I love puso ng saging salad in coconut milk. First time I had it was at Poldo’s, a lechon restaurant in Cagayan de Oro City years ago. Been craving for it since then. And because lechon is something I don’t imagine cooking 🤣, I did the next best thing for today’s lunch: porkchops. 😂 I prepared the salad two ways, one without coconut milk, the other just with vinegar as dressing. I also used labanos for that extra crunch and added depth of flavor. ❤️ (My daughter Bea, upon seeing the coconut milk, thought it was soup. 🤣)

Don Narciso Cafe in Claveria, Misamis Oriental, is a favorite stop/rest area for travelers. Its main attraction is the spectacular view of mountains and fields. But other than that, not much. The food was so-so (I had tapsilog yesterday morning and it was ok). The kids had sikwate or tablea chocolate and I swear it tasted more like Milo. (The pretentious use of bamboo cups didn’t make it authentic, that’s for sure.) ☹️ What made the place a bit off-putting was the tackiness all around. It is built on a mountain-side and literally surrounded by fantastic plants and vegetation. But inside were lots of PLASTIC plants, including crawling plants off the main dining area (see second photo). I mean, WTF? Adding more tackiness was the collection of an entrance fee of 100 pesos per guest (consummable) to discourage people from just going in and take pictures without dining. (Fine but still tacky.) They also charged 20 pesos per hour for wifi access. 🙄 Everything about the place just felt off, which is a shame because the location, as I said, is splendid.

One of our favorite restaurants in Cagayan de Oro is Andreya. They serve really good typical Filipino food but the standouts are the desserts. For this lunch yesterday, my son Leon ordered fried leche flan (which the waiter recommended when we learned they no longer serve turon). It didn’t disappoint, he said. (We have known long before this that whatever Leon likes must be good. 😀) ❤️

Perfect Rainy Night Soup

My first time to cook beef sinigang (and to use radish in a sinigang). My eldest says he’s going to get used to it. 😂 Used the usual sinigang ingredients (string beans, kangkong, eggplant, okra, siling pangsigang, Knorr tamarind mix, taro, but also used scallions and shallots, which I think made it sweeter. Pressure-cooked the beef with bones for over an hour. Yum! ❤️😁 #homecooking #beefsinigang #soup #rainyday #happyweekend

Schnitzel a la 2.0

Some years back, a “tandem restobar” in Paseo Santa Rosa in Laguna, below Shopwise supermarket, became our favorite. Half of it served Italian food (the best puttanesca in Laguna, bar none), the other half served German food, among them pork schnitzel. We would have dinner and drinks there with friends at least once a week. Ayi and I have been missing that place (it closed before the pandemic), which is why I attempted to recreate their puttanesca some weeks back (I can say with pride that I nailed it 😂). Tonight, it was schnitzel’s turn, and here it is.

Nothing really new or different in how I prepared this; it’s basically frying mallet-tenderized and panko-breaded pork. But the thing that stood out with 2.0’s schnitzel (and this one, if I may say so) were the capers, anchovies, and fresh lemon. Made all the difference. Plus that paprika in the flour mix I used to dredge the meat. All that was missing tonight was the Weihenstephan beer. 😁❤️ Enjoy!

Bright Red, Canned, Frozen

I have no aversion to store-bought food, whether canned or frozen. I use them all the time, especially when I’m in no mood to linger in the kitchen. Such as tonight, when it’s drizzling; the weather has been like this all day. I thought a bright red pasta with frozen turkey meatballs with lots of basil, parsley, and parmesan might brighten up dinner. So here it is. 😁

It’s the easiest thing. Sautee diced onion and garlic in extra virgin olive oil. Add a can or two of whole peeled canned tomato sauce. Crushed with potato masher. Season with kosher salt, black pepper, and a sprinkling of chili flakes. Simmer for a minute or two. Add a pack of frozen turkey meatballs. Simmer for at least 10 minutes. Add chopped fresh basil and parsley. Stir. Add grated parmesan to taste. Serve hot with your favorite pasta.

A note: While this was good (I can always tell by the way my kids enjoy the food I cook 😂), perhaps this would be better it the meatballs were thawed first and browned in olive oil, for additional flavor and, perhaps, add moisture to the meat because it was a tad rubbery the way I cooked it. But enjoy!

"A Good Meal"

The writer Pat Conroy supposedly said those words  about recipes. I thought it’s an apt title for a first post because, after all, no matter how good or bad we are as cooks — whether at home or inside a restaurant — what we always aspire to create is a good meal. The key word here, of course, is aspire.

Now I’m not a chef. My cooking experience, as it were, is limited to my struggles with a singular task every time I turn on the stove or oven: By the end of the hour — or the day, if I make KBL (kadyos, baboy, langka — I have to have something on the table to nourish myself and my family. It’s an obligation borne out of a necessity, but I aspire, as always, for a good meal even when cooking the simplest, like sauteed Mega sardines, or the quickest of dishes, like fried marinated bangus (milkfish).

I have my cooking pretensions, of course. I’d be lying if I wasn’t inspired by Julia Child or Ina Garten or Stanley Tucci or Nigella Lawson or, more recently, Lidia Bastianich and Jacques Pepin. They help home cooks like me and my wife Ayi to aspire for that good meal. The thing about these celebrity chefs and cooks is that they make cooking look so easy and enjoyable, and even though you find out inevitably that it’s hard to replicate what they create (and realize, too, that all of what you see on the screen is marketing-driven), they make your mouth water enough to compel yourself to try to do what they do. Because, as I said, it’s always about a good meal.

My personal history with home cooking encompasses my humble, poverty-stricken childhood in the ‘60s and ‘70s in the southern Philippines (when a soup of poached eggs and lemon grass was considered a luxury) and my decidedly bourgeois obsessions these days (enjoying, for instance, toasted sourdough bread dipped in Nigella Lawson’s recipe of “Eggs in Purgatory”).  I can cook the most spartan of meals but at the same time I’m exploring, at the moment, the more, um, sophisticated fare I see on television.

Whatever it is that end up on our dinner table, if it does what it intends to do — fill our  tummy, make us happy, nourish us enough to enjoy another day — that is a good meal.