The Pilgrim’s Pots and Pans

Each time I need basil, usually for pasta sauce or simple pesto, it seems like I need to go to lengths just to find the amount and freshness I require. The packaged herbs at the grocery, most often than not, are not so fresh and have to be cooked immediately. Or they have too many stems in them and I end up with just half the amount I paid for. So it was such a thrill to find out that there is an honest-to-goodness ORGANIC basil farm a town away from where I live. I was there today and did I enjoy the view, the scent and the joy of having fresh herbs growing abundantly.

How did I find myself there?

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I know, I know… my first entry in more than a year and it’s not a “real post” my friend Catsie would say. But then again, she also knows how obsessed I’ve been with kitchenware.

The other day I was looking for crumpet rings then decided I’ll make my own from tuna tins. Now I am trawling the net for ramekins. I have a dozen that are exactly like those in the picture above, six that are quite similar to those linked here and four rectangular ones. The yellow ones (round and rectangles) I used a month ago for mango clafoutis. One of the rectangles was utilised for roasting garlic in the microwave earlier today. It worked like a charm!

I’m looking for plain white round ramekins in different sizes and perhaps later on, other colours and designs. In the meantime, I wonder if I should make some crème brûlée with the oval ramekins. But then, I’ll be searching high and low for a kitchen blowtorch.

Mom and aunties scanning the restaurant's four menu offerings.

January is a month of birthdays for family and friends. I have at least five friends celebrating it this month. There’s one auntie and a cousin. Of course there’s yours truly too. It is like extending the Christmas feast for a month, the way things are going.

On the 15th was Auntie Dinah’s birthday. It has been sixteen (16) years she was home from Madrid and since she flew in on 19 December, was eagerly sampling native fare. Where would it be the place to take her than in a restaurant with native cuisine? Off we went to San Fernando and had a sumptuous lunch. Like any Saplala dine-out, we had the waiters scurrying to and from our table with requests for extra knives, saucers, condiments and whatever else made a meal more enjoyable.

True to form, as soon as we started on the dessert, they started planning for the next meal, the next day’s breakfast and eating out when my Auntie Vicky and Uncle Bert would fly in this month. Why true to form? That’s because planning the next meal and the next day’s meals is something we seem to do as a family when we get together. Not that it takes a reunion to accomplish that. My late grandmother used to start dinner cooking as soon as lunch was done.

Of course that was meant to be economical – not to waste the heat from the firewood while it was going. But in this age of automatic gas ranges and microwave ovens? Well, it is probably our way of keeping Lola’s traditions alive and of course, to better enjoy our time together.

Oh no, we’re not cooking her but this little kitty deserves a month of eating bland food for what she has done. By herself, she chewed my basil plant to its untimely demise. I don’t know if I should be amused or annoyed that a cat who lives with me has such unusual predilections. My college roommate Bea was amused (rough translation of our chat):

Karen: My basil plant was devoured by the cat.
Bea: Devoured? They eat basil????
Karen: Ay yes, well… by the great Tinee, who was caught several times. Well, you know my cats.
Bea: Gourmet???? Gee, makes me want to get a pet
Karen: Hahahaha! Tinee’s the worst! At first I thought the plant was sick because some of the leaves were dry. There were no aphids, none of the usual pests. Then I saw torn leaves but they looked healthy, no bugs. Some of the leaves were intact, not torn off but had incisions in the middle, as if something sharp cut through them.
Bea: What did Tinee do? She was eating the leaves?
Karen: Oh, then I caught her myself chewing on the leaves, really enjoying herself, like eating a salad. Turns out my auntie caught her several times too.
Bea: Can’t blame the cat. Good taste! Your fault Karen. You let the cat get used to it.
Karen: Hehehe! What, trained her tastebuds?

Indeed felines like to eat grass now and then. Oh, but Tinee? What a cat! There are other herbs in our garden – oregano, chives and I don’t know what else. Why oh why does she have to pick on the only basil plant I have? And it’s so difficult growing the herb in a water-logged area. Oh well, she must’ve imbibed my penchant for tomato-basil sauces. :cat:

The essay below was written in September 2005 for PinoyExpats. I thought of re-posting it here as a sort of reminder to finish the research that I have begun and to reconstruct what I lost when my PC crashed last year. Something to also distract Anne and Mike. They have complained that my last three posts are fake entries.

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What a fossil I am! I could be one of the last of my generation trained by grandmothers who were alive before the Second World War. Apprenticed by Lola the Keeper of Kitchen Traditions says a lot about my current cooking style. For starters, my sauté has garlic crushed with a mortar and pestle, not minced, no garlic press. There’s a difference in flavour and texture, mind you. Then there’s guisang saguíua and guisang mátusta, depending on what dish I’m preparing. There are a thousand and one ‘major’ and ‘minor’ rules of the Capampangan kitchen which I’ll discuss shortly.

But who am I kidding? I’ll bore myself to death if I did that. I can’t dazzle with recipes and cooking techniques. I’d rather talk about the little discoveries I learn from being a nosy brat. Example: Until around three decades ago, Capampangans did not eat tocino but they had pindang and this was of the best quality – venison, carabao meat, beef and pork. What happened? How did tocino (a.k.a. bucayong babi according to Lola) overtake the age-old pindang? Ah, my research is still unfolding. But this I know – Pampanga exported cured venison or pindang usa to China and Japan for a very high price even in pre-colonial times. Source? The early chronicles of Spaniards in the Philippines.
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