Where Dreams Come True

We were booked at the Sheraton Vistana Resort, near that section of Interstate 4 that cut across southwest Orlando and passed through the most famous theme parks in America: Universal, Sea World, and Disney. My sister had called previously from the Philippines to ask if I wanted to use my parent’s time-share that would have expired at the end of February, just two weeks away. Fortunately, I just live two hours north of Orlando where most of the properties were located, and customer service was more than willing to extend the reservations to the week of my spring break. But what would I do with a resort apartment that was good for eight people? I can’t imagine idling away time just sitting beside the pool and sipping piña colada for a week. It turned out that I knew people who would. A cousin from Montreal, tired of this year’s bitter winter, was happy to haul her family and flock to the sunny south. She had a two year old daughter who would love to go swimming and see Disney’s Magic Kingdom; the grandma who came along would prepare for us those much-missed Filipino meals.

Las Vegas for Children

 

Sueños de la Alhambra

What a cold and rainy weekend! I kept myself warm and cozy by cooking up meals for the week, making brewed coffee with whipped cream and cinnamon, and, of course, blogging. I made stir-fried vegetables with strips of chicken breasts and gizzards, and also mashed potatoes from a Rachel Ray recipe to go with knackwurst sausage. When my mother was planning Christmas Eve dinner, I had quickly suggested a 30-minute Rachel Ray meal that I saw on the Food Network before I flew back home, and whose recipe I just so happen to have jotted down. Secretly, I had wanted to make known my acquired culinary prowess, like Isak Dienesen’s Babette, desiring to practice her art by preparing a feast fit for kings for the crude ascetics of a small Danish seaside town. This is not to say my family are a bunch of ascetics.

The menu called for a steak dinner for six, with fixings of mashed potatoes and stuffed tomatoes, and a strawberry ice cream dessert:

T-Bone Steak: season with salt and pepper; sear on a griddle until caramelized; oven bake at 350-375F; top with arugula greens dressed in olive oil, lemon, and pepper.

Mashed Potatoes: sauté bacon and onions; mash with potatoes, chopped blanched spinach, and cream; season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Stuffed Tomatoes: in a food processor, chop white bread, parsley, sage, Romano cheese, pitted olives, olive oil, and pepper; stuff into cored vine-ripe tomatoes; broil.

Strawberry Ice Cream: serve in martini glasses with créme de menthe, whipped cream, maraschino cherries, and wafer stick.

 

From Salcedo Market to Quiapo

Fortunately, I’ve had only mild jetlag on this trip. I usually get extremely sleepy at around 5-6 in the evening, and wake up between 3-4 in the morning. This does not make sense if you convert those times to their US Eastern Time equivalents. I think the 16 hours of dark in the plane on the way here put me in a sleepy limbo that reset my sense of time.

We stayed at The Columns on Friday night. The following morning, my kid brother and I went with my mother to the nearby Salcedo Market, where downtown Makati residents do their weekend grocery. It is like the tented street market at the Rockefeller Center. Well, sort of. At the entrance, we were greeted by the sight of a roasted cow, skewered along its length with a bamboo pole that turned it over the coals. “Wholly Cow”, the sign says on its tent. I let my mother do her shopping in peace, and went to look for something to eat. I found a tent that sold puto bongbong and bibinka, rice-based cakes popular during this time of the year, especially around the Misa de Gallo, a series of midnight Masses that anticipate the birth of Jesus.

I got a bibinka which is made of rice flour; it looks similar to pancakes but fluffier, more crumbly than gummy. They also throw in chunks of salted duck eggs, an ingenious counterpoise to the sweet, creamy batter. It is typically baked in clay pots on banana leaves over charcoal, then slathered with butter, and sprinkled with shredded coconut. I got coffee to go with it, brewed from the aromatic arabica beans grown in the Mountain Province. I sat down with my younger brother, a special child, on a park bench just behind the bustle of the market, to share this meal. I don’t know what it was–perhaps by having this pastry especially at this time of the year, the smell of its banana leaves and coconut garnish permeating the cake, calling forth memories of the Christmases of my childhood, or, perhaps, by having to share it here with my kid brother whom I have not seen in more than three years–but, suddenly, I was gripped with such longing, my eyes welled with tears.

 

Manila, My Manila

1.

It did not take much to once again get accustomed to the amenities of Manila living. I woke up early, at around 6, despite just having gone to bed at 3. I arrived the previous night from a grueling trip from Florida, entailing four plane changes. It’s my first time to be home in more than three years. The maids were also up, as was usual, doing chores and preparing breakfast. When I asked one of them for coffee, she asked back perfunctorily whether I preferred espresso or americano. My jaw dropped. One of the first things we replaced when our house burned down was the espresso machine from Starbucks. This was the $140 version, before it was discontinued, and replaced with the whopping $350 one. My dad, brother-in-law, and I were hooked on it. Apparently, this was not handy enough for my folks; they had to train the household help to be full-pledged baristas. Oh, by the way, Nene also pointed out that she steams milk and makes cappuccino.