Feeling like you are in outer space!

Sometimes, we all have bad days.  Monday just was not my day.  Actually, being honest, I am not sure I would say it was a bad day, but it was interesting, and in some ways, I felt like I was on a different planet.

As I mentioned in my article on Monday, My brownout strategy, I made a commitment to myself to get back into swimming regularly.  I used to do it five days per week, but got out of the habit.  Because of the frequent brownouts we are having in Mindanao, I decided to start going swimming whenever we had a brownout.  I have actually gone swimming four times already this week, and we didn’t even have any brownouts yet, so I’m doing good.

Anyway, as part of my commitment to swimming, on Monday, when I went swimming, I bought a 3 month membership at a local pool.  When I purchased the membership, they asked me to get a 2″ x 2″ ID photo to go with my Membership application.  No problem, that’s normal here, you need an ID photo for just about anything you do, it seems.  So, on Monday afternoon, I went to the mall, and one of the things I wanted to do there was to get an ID photo.

So, a little after Noon, I went to Victoria Plaza, which is not far from my house.  First order of business was to purchase “load” for my phone.  Load, basically, is credit for your cellular phone, which allows you to text or make phone calls.  I use the Sun network, which means that for a flat fee, I can make unlimited calls and texts for an entire month.  Well, my load expired on Monday morning, so I needed to get more load.  I went to one kiosk at Victoria to buy load, and although I was the only customer there, and there were about 6 sales girls, I couldn’t seem to get anybody to assist me!  So, I went to the next kiosk, and they did not have Sun load, only Smart they said.  Oh well, so I went to a third Kiosk and asked the clerk for help, he told me, “sorry, I’m busy” although I didn’t see him doing anything but standing there.  Wow, it can be hard to spend money!  Finally, after going to 5 or 6 different kiosks, I was able to spend some money and had load for my cellphone, though!  Whew!  This was work!

OK, one job down, a couple more to go.  Of course, I needed that ID photo for my pool membership, so I headed to the Kodak Photographer shop in Victoria Plaza.  I was pretty sure they could give me an ID photo there.  I went up to the clerk and asked, in Bisaya (so I know she could understand what I was asking her), “I need a 2 x 2 ID photo, can you help me?”  Her response:

Sir, you need a US Visa Photo?

No, I replied, I need just a regular 2 x 2 ID Photo.

US Visa photo, sir?

Finally, after the 3rd time she asked me this, I said (still in Bisaya, so she could surely understand):

I am a US Citizen, I don’t need a Visa to go to the USA.  Can you give me a 2 x 2 ID photo?

Her response?

Do you need a US Visa photo, sir?

Sorry, I’ll just go somewhere else!

So, just a few stores down, there was another photographer place that offered ID Photos.  By this time, I decided that maybe I should get two of the ID photos, just in case they asked for more than one.  So, I asked at the other photographer, “Can I get two 2 x 2 ID photos?”  Their reply:

No, sorry.

But, the sign there says you make 2 x 2 ID photos, can I get two of them?

No, sir.

Hmm… strange.  Can I speak to the manager?

So, the manager comes over, and I ask her for two 2 x 2 ID photos.  She says:

No sir, sorry.

But, the sign, I tell her, it says you make 2 x 2 ID photos.

But sir, we offer them as a package, you have to buy 4 ID photos at a time!

How much?

P60

Ha ha… OK, I’ll take four of them, then!  Even if I have to throw two away, I don’t care.

It’s up to you sir, but I can’t sell you 2 photos.

So, I have the photo taken, and they tell me to come back in 30 minutes.  So, I have not had lunch yet, I decide to go to McDonalds, since it is just right across from the photographer.  When I order at McDonalds, it takes about ten minutes to decide if a Double Cheeseburger is available or not.  Finally, they agree that I will be allowed to order a Double Cheeseburger.  A Double Cheeseburger Value Meal, which includes a large french fries and a large diet Coke is P130.  I pay with a P100 note and a P50 note.

Sir, don’t you have exact change?

No, sorry, I don’t.  So, they owe me P20 change (there are P20 bills), and they start to give me 20 P1 coins.  I hate carrying around a bunch of coins, so I say no, please give me a P20 bill instead.

Oh, sir, we’ll have to find one!  Are you sure you don’t want the coins?

No, I don’t like to carry around all the coins.

OK sir, we will bring your change to you later.

OK, no problem.

Sir, do you mind waiting 10 minutes for that Double Cheeseburger?

OK, no problem.

Uh, sir, sorry, your Coke is not available, we have to get more.

OK, no problem, just give me Sprite.

Sorry, Sprite is not available, we have to get more.

OK, just bring it with my food.

