Warm-weather eats

With the TV stations and weather reports trumpeting the coming of spring, my thoughts turn, naturally, to warm-weather eating. In between writing about posh serviced apartments and equally posh shopping malls I find myself dreaming of food. It may have something to do with the travel programme currently on TV at this very moment - I hear Samantha Brown waxing orgiastic about Sorrento in southern Italy while I sit tapping away on my laptop.

September 2005: my first visit to Italy. I was with several friends, and we were in the center of Florence. It was searing hot that day. The cobblestoned streets were radiating heat in waves. It didn't stop tourists like us from trudging from one painting and marble statuary to another. Arms and legs bare, glistening with sunscreen. Everyone festooned with bottles of Pellegrinos, oversized sunglasses and straw hats. But after hours of oohing and aahing over the marvels of Florence we needed a break. We needed L-U-N-C-H.

You can only take in so much art - the stomach demands its due. We limped and drooped our way to a trattoria near the Uffizi Museum and top of the agenda was -- after ice-cold beers -- a salad. A caprese to be exact.

Easy enough to reproduce. It's better if you can get hold of really top-quality tomatoes, oils, olives and cheeses, but even approximations can be wonderfully restorative.

* about 4 large ripe tomatoes, sliced ¼ inch thick
* 1 pound fresh mozzarella, sliced ¼ inch thick
* ¼ cup fresh basil leaves
* ¼ teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
* 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

On a platter, arrange tomato and mozzarella slices and basil leaves, sprinkle with oregano and drizzle with the oil and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Add olives as desired.

We also enjoyed a tasty pizza with tons of mozzarella and a crispy crust:



With sharp and mild cheeses and perfect globes of grapes...



The meal could have ended there, but a generous slice of almond pie was the perfect finishing touch.

Friday yeah Friday!

I love Fridays, next only to Saturdays. On Saturdays a whole universe of leisure possibilities lie on your hands. But Fridays give you the first tantalizing glimpse of that universe, and the anticipation can sometimes be too much for dedicated slackers (like me).

Today is going to be busy, with proofs to read for the magazine I copyedit, and a rush commission from The Newspaper. Actually, the second is somewhat of a breeze: I was given a press release kit to slap into something that more closely resembles editorial. Not exactly high journalism, but it keeps the juices flowing. So: A cup of the blackest brew -- Italian roast, Waitrose; my Turkish coffee and Figaro barako supplies having run out at this point -- a quick shower using a fleet of palangganas (my hot water heater having decided to conk out, and as it's not yet warm enough despite the arrival of the spring equinox to take cold showers, I'm improvising my hot water supply) and I plunge into the day.

At 8 - freaking - a.m.!

To the table!

One of my new favorites is pancit palabok with tuna. Yep, tuna as in tinned tuna, canned tuna, Century tuna. It's made a few appearances on my table and I've brought it to the occasional potluck at a friend's place.

You could call this cuisine a la pobre - or maybe even cuisine minceur if you're the optimistic type (cos all those boiled eggs don't do your cholesterol count any favors).

Anyway, nothing could be simpler:

Tuna pancit palabok

For the sauce:
* 225g can of tuna in oil (tastier than brined)
* 1 pouch Mama Sita pancit palabok mix
* chopped onions and garlic for sauteeing
* a few drops of fish sauce (patis), salt and pepper to taste
* any type of white noodle

Garnish
* lemon/lime/calamansi slices, sliced hard-boiled eggs, chopped spring onions, fried garlic

Method:

First, soak noodles in water for 5 to 10 min.

Saute onions, then garlic. Add mix, stir fry briefly. Add the tuna with some of the oil from the can and season with the patis, salt and pepper. Let simmer a few minutes, then get cracking with the noodle. Bring a pot of salted water to boil, blanch noodles till al dente, and drain into a bowl. Add the sauce, and top with garnishings of your choice.

À table!

Today's horoscope for Cappies

While you may have valor, resolve, and even vigor, what you don't have is a basic understanding of what those words actually mean.

Want more? Here's more.

Child labor

So one Sunday morning, or it could have been Saturday, Mom was sweeping the front yard clear of debris (it's part of her morning aerobics haha) when out comes my little four-year-old nephew, squares his shoulders, flexes his fledgling boy muscles, and manfully takes over Operation Linis.



