For the love of adobo

Nothing better than deliciously spending Valentine's day with people cooking for you. The po(e)tluck was more potluck than poetry, but it didn't matter.

Tatang braved boiling oil bringing some scrumptious lechon kawali. [Recipe: boil pork in salt water, then deep fry] Perhaps the day should have been called "for the love of taro" with two dishes swimming with fragrant taro leaves. Barbara cooked up her Bicolano version of Laing, though she swears she doesn't have a lick of Bicolano in her Illocano self. [Ingredients: dried taro leaves, 2 cans coconut milk, ginger, garlic, onion, couple of jalapenos, shrimp, and a healthy dose of alamang] I prepared the other Taro dish, mongo, as we took over the kitchen at Pusod. [Ingredients: mong beans, tomatos, garlic, onions, taro leaves]

Jean brought the one and only adobo dish with chicken and lamb, with a touch of tumeric the way her mom used to make it. I with my nose hadn't been so stuffed up to take a whiff of the bayleaves, soy sauce, and tumeric.

It ended up being a bit of a family day for me with my sister and brother both attending. My brother had just driven up from UCLA the night before and had heard about the free grub. My sister brought a dessert, I think it's called, mochiko. [Ingredients: rice flour, butter, sugar, jackfruit (there are a few ingredients I forget)] In any case, we noted that the prized corners of the baked dish were conveniently missing from the tupperware. The corners so covetted for their crisply browned edges carmalized with the sugar.

I had always thought that Filipino food was difficult to make. Well certainly, pancit and lumpia can be quite complex, but really alot of the other stuff is ridiculously easy with the instructions more like chop and dump into a pot for 20 minutes and let the ingredients do their magic. Maybe I thought it was all the more complicated because in the Philippines I would watch the entire process from gathering the actual ingredients (ie the killing of the meat).

The event had a double meaning. It was also to launch the call for submissions for a Pinoy Food Lit Anthology:

Filipino Food Anthology Submission Guidelines

As expatriates, migrants, settlers in a world that insists upon our Westernization, we lose so much. Our language goes, economics necessitates the breakdown of our family structures, and many of our cultural foundations break down.

Increased urbanization has altered our living patterns and our palettes. But what remains, unswervingly, are our memories of food. Properly and lovingly prepared, linked to rituals, a sense of community, geography. Food brings us back to ourselves.

Submission guidelines:

-Up to 3 poems, short story, and/or other fictional work.

-Each piece must make mention to or be inspired by at least one Filipino dish. For example, green mango shake would be considered a dish, but mangoes would not.

-Included with the submission should be a recipe for the referenced and inspiring dish(es). If all pieces refer to only one dish, then one recipe may be submitted. Author may choose which recipe to submit if multiple dishes are mentioned in one piece.

Example: If all pieces refer to kare-kare, then one recipe for kare-kare should be submitted. If the 3 pieces submitted refer separately to adobo, laing, and kaldereta respectively, then a recipe for each of these dishes should be included.

-Literary work may have been previously published. However recipes may not have been previously published.

-Author of literary work and recipe may be different.

-Author of literary work should have gotten permission from recipe author for inclusion in anthology.

-Cover letter should include: short contributor's bio(s), titles of pieces, list of recipe(s), and contact info (name, address, and email or phone #)

Send cover letter with 2 copies of literary work and recipes to:

The Filipino Food Anthology
c/o Barbara Reyes
1461 alice street #205
Oakland CA 94612

OR

Emailed in the body of the message (no attachments) to:

pagkainbook@yahoo.com

DEADLINE: December 25, 2004

Do not send originals. Submissions will not be returned. Questions may be sent to pagkainbook@yahoo.com.


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My greater aspiration for the event was the hopes that it would inspire other people to throw their own "For the love of adobo" gatherings. Hard to go wrong with food, creativity and community. I was watching a PBS story where this woman had Wednesday food gatherings with her artist friends and would document the dinners as part of social gathering as art and performance.

A friend of mine who is an incredible cook and whose bibingka has become legendary in Pinoy community circles, always said he cooks because he is creatively stifled. Yet standing over bubbling pots, the smell of garlic still in my fingertips, you could easily see how pen and ink translates to pots and spices.