So, I head off to find an empty table, with my french fries (that’s the only part of my meal they could serve me at the time.  After a while, my drink comes.  Then, a while later my Double Cheeseburger comes.  I eat my food and am just getting up to go pick up my photos.  The manager of McDonalds comes to my table and hands me P20.  “What’s this?” I say.

Your change, sir!

Oh, yeah… I already forgot about that!  Ha ha….

It just wasn’t my day.  A few years ago, I would have been fuming mad by now.  This time, though… I was just laughing.  I must have already adjusted to living in the Philippines!

Calamansi Shopping

Further to my previous article on keeping the flame alive I thought I’d take the opportunity to follow it up with an article on shopping for Filipino products outside of the Philippines. If you are interested in finding some interesting products from the Philippines plus getting a little insight on how to prepare them I highly recommend visiting your local Filipino grocery store. If your town or city has any Filipino immigrants I’d expect you’ll find a store catering to them. I think we might be a little spoiled here in Vancouver because we have very large immigrant population and a very healthy Filipino community. There are a few areas within Vancouver, North Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey that have specific Filipino shopping areas, which for the avid calamansi hunter is a good thing.

I decided to head to my old neighbourhood on the South-East side of Vancouver. This specific area is along Fraser Street. The area has a large mix of immigrant families. Mostly Chinese, East Indian, Vietnamese and Filipino. This two block stretch is home to a few Filipino restaurants, grocery stores, hair dressers and a few shipping companies. The morning I visited the street was bustling with people shopping for vegetables, fish and various food stuffs. I decided to talk with Armando, the owner at Aling Pining. He and his wife were preparing for a the day by doing a bit of restocking and cleaning. Armando mentioned that his store is one of the most well stocked in Metro Vancouver with folks coming in from other cities to buy produce and fish products from he and his wife. He mentioned he a few visitors from Los Angeles who came in the previous week. They were surprised how large the selection was and said some of the produce Armando had couldn’t even be bought in Los Angeles. Armando said he imports products directly from the Philippines as the exchange is much better rather than buying through distributors in Hong Kong and Hawaii who require payment in USD. PAL Cargo ships in products three times per week directly from Manila to Vancouver, so freshness is no problem. Armando also said that with some imports, specifically frozen fish, the shippers in the Philippines don’t make as much when the items are shipped through the US compared with shipping directly to Canada. I can only assume that they can keep the markup instead of passing some of it along to the brokers in the US. When you take a look around his shop you will see all the regular snacks, like Sarsi Cola, Boy Bawang and Growers Garlic peanuts. As well as freezers full of bangus, tilapa and lapu-lapu. As long as you can decide on what to make, you should be well served at a store like Aling Pining.

Name: Armando

Originally from: Baugio City

Name of store: Aling Pining. Fraser Street, Vancouver, Canada

Years in business: 9

Most popular item: Frozen fish from the Philippines

Most requested item: Taro leaves imported from Fiji or Fijian’s

How many Filipino stores in Metro Vancouver: Well over a dozen

Favorite Filipino restaurant: None. Home cooked meals are the best!

Fan of Manny: Yes! Very big fan.

The Good news, other than meeting Armando and learning a bit about the import/grocery business is I found lots of calamansi.

Birthday Bash!

Well, since you read my last article, I’ve aged another year!  Yep, my birthday was on Saturday!  I normally don’t enjoy having a birthday party or anything like that.  In fact, I can’t really remember the last time I had a party for my birthday, other than just enjoying a good meal with our immediate family.  But, this year, Feyma suggested to me that we invite a friend over for my birthday, and I agreed.  As it happened, after that, I kept thinking of other friends that I wanted to invite, and it kept growing!  It still was not huge, just very close friends, and a couple of new acquaintances that I had recently met, but wanted to get to know better.

It all started about a week ago when I was reading one of the blogs that I normally read called Market Manila.  It is a cooking/food blog written by a Filipino fellow who calls himself “Market Man”.  MarketMan always features some really scrumptious food, and I enjoy following him.  Well, anyway, MarketMan recently featured an article about “Liempo on Bamboo a la Marketman,” or his adaptation of “Balamban Liempo” a creation from Balamban, Cebu.  When I saw the article, the pictures of his creation looked absolutely delicious!  I immediately told Feyma that I wanted to try it, and she agreed readily.  As a matter of fact, this is when she told me:

What if we cook this for your birthday and invite some friends over?

So, that is how the birthday party idea was born!  Feyma started searching for a full liempo, which is the rib cage area of a pig, including the ribs and everything.  The ribs are cut out from the cut of meat and used to make soup or something later, if wanted.  The liempo cut is then marinated, and spices are put on it.  Read Marketman’s article to get the full scoop on how it is cooked – I’m more into the eating than the cooking, which is obvious!  See pictures below of the process of cooking the liempo.

