Recipes from a disaster
A few hours ago, I’d uploaded my two indie titles, How to Tame Your Tikbalang Without Even Trying, and Maligno Unbound, on Google Play Books. I thought it would be a lark to check my name in the search bar of the store end of the app, you know, to see if my titles had gone live yet.
They hadn’t, but another book I’d written, my first published book, a cookbook that goes by the title Kitchen Diary, was. This is a cookbook that Psicom Publishing had published in 2008, for which I got a fee paid against future royalties. The book, as I recall, sold out at the National Bookstore branches I’d checked, several months later. So I checked with Psicom to see if they would come out with a second print run. The publisher said they would not, that the book “did not sell well.” That was the end of that. Or so I thought.
So, imagine my surprise over this. And my dismay. Psicom had not informed me that it would be publishing my cookbook as an ebook, and I don’t recall agreeing to such, even verbally. They also indicated the publication date as “Jan. 1913”. My father was born in 1928, my mother in 1933, and I was born in 1972. How on earth was I able to publish a cookbook in 1913, I wonder?
Now, lawsuits in the Philippines drag on and on and cost money I am loathe to waste on them. So I’ll simply provide a free alternative here, on my blog. I will publish the text and recipes in that cookbook over the coming days. Because, frankly, my cash on hand is a limited thing that I prefer to use for things that matter, not worthless endeavors that I know will hurt my pocket before they bear any fruit, if there is indeed any fruit to be had.
Here is the first part of the book, the preface, if you will:
KITCHEN ENTRIES
Most people would say their lives have soundtracks, with certain songs triggering their happiest memories and bringing them to their internal “happy places.” My life is defined by flavors and kitchen aromas and my happy place is a physical, real-world kitchen where the smell of soul warming food permeates the air.
Fantastic artistes of the kitchen abound in both my mother’s and father’s families — as well as in my husband’s clan and among my sisters-in-law’s families — and I associate these people dearest to me by the dishes that are uniquely theirs.
My mother says that I was a picky eater as a child and that she regularly and desperately asked my aunts, uncles, and godparents to help her find ways to feed me. These wonderful people rose to the challenge and instilled in me a deeply rooted love for cooking and for good food that is prepared lovingly and eaten in good company.
These relatives were my first teachers in the culinary arts and they inducted me into the mysterious rites of the Kitchen Goddess when I was nine years old.
What, you may ask, are my qualifications to write a cookbook? Let me see…
My mother used to make and sell tocino, longganiza, and tapa to all the five-star hotels in Metro Manila from the 1960s to the early 1980s. I used to taste-test and help her make the foodstuff that were so in demand that we couldn’t keep the inventory stocked long enough for the next order.
I hung out in relatives’ and neighbors’ kitchens as a kid and found cooking more fun than decapitating my Barbie dolls with a cleaver — and I enjoyed mutilating my dolls quite immensely.
When I started working as a journalist, I wrote food reviews for Manila Standard’s Sunday magazine, Savvy, after seeking culinary adventures with cuisines from all over the Philippines and asking chefs who succeeded in intriguing my tastebuds to marry me — gender notwithstanding. Sadly, the chefs all declined my proposals.
My hubby, mother, and closest friends are all having trouble losing the pounds they gain from my cooking. My children, nieces, and nephews can be blackmailed to obey me when I threaten to quit cooking for them and I have no need for spanking to enforce discipline.
Almost everyone who has eaten my cooking is still alive, though I still caution them to have life insurance if they intend to sample my experiments. Plus, I am literate.
Finally, I am a firm believer in my father’s maxim that “eating is an adventure.”
I write this cookbook as I bring my daughters and nephews into the kitchen I have inherited from my elders and show them the wonders stored in its cupboards. Now I reveal to them the varied secrets spoken in the language of spice and herb. They are as entranced with the magic and power of good cooking as I was when I was nine years old and begging my elders to teach me how to wield a sianse and wok with gallantry and grace.
My mother’s aunt, Tia Conching Tan-Yngson, was the Tan clan’s kitchen doyenne until she passed on into the Great Kitchen In the Sky about a decade ago. She gave me this most precious piece of cook’s advice: “The most important ingredient in any dish is love, even over salt.”
Superlola Conching Diaz-Anonas, my paternal grandmama, instilled in me the value to be found in paying attention to detail: “Your cooking should never be asi-asi (neither here nor there). Cook with all your heart and soul and all your focus, or not at all.”
My Tita Monet Anonas-Achacoso, who compiled the Anonas family’s most cherished recipes over the years, taught the mathematical principle obeyed by all great cooks: “Good cooking always results in a well-balanced blend of flavors that is greater than the sum of ingredients you put in a given dish.”
This book is a collection of my very favorite recipes — some are generations, even over a century old, others newly concocted, yet successful. Others are journeys into the terra incognita of the tastebuds. When you savor these dishes I present to you, you savor my sweetest memories and blend them with your own.
And the second essay, a sort of foreword:
TOOLS OF THE TRADE: Equipping Your Kitchen Well
Like boy and girl scouts, good cooks should always be prepared. The proper implements are as vital to kitchen craft as they are to any other endeavor. My kitchen is by no measure a chef’s dream, but the basics are there. Here is a list of the things you will need to have so you can cook what I cook.
