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A Calamity Averted

Expats, Food/Drink / by

ca•lam•i•ty (kəˈlamədē) Noun: calamity; plural noun: calamities An event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster.

It was a Tuesday morning 14 October 2014, a day not unlike any other day, the sun came up in the East, the lizards were crawling along the wall, and Mayang just brought me a cup of fresh brewed coffee. It was just another ordinarily day in the Archipelagoes of the Philippines. Or at least that was the warm fuzzy feeling that the fates had lulled me into believing.

But I ask you; “How was I to know that a major-major calamity was lurking in the background, ready to strike and ruin my idealistic day. Hell who could have known that a disaster of the first magnitude was skulking in the back ground ready to reach out and throttle my peace and quiet?

I know you have not read about any earthquakes or typhoons hitting Dinalupihan Bataan, it is far bigger than that. I pray that it will never strike any LiP readers at anytime or any place. Oh the humanity… I mentioned this on Facebook, but people thought I was joking believe me this was anything but a joke to the lady of “Casa Mayang.”

There I was on the “Puter” posting spam and or tripe on Facebook, when two tiny feet came running down the hall with one hand posed to scratch her head and so excited that she forgot that she also spoke English. I felt my blood pressure spike; cold sweat ran off my brow, for I knew whatever she was attempting to tell me was not going to be good news.

The eternal flame has gone out. Oh dear God, at Arlington National Cemetery? That being my first thought. No the one that burns 24-7 on the counter in our kitchen. “THE RICE COOKER HAS DIED” I could not have dreamed up any problem larger than that. The scope of my thought process could not even encompass a tragedy such as that. I was shocked into total silence and frozen with fear. I was on the verge of jumping up and running in a circle shouting; “Aye, Aye, Aye” at the top of my lungs, but I remembered my grandson sleeping in the next room, and wanted to shelter him from the trauma that could have caused him years of therapy.

There I stood caught on the horns of a dilemma, But what could I do? I process no electrical skills; a Rice Cooker is beyond my purview of expertise. I have no doubt that somewhere close to my house there was a “Guy” who held the knowledge and talent to repair a rice cooker, but I had no time for that, the emergency was staring me in the face, and my dear wife needed an answer NOW!

Then the light bulb moment we all pray for in situations like this, goes off over my head. Paul do you remember one Boston winter down in the “cellah” (Boston speak for basement) of the family home in Dorchester, watching your Dad building you that sailing pram? That one question you asked your father that stuck in your subconscious from all those years ago. “Dad why do you have two of most tools in your tool box?” “Son; incase one of my five sons borrowed one and failed to return it, or incase one broke.” In other words if you really need it you should have two!

Then I remembered that years ago when the American Home Rice Cooker was purchased I had purchased two, to the confusion of my wife. The spare was stored away in our catch all section of my Mancave, waiting for just such a calamity. As I peered into the heavens I said; “Thank you Dad, another calamity averted.”

So; that my friend is another slice of my uneventful life in this land of enchantment known as the Philippines. (Do you have a spare Rice Cooker?) I will buy another one today, just in case this happens again. The deceased Rice Cooker was carted off by an In-Law, to the above mentioned repairman to serve rice again for many more years to come.

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Comments

  1. And on the way to get a replacement rice cooker for the man cave storage do you for see a stop over at Texas Joe’s for some liquid and more solid refreshments to honor your fathers wisdom?

      • Thank God ! a fact-based reason why we tend to keep ‘potentially’ useful items or ‘extra’s’ . Like playing the Lottery ‘You never know” or it’s always going to break on a Sunday. LOL !

        • JohnP;
          Detroit was smart enough to put a spare tire in the trunk, we should follow their example. You’ll run out of gas for the stove on Sunday’s too. (lol)

          • Paul, don’t know where you are, but here in the interior of Mindanao I can txt my local gasul supplier any day including Sunday and a tank will show up within 10 minutes from around the corner. Perhaps time you tried a different supplier?
            As for after 7pm, well, we have this thing called a “sako uling” outback, just in case there’s a concurrent brownout and the one electric burner also on the stove, the toaster oven, and the microwave all can’t work either. 🙂

            • ED;
              I can get gas 24-7 here in Bataan if I want, the owner will open the store for me, and the Sunday reference was to a gentleman living in the US of A where some places you can’t
              The other problem you must remember from church teachings: “And on the eighth day, the Lord created the generator.”