For the party, we invited my Bisaya Teacher, Bebe Metillo and her family, and also my long time friend, Michael, who moved to Davao last year from Israel.  Lucky, a German who is also a Bisaya student attended too.  One person whom I met last week for the first time is LiP reader Preben Christensen and his wife Glen, who are visiting the Philippines right now.  Preben and Glen took us out for dinner at De Bonte Ko last week, and we enjoyed their company so much that we wanted to get together with them again before they left Davao, so this was a perfect chance!  Also, another regular LiP reader and commenter had just arrived in Davao the day before my birthday, John Coldwell, aka “John from Austria” so I also invited him to join us.  So, like I said, not a huge party, just a couple close friends, and new friends that I wanted to get to know better.

My brother-in-law, Jhun Ortiz came up from GenSan for the party too, he did the cooking of the Liempo, which I greatly appreciated!  Thank you, Jhun!  My nephew, Deo, and my kids also helped with the cooking of the Liempo too, so thanks to all of them for the help!  Of course, thank you to my nieces and household helpers who did much of the “inside” work, and getting everything ready for the party.  And, of course thanks mostly to Feyma, as she got everything rolling, and was the driving force behind the party.  Hey, I even helped a bit myself!  Thanks to me? Ha ha.

So, that’s what we did for my 48th birthday!  It was a great party, great people, great food… first class all the way.  Thank you very much to Feyma, and all the family who put in work to make it a special day for me!  On the Pork Liempo, I really have to say that this was the best pork I’ve eaten in my life!  We will certainly be cooking this again, and again!

Little Lamb

Those with bad nerves should click away now, this is a short story.

After a day out in Manila, we decided to find a restaurant to have our dinner at before trying to get back to our rented apartment. Being in the Manila Bay area, we saw some new restaurants in the area, one that was called the Little Lamb.

Now getting a nice piece of Lamb is not that easy, so we all thought we should go in and order some nice Lamb, how could we go wrong?

The restaurant was very new, well lit, and many staff and, as we sat at the table, we noticed that the center of the table had a huge gas burner in it, and we were issued with a check list menu, in other words we ticked what we wanted. OK, that’s not too bad but when Lamb penis, Lamb balls, or Lamb’s backbone appeared on the menu we winced, and how did the gas burner come into the equation?

After  speaking to the waiter, we understood that we purchased items from the check list that were added to soup come broth, that is now being heated in the middle of the table, the contents of which we could not really ascertain. However, not to look even more stupid we continued, and put wafer thin meat into the broth, along with potatoes and some unknown plant and boiled them until it was edible. Now, we did not go for the Penis or some of the other amazing items, and cowardly went for Mongolian lamb and some beef too, but disappointingly the meat was so thin, because it had to cook quick, and was a very little amount for the price we had to pay.

We enjoyed the start of our meal, but it grew stronger as time went on, and by half way through we had all chewed on something from the broth that made every mouthful after taste, well , not nice.

We had a great experience, and maybe if we had a person with us to show us the way, we would have enjoyed it more. But the place was packed, and obviously we were in the minority of people that did not really enjoy it, but hey, what a great new experience, and isn’t that what life is all about?

But I still would NOT try the Lamb penis!!!

We’re bakin’ again!

Back when we still lived in the States, sometime in the mid-90’s, Feyma and I made a trip up north to visit my grandmother.  She lived in Port Townsend, Washington (where I was born), which was about 4 to 5 hours drive from our home.  While visiting with my grandma, she served us some bread, and it was delicious.  Honestly, it was the best bread I had ever tasted in my life, and Feyma loved it too.  Of course, I asked grandma where she got the bread!  She told me, quite simply… “I made it in my new bread machine.”  Hmm… “bread machine,” I asked her, “what’s that?”  Before that I don’t think I had ever heard of a bread machine before.

So, it didn’t take long, and we bought a bread machine of our own and started making some sinfully delicious recipes for different types of bread.  While in the States, we used it from time to time, but not that often.  When we moved to the Philippines, in 2000, though, we found that we used our bread machine every single day.  The fact was, we could not purchase the types of bread that we enjoyed, especially in a small town like GenSan, where we were living at the time.  By using the bread machine, we could try all different kinds of recipes, and enjoy the results!  In the Philippines, especially ten years ago, almost all of the bread available was sweet, and did not fit western tastes.

After only 6 months to a year, our bread machine got fried.  One of our maids plugged it into the wrong voltage, which is a common problem if you have appliances from the States here.  So, we were without a bread machine, and had to suffer with the locally available bread, which was not too satisfying.

Over the years, and especially since we moved to a larger city, Davao,  we have been able to find much better breads in the stores, and we have generally been satisfied with what was available.  Then, about 6 years ago, we saw a bread machine for sale in a local appliance store, and bought it!  It was the proper voltage, 220v, so that was no longer a problem to watch out for.  Again, we were enjoying wonderful breads that we made to our tastes, and we really enjoyed it.  That lasted for about 2 years, maybe 3.  Suddenly, a part was either missing, or broken, I really don’t recall which.  So, we put our bread machine into storage, missing a part, and it was thus useless.

