CERTAINLY NOT FEELING 76

Another year; another birthday and the pandemic is still raging.  As the months moved from year 2020 to 2021, I’d hoped that we will eventually conquer Covid 19;  instead we are now faced with more deadly variants delta and lamda. 

It’s a bit sad to celebrate without family but  I know that I’m not the only one here; all of us are in the same boat.  Last year, my 75th, a milestone;  would have been a great opportunity to party and bond with family. 

I don’t mind staying at home and not dining out.  It’s just that at my age I feel short-changed missing out on opportunities to enjoy life with my family. 

 

But I do understand that’s why I am adopting this mantra:

 “SOON”.  

This week, I sent my younger daughter my Facebook best-of-the-year picture by the gigantic waterfalls at the Singapore Jewel in the latter part of 2019 with a caption: “HAPPY TIMES”.  She replied: “SOON”. 

Yes!  I think that is a hopeful catchword for looking forward and moving on. 

I am an optimistic person; a bright-sider too; with a  glass-half-full attitude and always a full  believer of goods things to come.   Yet, lately I’ve been thinking about the brevity of life. 

Someone said that each and everyone of us has our number of heart beats set and encrypted in our hearts from birth.  How I wish I know how many more heart beats I have left so I can plan ahead. 

Since there’s no way to know that, I’ll not waste precious time by fretting and sulking.  Once again, my friend  Nina’s idea as expressed in one of her facebook posts uplifts my perspective. 

“From here on I’ll start to enjoy life more, without missing it\"s lessons...

I’ll savor the moments, before they become memories.  

I’ll always remember that life is beautiful beyond measure...even when sometimes 

life never turns the way I want...

I will live it in the best way I can...for after all there is no perfect life; but I can fill it with perfect moments”..

And may I add; that while I still have time; I’ll say thanks if I must; apologize if I should and definitely forgive. 

I’ll expect the unexpected; and I’ll  be prepared to deal with whatever comes my way specially when the unexpected is better than what I could ever dream of. 

Should the unexpected be bad news, I’ll accept the pressures, tensions and stresses  with resignation knowing that they are inevitable parts of life.  I know such things too shall pass. 

And I will weave in joy and the joie de vivre of life in my remaining days,  thats for sure.  

THE AUTHENTIC ADOBO

The  Phillipine Department of Trade and Industry  DTI, has announced their initiative to standardize the technique in cooking a few of our popular local dishes like the adobo, sinigang, sisig and even lechon. 

My friend Tess, a great culinary affecionado wondered when she learned about it.  She post this initiative on our chat group.  My offhand reaction was : “why? Just like beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, food is in the taste buds of the eater.” 

On the flip side, another friend and neighbor, Mely says it is good so we won’t depart from the original recipe our grandmothers taught us.  “We are losing the authetic recipies”, she says further: “for  instance, when we say kare kare, surely we mean oxtail and tripe.  But nowadays some are making veggie kare kare, some use shrimp or chicken”.  She has a point here. 

The DTI  announced that their aim is to come up with a cooking technique and tag it as the authentic Philippine adobo.  Since the recipe varies in every region and in every household;  anything done differently is a variation. 

Every household has their way of cooking traditional dishes;  not only here in the Philippines but the world over.  Take the Spanish paella, a specialty dish  often cooked at home; did you know that the authentic one doesn’t use chorizo?  Yet here we can’t seem to make paella without it like it is a major ingredient. 

What happened to the all Anerican hamburger?  The original consists only of the meat putty with mustard and slices of cheddar inside a  bun.  Slices of onions, lettuce and tomato were then considered optional.   Nowadays however, they come ridiculously  tall, one could no longer hold it up to bite due to a lot of trimmings. The more trimmings seems more interesting and yummy. 

With the passing of time, variantions often evolve in a recipe. Sometimes people want change;  sometimes it depends on the availability of the ingredients or what a household can afford. 

I’m not a professional chef but I love to cook  and bake.  Baking cakes I learned from my Mama and Feista dishes like caldereta, asado, embotido, mechado, menudo, etc., I learned from my mother-in-law just the way my husband likes them. 

This is  my triple-cook adobo technique which may be considered a variation but I believe to be authentic: 

Pork cubes are first browned in little oil to keep their juices intact.  Add cooking wine, garlic, banana blossoms, cinammon bark, star anise, pepper corns and bay leaves.  

In recent years I added chopped fresh oregano and pandan leaf to enhance the taste and vanish the gamey flavor of pork. 

When pork cubes browned a bit, add in  the vinegar, soy sauce and some  water.  Simmer until pork is tender. 

In another skillet, heat oil and fry the drained pork cubes until they brown some more and release most of the fat resulting  to a better color and are crispy on the edges.   See how the finished product look like  in the photo.  The remaining juice from the skillet  maybe thickened with cornstartch  for gravy.  Though some of us  like the adobo with a little soup to top over rice.