Summertime in the Philippines is hot and humid. The heat can be oppressive and renders one lethargic. March is just the start of summer but it already feels like an oven in here! Even the normally hyperactive cats are asleep all day, waking up to drink every few minutes. I am tempted to follow their example.

The onset of summer means light and quick meals. Why stay in front of a hot stove for long periods when cool and refreshing food can be prepared from the produce straight out of the garden or refrigerator mainstays? This month’s Is My Blog Burning? with the theme Make it in 30 minutes! is wonderfully synchronised with my summer cooking or semi-cooking, if you will.

This dish may seem like a salad but it is more than that. In the Philippines, anything savoury can be eaten with rice to make up a meal. This alamang and camias salad is then considered as a viand.

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Breakfast is perhaps the simplest of the day’s meals but just like Joey, this month’s Lasang Pinoy host, it has a very special place in my gut, er, heart. My problem though was what to post for Gising na! ALMUSAL! not for a lack of ideas but for having too much!

The traditional Filipino breakfast is quite flexible in that it can consist of the previous day’s leftovers, something cooked especially for the day’s first meal or odds and ends procured from early morning vendors. It has to be ready before people go out to the fields or to the sea. This has been the case for centuries, it is still true at present. Nowadays though, factories and offices can be added to the list of workplaces.

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Shrimp ceviche

Gaiety and spontaneity are trademarks of most Filipino societies. Being very sociable, camaraderie is at the heart of many relationships. Perhaps it also comes from the nature of our traditional occupations - farming and fishing. Our ways of living rely on being with others, helping and sharing in the labour and the harvests.

This camaraderie is even more apparent when unwinding after a day or night’s toil. It is then when beverages come out. And when there are spirits, of course there is pulutan!

For January, Ting Aling at World Class Cuiscene is graciously hosting Lasang Pinoy with the theme Let’s Wash it Down with Booze!! That, dear friends, is another way of saying you don’t have to be a drinker to indulge in drinking food.

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