About a year ago, a good friend of mine, Bobby Timonera was visiting.  Bobby had gotten me started on the hobby of roasting green coffee beans, something that I really enjoyed.  While visiting, Bobby told me that he had found the perfect companion for his self-roasted coffee.  Hmm… I was intrigued, and he went on to tell me that he found this strange contraption and bought one… a bread machine.  He had never heard of it before, and he started telling interested friends that a bread machine was kind of the American version of a rice cooker.  Every Filipino had a rice cooker, and every American had a bread machine!  Well, I explained to him that was not necessarily the case, but it was a good thing to tell people!  Ha ha…  Anyway, Bobby was telling me about how his freshly made, still hot bread was just such a perfect companion to his premium coffee… he was making my mouth water, and I started realizing how much I missed my home made bread from the machine!  Bobby told me that you could usually find bread machines in the Philippines on eBay.ph.

We never bought one on eBay.ph, just didn’t get around to it.  Then, last week, a very close expat friend of mine, Mike, who lives in Glan, Sarangani, near GenSan posted an article on his blog about how he has a bread machine and makes specialty breads for his own consumption.  The bread sounded so good, Feyma and I were drooling over it.  If you make bread, be sure to go check out Mike’s recipe for a bread that is great for tropical areas like where we live.

So, as Feyma and I were talking about how much we missed the good bread that we could make at home, we decided to go ahead and buy a new machine.  We went and looked at eBay, and found three machines available, ranging from P2,000 to P2,500, but they were all used.  We were not sure we wanted a used bread machine.  I told Feyma to have somebody go get our broken bread machine, and I wanted to have a look at it.

As I studied our bread machine, I could see that some kind of connector was missing, or had been broken.  It basically hooked two different metal pieces together.  I thought about it, and how we might be able to fix it, and it struck me.  It looked quite simple to me, that we could just get those two pieces welded together, and the machine would be like new again.  To test out my theory, Feyma and I taped those two pieces together to try it out temporarily.  It worked fine!  So, Feyma took the two pieces to a little shop just a block or two from our house, the man welded the pieces together, and we were ready to go.  The cost of the repair… P40.  Actually, the guy told Feyma that it was so simple, she could just pay whatever she wanted to pay, so Feyma gave him P40, which was probably a lot more than he expected.

That was last Friday.  Since then, we have been making at least 1 loaf per day, and sometimes 2 loafs of bread per day in the machine, and it works like a champ!

What is your favorite dish?

I’m currently working on a new LiP article, but I had this idea I wanted to write about..  It isn’t 100% on topic, but never the less is something I’m sure you can relate to. Cooking. Unlike most of the folks here on LiP I have to rely on trips to the local Filipino restaurant if I’m in the mood for good food. Since I don’t have an Asawa and I’m not in the Philippines. I’m kinda on my own. I’m also not really a cook. I can make a few dishes, but nothing too crazy, although I do enjoy cooking. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if you are reading this you have already been exposed to good Filipino cooking. Perhaps your Asawa introduced you to it. Maybe you stumbled into a Filipino restaurant (highly unlikely here in North America). There has been a lot written about it. And not always positive. I’ve seen on more than one occasion where it has been described as “bland” and “uninspired”. While I can see where somebody on the “outside” could get that impression, I can’t say enough about the food experiences I’ve had in the Philippines. There is such a wide variety of flavors and colors and lots of opportunity to challenge your comfort zone. I once heard it said that you’ll never see a Filipino on the show Fear Factor. If you’ve seen the show you know what I mean.

This past October, on my last trip to the Philippines we traveled to the Zamboanga Peninsula. We enjoyed some great food including sardines in Dipolog and mangosteen in Dapitan. The dish that really stuck with me was kinilaw. I know Bob has written about kinilaw previously, but I’d like to take it one step further. I’d like to have a little show and tell with my home made kinilaw.

My kids aren’t big on eating fish and my wife is a vegetarian (I know, how would that work in a pork mad country like the Philippines??) but I had a hankering and I thought if I got the kids involved they might actually try it and enjoy it.

After eating kinilaw for 4 or 5 days straight while I was in Mindanao I had a pretty good idea of what the ingredients were.. white fish (like tanguigue), chillies, ginger, onion, vinegar and of course kalamansi. When I got back home I scoured the internet and found a few good variations. In fact I found a couple websites dedicated solely to kinilaw. So armed with a mishmash of internet recipes and a strong will to eat fish I went for it. I picked up a nice sushi quality ahi tuna steak. Just for comparison for readers in the Phils this steak was over $10 in Vancouver. I think next time I might try something a little lighter as the tuna was pretty dense and took quite a while too cook, of course it could have been the size of the cubes. The ingredients here in Canada aren’t exactly the same as in the Philippines. I substituted Heinz pure white vinegar for coconut vinegar. Habanero for siling labuyo and finally small green limes for kalamansi. Otherwise everything else was OK.