We couldn't dissuade him.



What a boy.

Back from Outer Mongolia

For some time I have wanted to get out of town to make a clean break from something that happened recently, something that I know I am already putting behind me even as I write. Because travel is not only a powerful distraction, it also drives home the fact that things change, life can still be good, and that nothing lasts forever, certainly not pain. So I was going over my old travel pictures, rather sad and pine-y, and then I read this timely reminder somewhere on the Web.

There's no point in trying to go to Outer Mongolia to escape your issues; they will find you there because they live inside your head.

Physical travel would still be nice; but I know that simply by staying where I am, and working things out inside myself, I'll be all right, oh yes I'll be OK.

Fruits of childhood

Have just come across something in my bloghopping this Saturday afternoon. Karen of The Pilgrim's Pots and Pans wrote about sampaloc. I was instantly transported to my childhood many many years ago in Malolos, and also in La Union and later in Marilao. My sisters and cousins and I were forever clambering atop guava trees -- this was in my maternal lolo and lola's old house by the river in Atlag -- and the camachile trees nearby my father's parents' place in La Union. Later on, when we moved to Marilao in Bulacan, we had a few aratiles trees planted in the front yard and I would spend hours and hours perched high in the branches, hidden by the foliage, waiting for my mom to come home from work.

I seldom see aratiles trees nowadays in Manila. Guess they're kind of old-fashioned. The berries are lovely: plump, glossy, green or yellow or red depending on the degree of ripeness. When you eat them when they're very ripe, they burst on your tongue with a slightly gritty, sugary sweetness. You then spit out the skins, or not, as you like.

(Thanks to stuartxchange.org for the image)

The Ornish diet

Several years ago a blood test showed quite high levels of cholesterol in my blood, and the Dr wanted to put me on medication, an idea I rejected out of hand. To my mind, the fewer drugs circulating in my bloodstream, the better. I wanted to improve my health through more natural means and promptly started a healthier diet with less fat and more veg.

A few years down the line, I have relapsed and am back to scarfing down obscene amounts of cake, cookies, chocolate, roasted duck, rich pastas etc. I still can't give up coffee, wine and a few drinks on a Friday night. I don't even want to know what my blood cholesterol reading is now.

But this morning I came across the Ornish diet, which unlike Atkins and other diet programs, has been proved to actually reduce bad cholesterol in the diet, as opposed to merely raising the levels of good cholesterol. However, it's just as much of a challenge to follow, if not more so. It's simpler in the sense that the moment you cut out all meat (red, white, fish, fowl) from your diet, and eat more veg, legumes and fruit, you are guaranteed a healthier heart and to lose weight besides.

But giving up things like olives, ice cream, alcohol, coffee, choccy...!

* * *

Ornish counsels that we will find success not by restricting calories, but by watching the ones we eat. He breaks this down into foods that should be eaten all of the time, some of the time, and none of the time.

Eat whenever you are hungry, until you are full:
- Beans and legumes (kidney beans, lentils, peas, pinto, garbanzo, black)
- Fruits: anything from apples to watermelon, from raspberries to pineapples
- Grains (rice, whole wheat, oats)
- Vegetables

Eat in moderation:
- Nonfat dairy products (skim milk, nonfat yogurt, nonfat cheeses, nonfat sour cream, and egg whites)
- Nonfat or very low-fat commercially available products, from frozen dinners to frozen yogurt bars and fat-free desserts (unless sugar is among the first few ingredients listed)

Avoid:
- Meat of all kinds -- red and white, fish and fowl (if we can't give up meat, we should at least eat as little as possible)
- Oils and oil-containing products, such as margarine and most salad dressings
- Avocados
- Olives
- Nuts and seeds
- Dairy products (other than the nonfat ones above)
- Sugar and simple sugar derivatives -- honey, molasses, corn syrup, and high-fructose syrup
- Alcohol
- Anything commercially prepared that has more than 2 grams of fat per serving


I think I will need to restock my fridge and cupboards from the ground up! Ah well (resignedly goes to microwave a bowl of oatmeal)

La tranquillité

R's fantastic pictures from her bike tour to the Candaba swamp in Pampanga reminded me of the day trip I took in November 2004 to Mai Po nature reserve, which lies in northwest Hong Kong, very close to the border with Shenzhen, China. Every year, the Mai Po marshes host about 60,000 wintering birds -- gulls, duck, teal, herons, egrets, though environmentalists and birders are worried the numbers are dropping.