The heart and soul of a kitchen is the stove — after all, you still need heat to cook. Have at least a two-burner gas stove (La Germania offers the best bang for your buck) with at least three heat settings. Electric stoves and hot plates are okay, but I’m not fond of them because I am a pyromaniac — and because fire cooks better and more evenly.
You will also need a roasting facility. Most stove-oven combos are pricey, so buying a separate electric oven or turbo broiler and a two-burner stove is better for people living on a financial diet or for those of you who are living away from their parents for the first time.
Be sure you have quilted cooking gloves (also called oven mitts) and potholders as well, and trivets for holding hot dishes and cookware taken off the stovetop or out of the oven.
Having a refrigerator is a must, of course, but you had better check the energy efficiency factor (EEF) of each refrigerator you consider before buying it. Of all the household appliances, barring air-conditioners and electric irons, refrigerators suck up the most electricity. The higher the EEF rating, the better.
On to the implements of food preparation and cooking pots, most of which can be bought cheap in Divisoria or Paco.
I find that having at least two wooden chopping boards, one small one and a large one, is best especially if you have kids who want to learn how to cook or if you like cooking in tandem with another person. Having two cutting boards also makes it possible to use one for meats and the other for vegetables to prevent food contamination. To clean wooden chopping boards, simply wet them and scrape the wood with a knife before scrubbing with soap and water.
The mortar and pestle, used for mashing and grinding herbs and spices, must be among the oldest kitchen implements still in use today, and a good set made of Romblon marble is inexpensive and will last a long time.
When it comes to knives, my maxim is “the more, the merrier.” One good vegetable peeler is vital, but have a nice, sharp paring knife as a backup. You will also need to have seven- and nine-inch chef’s knives for slicing and carving meats. A good, heavy cleaver is necessary for chopping through bones, as in cutting up pork belly slices and chopping chicken for serving.
A set of six steak knives is also a good investment, for when you serve fried meats. You will also need a serrated bread knife (which is ideal for slicing meatloaf) and a thin-bladed vegetable knife for cutting hard vegetables like carrots and potatoes.
I have a mezzluna — a curved, two-handled chopping blade (it looks like a smaller version of the blade surgeons once used to cut open the human sternum) that makes short work of mincing and chopping food and is a finger-saver for klutzes like me. This is not a must, but I do recommend having one of these.
To keep your knives sharp, have a whetstone or sharpening steel handy (I’m old-fashioned and prefer the whetstone. My hubby favors the sharpening steel). Remember to sharpen your knives regularly, both for ease of use and for your own safety, because dull-edged blades tend to slip off whatever you are cutting, endangering your fingers.
You will also want to have a wire whisk, at least two mixing bowls (small and large) and a heavy-duty blender (with a grinder attachment, if possible), so invest well in these items.
Having small metal bowls for holding ingredients is also a good idea, so buy about four of these. They also double nicely as condiment and sauce bowls.
Since accurate measurements are necessary for many dishes, have a good set of measuring cups and spoons. A rubber spatula and rubber scrapers are also important, because these utensils help you prevent waste and they make cleaning up easier.
As for metal cookware, you will need a 10-quart or larger stockpot for boiling pasta, making broth or large batches of soup, a large, heavy cast-iron skillet or thick-bottomed frying pan, a smaller skillet or frying pan, a large heavy saucepan, a small saucepan and a Dutch oven for simmering casseroles. The Dutch oven also doubles as a rice pot or saingan.
For meatloaves, a metal loaf pan or two will do — preferably the aluminum kind with slide-on covers. A folding steaming rack is great for converting your saucepan into a steamer. No Pinoy kitchen is complete without a wok. If possible, buy the aluminum kawali used in carinderias, as these are cheaper and they last a long time.
For use in the oven or turbo broiler, have a metal rack (a round one for the turbo broiler) that will allow the best circulation of heated air within the oven and ensure even cooking. A cookie-sheet is very useful and small metal baking pans, the kind sold with oven toasters, are also good to have.
Oven-to-table ceramic or glass cookware is also a must.
Have one large, deep ceramic dish with a cover for casseroles, a shallower ceramic or heat-proof glass dish for gratins and smaller broils and a set of at least six ramekins.
These items can be bought for a bargain from department stores if you make the time to search for them.
Other utensils you will need are: one bamboo cooking ladle, one flat cooking ladle for turning eggs and hamburgers, one long-handled metal cooking spoon, a long cooking fork, long-handled cooking tongs, a pasta scoop, a long-handled soup ladle, a slotted spoon, a slotted ladle, a spider ladle for scooping up and draining off deep-fried food, a metal colander, and a set of strainers. Veer away from plastic cooking utensils when you can.
It is also a good idea to get a wooden salad bowl set and a salad spinner for removing excess water from your rinsed salad greens and veggies. Wooden salad bowls are less likely to break if dropped and they look pretty.
Some of the recipes in this cookbook also call for aluminum foil, cling-wrap plastic, freezer bags, toothpicks, and paper towels. Be sure you keep these items in stock.
Finally, try and get a leather or denim apron to protect your body and clothes from hot spills and food stains.
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I will put up the recipes in the stories that follow this post. For now, I’m going to find my bed and nap.