So if you have an interest in an easy Filipino dish, kinilaw has to be one of the easiest ones to make. Here is how I did it:

1 kilo fresh Tuna

½ cup vinegar

5 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

¾ red or white onion, sliced thinly

1 tablespoon of fresh ground ginger

2 medium chillies diced

salt and pepper to taste

The first step is to prepare onion, chillies and ginger. I sliced the onion fairly thinly and mixed it in a medium sized bowl with the diced and seeded chili. Then I added in the ginger paste and the fresh lime juice.

While these ingredients were sitting I diced the tuna into roughly 1 inch square cubes. I rinsed the cubes in vinegar and not cold water.

I then added the tuna to the mixture and poured fresh vinegar over the tuna and mixed gently. I let this stand for about an hour in the fridge while the lime and vinegar cooked the fish. At this point the fish should be slightly translucent. Now grab a spoon and dig in! I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did it smell right, it tasted right. My kids all try it as well. My son actually had more than just a taste and enjoyed an actual serving. My wife, well she was there for support but wasn’t about to abandon her values for an experiment.

I enjoyed mine with a little Knorr and some Tabasco sauce.

I think having only made this once the next time I’d make some adjustments, add a little flair, some color. I’d like to add some coconut milk and maybe some tomato cubes.

Anyway, I’m sure there are some actual accomplished cooks out there so I’d love to hear your version and about anything I mixed up.

Good seaweed in the Philippines!

Yesterday for our lunch we made some seaweed salad. It was really good. Here in our household we mostly make the Guso (not sure what the English word for it) kind of seaweed. The looks its like young branches of the tree without the leaves and colored green. Blanch it or boil water and put the guso on a strainer/colander and just pour the boiled water over it for just few minutes and wash it right away with water to cool it so that it would not be overcooked. Put that aside. On a separate bowl cut some onions, bell pepper, lemon or calamansi. Add about a cup of vinegar, salt & pepper. You can also add some other veggies to it like cucumber, radish and shredded carrots. Some people will add the radish directly. For us we had some other thing to do first with the radish. On a separate bowl, we slice the radish so thinly, then put about 2 tbsp of rock salt in it and kind of squeeze in the process to let out the bitter juice in it. Do it twice and washit with water and give it a squeeze again to let the water out. You can dab it with paper towel too. Mix all the ingredients together and serve. Its just like how you make the kinilaw or ceviche. Just without the fish.

Another kind of seaweed is the Lato. It’s commonly used in the Japanese restaurant here for relish with the raw fish they serve like sushi and sashimi. Every time I ordered sashimi here in the Japanese place they always had lato on the side. I ate it with the wasabi and the kikkoman sauce. Its really good though. It goes well with the shredded radish and some carrots too. The texture of lato is just like an 8th size of a grape and with like water inside, when you bite it, its crunchy and its like a bag of water that burst. You can also add the same ingredients just like with the guso. Just don’t blanch the lato or it will be saggy. Just clean it and really wash it with cold water. I like lato a lot too. Bob and the kids don’t eat seaweed.

Another seaweed is the Lukot. It’s feels  like the angel pasta when the pasta were cooked. Brownish green colored and it doesn’t look appetizing to me. That’s the seaweed I don’t eat. I tried it once and made me gag. Honestly it taste okay. I just can’t look at it for a long time. I’m not gonna say what it looks like. Some people really like this kind of seaweed. It’s just not for me though.

When I was in the States I can’t remember if I’ve seen some seaweed there before. There might be I was just not looking for it before. I’ve seen some chef  in the States on TV now using seaweed especially with the Japanese cuisine. I think it’s mostly used and eaten here in Asia. I am just familiar with the 3 kinds (guso, lato & lukot) commonly used here in our area, I think the Northern part of the Philippines eat it too.

Have you tried one of the 3 seaweed here in the Philippines? Do you like it? Let me know what you think.

Cheers!

Feelin’ Antsy

Well, I ain’t really feelin’ that antsy, but, it was just a play on words (and a non-play) for two topics amongst the various topic of this blog:

1. Exam
Me and my girlfriend went to Ateneo de Davao University to get me registered up. I am going to be taking the entrance exam on Feb 6th; this coming weekend. I’m feelin’ a lil’ ‘antsy’ (aka nervous), just a bit, about it. Since I went through honors English in high school, enjoy biological sciences (made average through those courses), and my friends claim I am good at using reasoning, I think the most parts of the test will be a breeze. English, science, and abstract logic I will slay you. But in every knight’s life, someday the sword will turn toward his neck. This is where my nervousness comes into play: The doggone math. I suck at math, so badly, that I have always had below average scores. I failed twice, too, back in high school and had to take summer classes. Funny thing is, is that a few months ago I had to take an exit exam. I thought I’d flunk the math but ended up passing. Maybe I am being nervous for no reason again. Just for a safety net, I’m gonna open up my “Fearless Algebra” book (similar to Algebra for Dummies or the Idiots Guide series) and study up the basics. Wish me luck for the exam!