              • That may be true Paul, but sadly the Lord doesn’t drop money from heaven to buy that 8th-day generator nor fuel for one. “Walang pera galing Dios dito”. We and all those who rely on us haven’t starved for lack of gasul for the last 4 months either. Between on-the-grid electricity and traditional methods, we can survive on our garden supplemented by occasional palengke purchases, the various manok randomly appearing inside our compound, and the occasional baboy mysteriously arriving from the mountains. We’re good as long as I can keep a sack of rice constantly happening and we bake our own bread – I’m also sure to never let the “sacko harina” fail and now that I have “sourdough” happening I don’t even need to buy yeast. I’ll be happy to share my somewhat novel sudden-thought uniquely Pinoy sourdough-starter method if anyone is interested.

                Here, once people start to pay up to my wife sometime soon, we may buy gasul again, but honestly it’s not even a concern anymore, we really haven’t missed it. Along with some scrap firewood, one 200peso sako uling lasts way longer than a 1000peso tank of gasul and the food tastes better.
                I’ve also noticed that the “brownout” severity has recently substantially improved from what it was 2011 through to earlier this year 2014. I’m no longer afraid that if I go to pay my ‘kuryente billing” that the power will be OFF everywhere for most of the day by the time I get home, the way it consistently was these last few years.

              • Ed;
                It would appear that we as people have chosen two completely different styles of living. I see nothing wrong with that, I spent 30 plus years of my life sailing on ships and living in staterooms, it was the life I picked and was reimbursed for my work very well. When I built my house here in Bataan I made sure I lacked for nothing and live the way I want. You seem to have found and equally enjoyable life style here that suits your needs. So in that we both are blessed.

              • Thanks Paul. Seems that I made a semi-conscious decision to have a personal life at the turn of the century. That includes a new wife, a gaggle of kids, and all the responsibilities that go with that, and yes, and the costs that go with that. Instead of working day and night, I now work night and day. 🙂
                Honestly, we don’t lack for crucial amenities and life will be totally wonderful once my wife makes good on her promises that her “investments” of our capital will at some point at least marginally return my life earnings. Then she can stop complaining that we have her plantations and her various (yes real) ongoing businesses and just maybe build a nice house in the city. Heh, meanwhile the new house in the mountains is almost completed, but that doesn’t count either.

  2. LMAO Paul! always enjoy reading your wit and dry humor, keep it up!
    Just came in from bbqing and can’t stop laughing! But seriously, maybe I better have my asawa learn to cook rice the old fashioned way, just in case of this type calamity or heaven forbid a BROWNOUT, hahaha!

    • Heinz;
      My wife still keeps her old rice cooking pot, but since we have a generator she hasn’t used it in many a year. The story sounds funny now, but believe me she was not laughing that morning. (LOL)

  3. Paul,
    Yes that is a national calamity lol. Anne doesn’t eat rice every meal and sometimes not everyday. I guess shes just a little bit americanized.

  4. Great article as usual. It’s funny that my wife never had trouble cooking rice in a simple sauce pan before we discovered rice cookers about 10 or 15 years ago. Our rice cooker died a couple of months ago. When my wife broke the bad news to me, I told her she would have to cook rice the old-fashioned way until we made our next trip to Wally world. It turned out my next trip to Wally world was immediately.

  5. Paul –

    Call it OCD, or just a fear of being caught unprepared, many people are like your Dad. I’m one of them. I, too, believe in redundancy, especially of things that I often use in everyday life as simple as a calculator, or things that are needed in emergencies as essential as a flashlight. One has to be able to recognize, though, that there is a thin line between redundancy and hoarding, if you let your OCD get the best of you. 🙂

    • John;
      There is nothing wrong with redundancy, as a Merchant Seaman I noted that there were five times the life rafts on board than there was crew to fill them. On one ship my raft was number 22, when asked if I knew where it was I said; “Yes, it’s the one in the water already, they are all number 22.”
      My father taught me well

      • Paul –

        Now, that’s what I call a sign of a ship’s well thought-out preparedness at sea by having those extra life rafts on board. The captain will never know how many of those no. 22 life rafts he has onboard have holes in them until they hit water, will he? LOL

        • John;
          Most of the ship’s I sailed were converted Navy supply ship’s, where the Navy crew was over 500 we manned it at 85 crewmembers (At a bit more pay) but all rafts are tested every six months by Coast Guard regulation.

  6. Hi Paul – When moving to the Philippines, my wife believed all Filipinos owned rice cookers. What’s funny is that most Filipinos we know don’t own them and if they do, they don’t use them often. It’s clearly the case your family not only uses your rice cooker but it’s really like a family member.

    • Brenton;
      I’ve never entered the kitchen and seen the little red light off. It’s like a beacon of happiness perpetually shinning from the counter in the kitchen. But I’m the same way with my beer ref, less than I case and it’s empty as far as I’m concerned. I’ve given rice cookers to every member of the family, and they are well used.

