle with cheese; serve as an ulam (entree) with rice. Makes 4 to 5 servings at 13-16 mg THC each, based on a 15% strain.

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