(Ateneo de Davao University)

2. Literal Ants

My mom had sent me part of my college application and a t-shirt in the mail. The t-shirt was a Marco Polo Davao shirt that she accidentally carried back when she went back to the States. Well, I left the shirt in my closet with my other cloths. One day i see a line of ants marching a line into my closet, and I find that they all gathered onto my Marco Polo Davao t-shirt. I picked it up to smell if anything sweet had been spilled on to it. Nothing! I became so curious of what was going on, so, I looked online to research ants and their behavior. Not just that, but, I observed 3 different types of ants in my room. One was the common annoying ant with the yellow rear. They are very small, non-aggressive, and they give off a somewhat sweet odor. These ants mainly go for sweets. The second I noticed was black ants. They were much larger, and they were pure black. They all group together to get on a large crumb. These ants don’t seem aggressive, but I ain’t sure. What I do notice is that they are very quick on their legs, and scatter when disturbed (all over the floors and far up the wall in different directions- seeming to space out purposely). To me, this seems like a very evasive behavior, maybe destroying the need for aggressive behavior to be last resort. The third ants were the ones on my shirt. The top half (head and mid-section) of their body was a dark red. Their rear was a black color. These ants, to me, look like fire ants. Their behavior would match my assumption as well. When I picked up the shirt, they didn’t scatter, but they stayed in place. They’d walk slowly, even if I was in plain sight of their tiny eyes. If they ain’t evasive, then their lack of fear must mean they can come off on the offensive side. It seems, if you’re an ant, you’re either offensive (bite/sting) or defensive (run away, bite/sting as last resort). Anyways… I guess no matter where you are in the world, ants will always be a pest (esp. when it is hot).

The various OTHER topics (non-relative to the title):

I am now an official lover of calamansi juice mixed with soy sauce, as well as banana ketchup. Calamansi is a small lime looking fruit, but it is a round ball rather than an American football shaped oval (I mentioned it as a green lime thingy in an earlier blog, not knowing the name). Usually, some food places have a small dish that you squeeze the juice into and mix it with soy sauce (maybe even vinegar and a small pepper). I guess most use this for dipping. As for me, I pour it on my rice since I don’t like to eat my rice plain. I only found these on tables in restaurants farther off than where my dorm is (and I never remembered where they were). Luckily, a new place here (on Roxas Ave.) opened up. It is called “Chicoken”. They serve up some good BBQ chicken and pork, with unlimited rice for less than a hundred pesos.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I am a fan of banana ketchup. Some of you reading maybe wondering “What the heck is that?”. Well, in place of tomato ketchup, banana ketchup is usually served. I thought it was a very mild hot sauce when I first had it. It has a sweet tang to it, and a spicy taste to it, yet tastes simular to ketchup. If you focus your taste buds hard enough, you might be able to taste the banana in it. Banana ketchup looks pretty much the same as normal ketchup, but it has many tiny black dots in it. Its like as if someone put pepper in ketchup.

Speaking of food, I ate at Harley’s Motor Cafe, a place that Bob had mentioned to me before. He seemed amazed of the burger meat size, so I was curious to go there. I remember I had its location partially written down, so I carried it as I walked there. It was a short walk from my dorm. Inside, it had some Harley Davidson things on the wall. It seemed to almost resemble a small-town country restaurant back home in South Carolina (Note: Later I went upstairs and saw a Confederate Flag hanging on the wall, explicitly telling me that it had a southern feel; wasn’t my imagination). When I looked on the menu, I was shocked to see Cajun dirty rice; a southern (USA) food, as well as mashed potatoes (which I had only seen in one other place. So, I bought a cheeseburger and the Cajun dirty rice. I was excited to see the burger’s fat chunk of meat as Bob had described. When it was brought out, I really wasn’t shocked. The burger’s meat didn’t seem unusual sized to me. But then I thought about it and realized that they served burgers like this back in country restaurants at home in SC, but the burger’s meat size is much larger than fast food’s burgers. It made a Hardee’s Thick-Burger or Burger King’s Whopper look like babies compared to it’s meat size. Maybe it was a country restaurant thing? Maybe some ain’t used to it ’cause they never been? Well, later I met the owner. He was an American. He said he chose to move back to the Philippines, not his Filipina wife. He told me he was from Virginia and used to own a restaurant for 4 years there. He also told me he was a motorcyclist and has biked many places (including Charleston, South Carolina). We just carried a conversation and he mentioned how he wished he could find cornmeal to put hush puppies on the menu. It brought back the memory of when I was talking to the guy in Bro’s Brew (Joseph) about grits (I even gave him a pack that I had) and told him about cornmeal being made with it too. The owner of Harley’s told me to bring my girlfriend by sometime to try the food. So, a few days later I brought my girlfriend and got her to try a cheeseburger and Cajun rice. She didn’t eat much of the rice, ’cause it tasted strange to her. As for the cheeseburger, she liked it. I think it was her first time eating mustard too. Oh yeah, she too (not just Bob thinking this) thought that the burger’s meat was thick. I guess I just got used to country restaurants back home. Haha.