With P and D, I enjoyed watching the birds (while dodging the ever-present danger of bird caca) but mostly I just savored the calm, peaceful day.



Fishponds, mudflats, lagoons. It's a soothing place, provided you keep your eyes averted from the views of Shenzhen just a mile away or so.



Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten to save the pictures of the birds :-)

Claim possibility

For all those who find themselvesw in a trying, sad, complex or just plain blah place in their lives right now, Marianne Williamson's words:

One of the problems that many of us have is that we want something to happen, but we don't really harness the power of our desire. We want something to happen, but we don't claim the possibility that it will.

A COURSE IN MIRACLES says that we achieve so little because we have undisciplined minds. We don't focus our thoughts, intentions and energies the way we could. And so every day, possibilities we would love to experience remain unmanifest. Today we will begin to change that.

Pick a possibility, something that might even be a wild unspoken dream. Inside each of us, I think, are wishes and dreams we haven't necessarily shared with anyone, but still cherish. And all I'm asking you to do is to allow the dream a little space to breathe. Give yourself permission to have it. Ask what it means, and surrender it to God.

Now know this: if that dream would further your good somehow, then it already exists fully formed in the mind of God. From there, it can be downloaded into your physical experience if it is the will of God. Just know that. Would you be blessed if it occurred? Would you serve the world at a higher level?

Ask God those questions, and then claim the possibility. As is often said, "this or something better."And do not dream small. In A Course in Miracles, it is said that we don't ask God for too much but for too little.

This week, ASK FOR WHAT YOU REALLY WANT. And then release it. Let God take it from here.

I claim the possibility of a greater life, for myself and those around me. May God's glory express itself, in my life and in the world.

Amen.

New week resolutions

A bright sunny Monday with cooler weather (15 C to 22 plus) forecast for the week. Expect this is the last cold spell we're gonna have till the next winter. The prospect of constant sunshine again is lovely, but the thought of Hong Kong's perpetual 100 % humidity in the worst days of summer---argh.

New week, new resolutions. I am hoping to accomplish much this week, and putting it on the record so that if nothing else, the shame of non-accomplishment will keep me on track!

1. Work out at least TWICE a week. A HK$299 monthly gym fee isn't big bucks, but it ain't peanuts either so I might as well use it.

2. Bake my first sponge cake. I've baked many coffee cakes and cookies and poundcakes, but have always felt intimidated by sponge cakes and angel cakes. But I remember my Mom making tons of chiffon cakes when we were young. She had this tall tube pan and we were always excited the minute we saw her pouring batter into it.

3. Drink less. I'm up to two glasses of red daily now just to unwind. Bad girl. Bad.

4. Draft two promised articles -- one for a Singaporean publication, the other to a Hong Kong editor.

5. Finish the first 5 CDs of Pimsleur II.

6. Watch my new DVDs/VCDs: Serenity, Proof, Paris je t'aime, Elektra, and finally get to the Tori Amos concert DVD that someone lent me.

I want a daemon

One of Philip Pullman's most striking concepts in His Dark Materials trilogy is the concept of a daemon -- the physical manifestation of part of your soul. The daemon takes the form of an animal -- an alpine chough (bet you don't know what that is; neither did I!), a panther, a monkey, a mouse. It's your most intimate companion, conscience, comforter and the voice inside your head. Its gender (yes, you language purists, I know it's more accurate to say 'sex' but I'm shy) tends to be the opposite of yours.

A number of pop quizzes have popped up across the Web purporting to tell you what your daemon is likely to be, based on your answers to the questions. Try this or this and tell me what YOUR daemon would be. Mine would seem to be a cat (like Will's), goose (Serafina Pekkala's) or an eagle/hawk (like John Parry's).

My vote goes to the goose or hawk. Being able to fly is a marvellous thing. I live on the 25th floor of a building with a clear fantastic view of hillsides and I often see black kites wheeling, cawing, plummeting, soaring. They seem quite drunk with flight. So if I ever become a mutant superhero, you already know what my power is going to be. Kwaaak! Kwaak!

Photo by raptor.org.tw