      • Brenton/Paul –

        Filipinos overseas are more likely to use rice cookers than Filipinos at home, except for the well-off, for obvious reasons. In my barrio, not many people use rice cookers because of the cost of electricity even though it’s miniscule. They still do all their cooking on earthen stoves, or even on the ground, with the pot of rice sitting on 3 rocks above the fire as in the olden times.

        • John;
          In this time of the new millennium rice cookers are taking over even if they have to run a jumper wire to the rich guys electric power line (lol).When you come over on vacation take a survey and you’ll see. What a way to spend a vacation..

        • Hi John – I know heaps of middle class Filipinos in Dunaguete that don’t use rice cookers.

          • Brenton –

            The middle class you speak of, what do they use to cook their rice in when you come to visit? A wok? LOL

            Believe me, there’s gotta be at least one rice cooker hidden somewhere in their kitchen. They just don’t want you to see it. If they are the kind of pretentious middle class I know, they don’t want you to see them eating rice 3 times a day. No, Sir. That’s so Filipino.

            Some have delusions of grandeur, you see. They go to Europe on vacations, and when they come home they want you to know they’ve been Europeanized, so they eat pasta (like fettuccini alfredo, maybe) instead of rice in your presence. All of a sudden, they also have a British accent.

            Once you’ve left, they sneak back into the kitchen in the middle of the night and eat the left over rice still in the rice cooker that is hidden in the closet. They throw the pasta out, and whip out the day-old sinigang to go with the left over rice. LOL

  7. When you get old you just have to sit down(!) and write a book. You write in a very catching way and i never miss your “Monday” posts.
    I know..i know…writing a book is kinda work, but heck…do it. You got a life time of funny, special and catching stories from you life.
    Title: My ship to paradise 😀
    Rice cooker…sure there is one in every home i know here, and us: we got 2…on small and one big. No doubt, catastrophe lurks if they break down.
    I guess i need 2 cars too 😀 And even better: 2 motorcycles. Got to have a talk with my Asawa – – when i am finished practicing the speech in front of the mirror, not a monologue, no no no…i also have to say all the words i know my Asawa will say 😀

    • Axel;
      Oh yes I can see the chance of two motorbikes are in your near future. Great book title BTW, but I’m already old and writing for LiP takes up enough of my time, but that’s fun. Remember what is not fun, becomes work.

      • You’re right…about work. No reason to pile up more “to do” things. No fun…no life.

        The 2 motorbikes,,,yup….Looking for a Honda Shadow or Yamaha Virago. I need to have that in “spare”, Before i do that i have to convince my beloved Asawa, why “we” need it. Maybe comfort could be a reason? Honda CB’s are more street bikes (the one i have). We’ll see what i can do, it takes time to prepare that kind of things.

  8. great article,,,,,took my asawa and co camping in Australia ,their 1st time camping in tents etc..I had the car loaded with all the essentials not knowing my wife added more to the load afore we left for the wild on arriving at selected site I opened the trunk and yep you got it right on top a dreaded rice cooker

  9. Paul,
    The FIRST thing I purchased for my asawa when she arrived in the States was a rice cooker.
    The FIRST thing we unpacked after we retired to the Philippines over five years ago was the rice cooker.
    The LAST thing I would want to break down in our household of six, aside from me, is the rice cooker.

  10. As I mentioned on Facebook, my wife has given up on rice cookers. She now does it the old-school way, with a pot or pan. The rice never lasts long enough to go bad, so it isn’t a big deal.

  12. Eh Paul it’s the way you tell’em, every one a gem. I remember purchasing our very first Electric Rice Cooker in Alaba Market in Lagos Nigeria. It was a National Panasonic and it was till this day the best bar none that we have ever had. In those days 1986 there was 4 mouths to feed plus Cook/Steward, Nanny, Driver, Gardner and Security Guards and the Dog and Cat. In 1988 when we returned to the UK said Rice Cooker went as well and continued to serve us faithfully and reliably till 2004 or there abouts my dear wife in her wisdom declared that the internal Teflon coating on the removable pan had seen better days (It was not as easy to clean due to the rice sticking to the damaged areas) and old faithful required replacing. Try as we might we could not locate the same or even similar to our National Panasonic. Eventually we found (A Rice Cooker) and the NP was gifted to a Filipina friend only too pleased to take it off our hands. Needless to say the old NP has been replaced many times both in the UK as well as here in the Philippines but none have ever come close to matching Old Faithful. Like you Paul I only wish I’d bought two and that would have been the only two ever required as there are only the two of us plus Molly the dog eating rice these days now the kids have gone.
    Regards.
    Jim.