The other night, I was standing outside of the dorm. I was waiting on my friend Paul for Bible study when I saw a line of armed soldiers standing along Roxas Ave. I asked the security guard outside and Joseph of Bro’s Brew what was going on. They told me that the soldiers were checking cars for weapons. They said its had to do with the Philippine Gun Ban, to try to make sure there isn’t any election violence that might happen. I guess the Maguindanao Massacre gave a huge inspiration to the ban since so many were killed. If a ban liked this happened back in the USA, there’d be more violence happening over the ban of gun freedom (from the south, probably) than any political disputes between fans of the clashing parties. It is just funny to me how there are totally different attitudes in politics here and other places, compared to the USA. I guess being locked in one country all your life will get you thinking of the existence of the current sides rather than parties that exist in other countries that might have totally different beliefs and policies.

Closing this blog, I’ll leave a photo of a drawing that I did to share with the you, the readers. I had thought about maybe taking photos and drawing things in those photos of what I see here. I have a lot of time, and I need to reconnect with my drawing skills. So, I took a photo of a guard outside of the dorm (one of the three that I have made friends with). I later gave him the drawing but kept a photo. Haha. He showed a few people around there, I guess, because some came up to me talking of it. Anyways, here it is:

Got Milk?

Last week, a friend and I were exchanging e-mails.  He is also an American who lives in the Philippines.  He is going back to the States soon for a combination of a visit home and a “visa run” so that he can get his soon to be expiring visa renewed.  In our e-mail discussion he told me that one thing he was really looking forward to on his return trip was the milk.  He told me that one of his first stops after leaving the airport would be at the convenience store where he would buy some milk and chug it down, enjoying every drop!

Huh?

It surprised me, because in my time of living here, I have never felt that there was a problem with the milk that is locally available.  I asked my friend what he meant, and he told me that good milk was not readily available in his area.  It surprised me, and I told him so.  I explained to him that in my experience, I could go to any supermarket or convenience store in my area and buy milk that tasted exactly the same as the milk in the States.  He replied that it wasn’t the case where he lives.  Hmm…  we talked more, and he mentioned the “irradiated milk” that is available here, but he has not really tried it much, because he didn’t like it the first time he drank it.

When he said that, I knew exactly what he was talking about.  Now, people use terminology differently, but in my mind, if you say a food product is “irradiated” that means that radiation is used on it to kill the germs.  That is not the case on the milk here, so I did a little research.  Soon, I found out that some people use the term “irradiated” interchangeably with Pasteurization.  But, milk in the States is Pasteurized too.

In my research, I found out the differences.  Milk in the USA is Pasteurized by a different method than the Pasteurization here.  The Pasteurization method in the States requires that the milk be heated to 71.7 degrees C (equivalent to 161F)  for a period of 15 to 20 seconds.  When milk is Pasteurized by that method, it must remain refrigerated and will remain fresh for a short period, maybe 10 days or so.  This milk is kept in the store’s refrigerated section, and is labeled with an expiration date.  When you buy it, you must take it home and put it directly into the refrigerator, or it may spoil.

The milk used in the Philippines is Pasteurized by a different method, though.  It is called “UHT” or “Ultra Heat Treated” milk.  UHT milk is pasteurized by the UHT method, which requires that the milk be heated to a temperature of 135C (equivalent to 275F) for a period of only 2 seconds.  Milk that is UHT Pasteurized has a shelf life of  six months or more, even without refrigeration.  Once the package is opened, though, the milk must be refrigerated or it will spoil quickly.  UHT milk is kept on the regular (non-refrigerated) shelf of the supermarket, and when you bring it home there is no need to refrigerate it until it has been opened.  In my case, I refrigerate it a few hours or even a day before I intend to use it, because I prefer my milk to be cold – it just tastes better to me.

