How to Cook Ginataan Bilo-bilo, a Filipino sweet soup snack

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”

60 Days to Christmas! Pasko and Bibingka time!

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!”

Brunch Here: Nightwood, 2119 S. Halsted, Chicago 60608

You’re gonna have to drive down here or endure the slow boat to China AKA the #8 Halsted bus. Or maybe bike all the way down the Halsted bike lane! Good news: it’s right off the Expressway in the gallery-laden east Pilsen, or what some call the Principality of Podmajersky. But I digress.

When you see this sign, pull over immediately.

Continue reading “Brunch Here: Nightwood, 2119 S. Halsted, Chicago 60608”