    • Jim;
      In 1996 I bought a USED National Panasonic Air/Con. It ran trouble free for 13 more years and like you I’ve never seen that brand again. My daughter and grandson will be leaving for the states within a few months but the new rice cooker will still be making the same amount of rice every day as we still have our dog army.
      We save all the juice from anything we kook, pasta, vegetables ect. Dry and canned dog food and rice and all are dogs are healthy, wealthy but not so wise.

  13. A real calamity is when the wife calls you and she has to shout to be heard because the smoke alarm in your house is going off in the background! Turns out if your filipina wife has never had a fireplace, she would not know what a damper is. LOL

  14. Amusing but undoubtedly true narrative Paul, thanks for sharing.
    The first three things I bought my girlfriend, in short order and long before we were together,
    – a cellphone
    – her freedom
    – a rice cooker
    Years later, my wife and I find ourselves in the interior of Mindanao with our houseful of youngsters, toddlers and babies. Our kids well know that when the TV, the electric fan, and the “ref” all mysteriously shut off, the rice cooker won’t work either. Since a day without extensive brownouts is about as likely as a day without rain (not!), I’ve contemplated cobbling together some old bicycle and generator parts. Who might peddle it fast enough and long enough to power a rice-cooker? Maybe I could connect the TV to that too so they’d peddle for cartoons? Problem is – no power – no cable service either so no cartoons.
    Fortunately, we also possess the same as all other families – the mandatory cheap cast-aluminum pot with lid, and it’s more fun turning bigas into kaiin mas-masarap out-back on uling just like “mamang” (lola) does sa likud ng bahay sataas ng bukid.

      • Yes, a generator (and constant expensive fuel for it), and a satellite dish (no ongling fees?) would work, but what if those aren’t budget items?

        • ED;
          I purchased my generator in 1999 a new Honda $1,000.00 generator that has lasted so long it averaged out to cost me $5.55 per month to own.
          And the $50.00 per year in service calls by the Honda people to keep it humming along. (5 litters of gas will provided “FULL” power to my house for 24 hours, the only thing that can’t be used is Air/Con)
          The Satellite system I received for free by signing up for two years at about $12.00 per month. So yes I budgeted for that.
          But owning the generator has also saved me money by keeping my freezer from defrosting during long brownouts and me from going insane without power for three days at a time during storms.

  15. Two of everything is the same in this household. Just two sons to borrow things though.
    I’ve even been asked is I need a rice cooker, but my D-I-L hardly eats rice t our house for some reason, although I keep plenty in stock for her.

  16. Can’t recall what the arguement was about … just that the rice cooker was the center. That cooker make a hasty trip down the cellar stairs via my arm. That rather cheap rice cooker ( with a fresh crack ) gave the wife and me another 4 years of good service.

    Ya’ might say “it takes a lick’n and keeps on tick’n”. Ha Ha.

    As I recall, not long after that, all my shoes ended up in the front yard … I can’t imagine how they got there!

    TimDart

  17. The eternal flame —- the power light to on the rice cooker. It is always either cooking or keeping warm.

  18. John,

    I hope you had Chuck Norris’ permission to replace that rice cooker! We had a disaster here earlier in the evening. We ran out of rice and I was pushed out the door in a torrential rain to go get more rice. The cooker won’t work without it.

    That’s some funny stuff. Keep on writing……

    Bill

    • Bill
      Chuck Norris could hold the rice in his hand and it would cook it’s self out of fear.
      To run out of rice could cause any Filipina to become “Persona Non Grata” here in her own country.

        • John;
          That was a shout-out to Brenton’s article this week, I though it fit. (LOL) I’m glad someone caught it.

          • Why do I always spot the error immediately after pushing the post button? Bob we need a edit button on LiP (LOL)
            It’s THOUGHT not through…

          • Hi Paul,

            LOL! This article is a persona grata (a welcoming article) to me as a Filipino. I gotta have my rice indeed, without it, for let’s see, a week, no way I could survive without eating rice with any of my chicken adobo, or adobong pusit, lechon, you name it! Hehe! The last time I lasted for over a week and I didn’t know how I got through it without eating rice was when I was in bootcamp in San Diego in the 1980’s. They were practically serving potatoes, hash browns for breakfast, baked potatoes or mashed potatoes for lunch, and same for dinner. I think there was a choice for french fries, too. 🙂

            But one day, at the chow line, I met up and talked Tagalog to one of the Filipino sailor there, it was a lunch time, and he said to me there was a rice served on the other side of this very long line of food. Like turo-turo, you point your food, in a long line where someone served you your portion, this in the on-base galley. After marching non-stop almost all day, a recruit, you’re likely going to be hungry, and for me I’m looking for my rice to accompany my fried chicken, or something whatever I had on the other side of plate. I wanted a full satisfying meal with a rice and yes, I got what I needed!