Now… what about taste? In my years of living here in the Philippines, and using UHT milk products, I have never noticed any difference in taste compared to what I used to drink in the USA.  However, in doing my research into this, I found that there appears to be a fairly lively debate on this issue.  UHT milk is what is used in most of the world.  Most of the non-UHT milk appears to be used in the USA, and in Britain (although, I believe both UHT and non-UHT are available in the UK).  I have found plenty of forum debates on what tastes best.  Many people can’t seem to tell any difference, like me.  Some people swear that the UHT is simply terrible tasting.  From what I can find, it appears that a large majority find the taste the same, or similar enough that it is not a big deal to them.

Aside from UHT milk, there are other types of milks in the Philippines too.  I can remember the day when the most common type of milk used here was powdered instant milk.  That is still quite common, but UHT is more popular now, I think.  UHT milk is often called “Fresh Milk” here, so if you see Fresh Milk, most likely that is UHT that is being mentioned.  Almost all of the UHT milk that I find here is imported from New Zealand.

How about you, do you feel that the milk here is substandard compared to what you were drinking “back home”?

Fulfilled in the Philippines

Ten years ago I bought two Dream satellite systems, as no cable is available in my area of Bataan. Since I can enjoy watching a stateside NFL Games and Baseball on the ESPN channel, albeit I must get up early some days to view the games, in my opinion it’s worth it, to me. There are a couple of other good channels, such as History, Discovery, and National Geographic plus regular TV and movies. Last week dream System had a deal if I pay them $431.00 in advance I get 18 months of premium TV. So I did, and saved about $140.00. What I didn’t know is I also receive 2 new decoder boxes to unscramble the signal and 2 new Satellite dishes. Now I have 3 spare Satellite dishes and 2 spare decoder boxes if I ever need them. Maybe I need more TV’s?

Television has never been that big of a thing to me as I joined the Navy at age 18 and spent a great part of my life on ships and away from the United States. I did like watching ”I Love Lucy” in Italian or Turkish sometimes. But for the most part it was music and books that I spent most of my time with.

My music tastes are varied with my first choice being Country, being a kid from New England (Dorchester section of Boston, and Cape Cod) Country was a new thing to me in 1965, and on my first ship in the Navy. I would play classic Rock, as that’s all I knew. Until I met a kid from Cookeville Tennessee, named Jerry Ray (last name omitted) who insisted I play his music (Country) on my record machine. In the interest of fairness I told him we’d play one of my albums then one of his, throughout the workday. It was sure to happen, and it did, we both started liking each other’s music and a great friendship was born.

Books are another thing I love. That was not caused by any teacher in school; it was caused by my Father. Every Friday night he came home from work and threw down the latest comic books by Batman, Superman, The Flash and the rest, for me and my four brothers. My Mother would complain that they were junk and would rot our young minds. My Father would smile and tell her, “Someday they won’t need the pictures.” Well, he was right! My brothers and I to this date are avid readers.

So what does all that have to do with living here in the Philippines? Well…In the Zambales area there is a high population of English speaking (and reading) people, and most American or Australian owned restaurants hotels and or bars here have book exchanges. Take one leave one or 10 to 20 pesos to buy one. As tourist arrive and depart new books are put into circulation all the time. Also from people like me who will hit the National Book Store and pay retail (it’s still cheaper than the stateside price) and or use the second hand book stores at the mall.

Now for music, that presents a whole different story, but mp3 and flash drives have solved a major part of our problem here in my area. I have found a couple of downloading mp3 sites that for a very reasonable price I can download the latest Billboard 100 charts music. (Since they aren’t paying Bob to advertise on this site, I won’t mention their names.) And again tourists bring a lot of new music with them on IPOD’s and such. I have an external hard drive that holds 185 Gigs and it is close to being full with just music. My friend just returned from a ship, he brought 150 albums of mixed Country and Classic Rock. It’ll take a few months to listen to all that.

As for food, between the four big supermarkets on Subic Freeport, and the local markets in town, one can find all the ingredients needed to make your favorite meal. Example; I love strawberry short cake. Strawberries and whipped cream as easy to find. The Shortcake, it’s here, it’s a Philippine product called Mamon.

Or restaurants of all types to satisfy your taste buds. (We still lack a “Brothers Burger!”) One other food I’ve not found in this area is a Greek “Gyros” Sandwich, now to me that is heaven here on earth. If you know where I can get one here on the Islands I will drive as far as Manila to get it!

For all our Host Nation has offered to us, and the wonderful way I feel that I’m treated here, I still want to see a Red Sox’s game, or the New England Patriots’ play. I want to read a book or two a week, and I want Country Music while enjoying an Ice Cold San Miguel Beer, on a beautiful Philippine afternoon (rain or shine). Ahhh Luxury!!!!!

Now for a small addendum, before anyone comments how wrong I am, as they know their part of The Philippines is far and above better than my part. I say to you, “You’re right, it is!” And I receive no pay from the Bataan/Zambales Chamber of Commerce!

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