Memoirs of a Kitchen Wanderer

My earliest recollections of my childhood always centered on food. It's preparation, going to the market with my father or to the grocery with mom. Not to mention the various dishes served at meal time, on a sick day or what my mom packed in my lunch box.

Perhaps it was my parents, who indulged me on tales of my youth, or the various photos they've taken of me, but from what I remember, food was clearly not just a basic need in our family. It was a passion.

I remember being left alone with a tin of Sky Flakes soda crackers while sitting on a straw mat while my mom owned and operated two canteens/cafeterias (one at GSIS and the other at DBP Baguio) back in the early 80's. I think I was 2 or 3. Mom and her helpers would stay up late and wake up early, making warm, fluffy asado siopao, different snacks, noodles, soups and doing the prep work for other various dishes on next day's menu. Mom was the Queen of Mise en place.

Then there was that time my 19 year old nanny poured a big pot of warm dinuguan (pork and pig offal cooked in pig's blood and vinegar) at some customer who got too "touchy" for his own good. That was literally a "food for thought" for that guy! :P

I remember the sights, the smells and the taste of food in the market after a 5 am jog around the old neighborhood in Malabon, where I spent most of my summers as a child. My father and I would visit the market, looking for great finds...shrimps so fresh, they're somewhat leaping. Smoked milkfish (tinapang bangus), just out of the smokehouse, still warm and cooked with high standards, that you can eat it straight up, without having to fry it. Then there's that heavenly smell of special patis (fish sauce) Malabon that was as good as any viand for me. Fresh seafood, authentic Malabon cuisine, no scrimping and laboriously prepared dishes make recalling those innocent times with ease.

Papa and I 1985

Perhaps it was Papa who truly got me hooked on cooking. Instead of pondering what to cook for me during those summer weekends, he would bring out his cookbooks ( The ones with pictures were the best!), making me choose what our next meal was. We'd buy the ingredients together, and then he'll let me help him cook. ( I still employ the same method in asking the folks here at home what they'd want to eat: a dish from a cookbook, market the next day and cooked that same night).

with mom (papa took the pic) off to go fishing in Navotas 1984

Mom also had her own set of books as well, not to mention bringing me to her cooking class with famed chef Sylvia Reynoso-Gala in the latter's home at Forbes Park. The baking class was my favorite! Til this day, the taste of meringue transports me to that kitchen and I can describe what it looked like then without difficulty. 

Though Baguio was our home base, the first few years of my childhood were spent in various cities and provinces, travelling with my father, who was an architect for the Development Bank of the Philippines,  assigned to areas where the bank planned to expand.

MIHCA 2011

This meant eating huge steamed crabs in a restaurant on stilts over the waters in Bohol, having ice candy (frosty) as a treat for taking a nap in the middle of the day in Calapan, Mindoro, or eating tapang usa from Dipolog and catching a big lapu lapu for lunch in a fish pond in Cagayan de Oro. Who could forget the torones de mani of Cebu, the sweet shrimps of Roxas, Capiz, eating dog meat in Cabanatuan and many other places? My dad was the original Mediocre/Kitchen Wanderer :P

Warm thoughts and fuzzy feelings are what I associate with food. Hopefully, this blog of mine could help you recreate that food-induced happy thought.

my first live cooking demo at SM Baguio 2011
(still looking for the Kraft sponsored cooking segment
I did for an  ABS CBN Baguio show)

From Kitchen Wanderings, here's to a life full of flavor!