            At home, I cooked my rice in about 10-year old rice cooker, fresh cooked rice is the best, but when the rest of the rice cooled down the remaining rice I place in a large tupperware and kept in the refrigerator and when comes lunch or especially dinner time next day, I just spooned a portion of rice into a plate and microwaved it, steaming hot rice again! Lately though, I cut down my eating portion of the rice.

            Thank you for this article! 🙂

            From, Aklan Heat.

            • Aklan;
              On most Navy ships rise was served often, but on MSC ships rice was available 24-7 every meal and mid-rats at sea. But most Merchant ships have a high percentage of Filipino crew members, so that was to be expect. I was on 3 AF’s with Military Sealift Command and we carried Navy Issue Rice, but we ate Jasmin Rice we bought import during visits (That was part of my job as a Yeoman/Storekeeper.)

              • Hi Paul –

                You didn’t stock Mahatma long grain in your store room, Paul? That’s what I regularly buy here. Maybe it’s the name, but Jasmin to my mind smells kind of perfumy, or is it just my imagination?

                Speaking of food on ships, in practically all the cruise ships we’ve been on, the kitchen/dining crew is overwhelmingly Filipino, Indonesian, and South Asian, in that order. Our Filipino waiter told me that the crew has its own kitchen/dining area in the lower decks, and is run by either a Filipino or South Asian chef. Rice is therefore available 24/7 as are all the dishes unique to their specific regions.

                I asked if I could have dinner below deck with them when he told me that they had adobong baboy, sinigang na baka and pancit palabok the night before, but I quickly changed my mind when I opened the menu and saw that the special for the evening was surf and turf (filet mignon and lobster). LOL

                There is something to be said as well about Filipino musicians aboard cruise ships. In two words, “Walang Katumbas” (without peer).

                On the way to the formal dining room for dinner one night, we passed by the lounge, and I thought I heard the Bee Gees performing live. I looked, and, not to my surprise, they were a Filipino band, of course.

              • John;
                The Thai rice was available any port call in Asia and the Persian Gulf. That was the main reason, consistency.
                On cruise ships the passengers are forbidden to enter the crews section, they even have their own club. The cook and wait staff are under a six month contract working 12 hours a day every day for around $500.00 per month. So I hope you rich folks tipped them well. The officers and Merchant crew make the real money. A tad more than the non-seaman contract workers.

              • Perhaps Paul, but your excellent Thai rice isn’t available in the interior of Mindanao.
                I did however after 3 years since we move here from Luzon find a really good “7-tonner” rice (which seems to be some variant of ‘laon’) literally just down the street and way less expensive than most offerings elsewhere! Even katulong can “loto kain masarap” if they marginally follow sensible instructions. Way better than rice at almost double the price that they turn into ugly globs. I *like* rice, but not in globs (not to be confused with sushi rice).
                My one-year old daughter woke up just now at 6am. Time to go be with her before my (hopeful) :”nap”.

              • Paul –

                Oh, I don’t know about “you rich folks”, Paul. After 40 long years working for the Federal Government, i see our regular sea cruises and vacations at resorts in the Caribbean simply as pay back time. We rarely enjoyed these kind of diversions we are enjoying today when I was still working, but now that I am retired, I’m trying to make up for lost time, so to speak. :).

                You bet I take care of my wait staff and cabin crew kababayan. On top of the automatic tips deducted from my credit card by the cruise ship (on average $12 per guest, per day) I tip my kababayan in cash if service is extraordinary, and it usually is.

                We’re planning to get together with you at Texas Joe’s, along with Randy and Anne, sometime in December. Do you prefer weekdays or weekends?

              • John;
                I’m retired also, so every day is a holiday so I’ll go with what is good for you and Randy. See how flexible I am? I have taken the Windjammer Bareback cruises which I preferred over the super sized ships. The entire crew is well paid and with less than 50 other passengers I found it to be more fun. Because it was a sailing vessel you had choice of what port you visit each day, you vote at the bar the night before. Google it and see what I mean.
                Looking forward to December.

              • Paul –

                I want to see if there’s truth to the rumor that you drink SMB and rum and coke at the same time. LOL

                I’ll email Randy privately abut the date when we get there and he will contact you.