Kitchen Kwento

Writing the Way Home

I spent the past weekend up north with Movement Generation's ecological leadership retreat. I am still taking in the depth and breadth of that space, the people, and unexpected places that the gathering awakened (and recreating the delicious recipes...). One afternoon by the freshwater pond, we were asked to reflect on right relationship - our relationship to the future, as ancestors in a time of ecological crisis. My reflection came as a letter:

Dear granddaughter,

I am waiting for this pen to move, to be stirred by imagination. But I am having a hard time. I can barely imagine my own unborn children, or what the future will look like in 10 years, let alone your face. Yet somehow I believe I will meet you and learn from you as my teacher, in the next world.

Someone once told me of another way to understand DNA - as descendants now ancestors. Strands of me will live through you. They are waiting to be born. Right now my grandmothers write this letter to our future through my hands.

Our people have this word: balikbayan. It's used to describe Filipinos visiting the homeland, and as a brand name for those cardboard care packages sent to the Philippines. What it really means, though, is to return to the land. To homeland, because land is home.

My generation's story will sound like a fairytale to you. We have realized that we have been away from home for too long. This distancing came with a price. We have become sick - homesick. Its an illness that spans hundreds of years.

Our homesickness touches everything - the air, water, plants, animals, and soils.

But instead of naming the disease, many of us were told we had to create new diseases to cure the old ones. The cures would be expensive. They could cost us everything. Sometimes we were told it was our fault if we were sick, and that we deserved it. Worst of all, sometimes we became used to this terrible disease.

In this generation, we each had to become more than we already are - which is what we already are. We had to become doctors without going to medical school, learning new ways to heal. We had to become midwives, attending to the birth of a new world out of the old one.

Granddaughter, for some reason I am certain of you. When I remember you, you give life its compass, a throughline within uncertain waters. I know you will survive because my own ancestors survived. Through 500 years of colonization. Through enslavement and cultural erasure, through forced migration and assimilation. 

If my only ability in our age of extinctions is to relearn being balikbayan, I've fulfilled a responsibility passed on from the past. We are here to renew life. In a changing world, we must use our remembering as a weapon and a salve.

Granddaughter, I hope we will meet soon.

Love,

Your grandmother 

 

More:

Occidental Arts and Ecology Center

Movement Generation

Navigating (and Nourishing) a New Year

New year's arrived on a ridge in Tagaytay, the Philippines. It shifted into place somewhere between starlight, the smoke of fireworks, dark water, and poppers echoing into the night. My parents, sister and I were like children: we jumped up and down for luck, ran circles holding bags of clanging coins open to the sky, and filled bowls with round fruits. But if I ran extra fast, or jumped higher than usual, it was not with that exuberant feeling of years past. It was more like a big amen and to please bring in the new. 

Even with January firmly underway, I still feel the resonance of that year's passage. Through it all, there was so much to be grateful for. Here are some from 2012:

Filipino Farmers of the New Millenium

After months of emails, I finally met Gil Carandang, a Filipino organic agriculture advocate and fellow alumni of the Farm and Garden program. (We "just" missed each other by 10 years, and are possibly the only Filipinos in the program's 40-year-history!). I traveled to Gil's teaching farm in Laguna to join a 3-day workshop on beneficial indigenous micro-organisms. Gil breaks down any mystique around natural farming into practical and resonant terms, and provides technical assistance to cooperatives seeking organic certification. Nourishment: a glimpse of Filipino natural farming in the archipelago. 

A Season on the California Coast

Wishing to deepen my farming skills and work with youth, I spent my second season at Pie Ranch in Pescadero. While barely an hour outside of south San Francisco, it felt like another world. From sleeping in a yurt on a historic piece of land and chopping wood to burn for heat, feeling the chills of a coastal winter, to living by the rhythms of over 250 pasture-raised chickens, I grew in often unexpected ways. Nourishment: bridging with Bay Area youth and finding joy in their discoveries.

Building Networks 

2012 witnessed the growth of more collaborations that lift up the voices, stories, needs, and strengths of people of color in food and farming. From launching the Farm and Garden POC alumni network, joining across years of visionary food leaders, to organizing with AAPIs on the farm bill and Prop 37, this work is growing and will continue. Nourishment: the strength of relationships.

Telling Our Food Stories

Arts and culture are necessary agents to bring relationships with each and the earth into balance. While being back in an urban area can feel far from the beauty of living close to the land, I found my senses touched by storytelling, as writers use food as a community builder and a place of collective memory. I had the chance to interview young leaders, like Reyna Maldonado, and artists against Prop 37 like Angela Angel and Robin David. Nourishment: giving and receiving stories.

Cooking 

There is an inexplicable joy of cooking with others. Alone, I go into a flow and could almost cook day and night, lost in a ginger haze. In a group, it can be messy, unpredictable, and fun. 2012 brought new seasonal themes - Cooking with Coconut and Sweet Roots - and new faces to the Oakland Asian Cultural Center's Kitchen. And a first Yelp review - when my environmental justice organization FACES teamed up with The People's Kitchen, our vibrant crew threw down a specially crafted Filipino food menu and a program for nearly 150 guests. Nourishment: communal cooking for body and soul.

Weaving Connections

My friend Mylene says she was asked, "Where is the Filipino canoe?" That question planted a seed. Barely a year later, on a cold Sonoma County morning, I sat around a fire circle together with Mylene and a group of Native and Filipino/Americans at the launch of the Bangka Journey project. Envisioned by a core group of friends, the dream is to revitalize Filipino canoe traditions in California as a healing pathway. It wouldn't be possible alone. The the project is blessed to receive the gift of guidance and wood from First Nations in California and the Pacific Northwest who have already been reclaiming canoe traditions - carving paddle by paddle, connecting youth to elder, and getting bodies in sync. 

Projects like Bangka Journey are often not in the eye of the mainstream media - but they are all around us, agents of change happening with or without recognition, shifting at the individual and community level, reminding us of who we truly are and all that we can become. The sacredness of water, of family, and all our connections, is always there but sometimes feels difficult to see. But when they are held and nourished, bold transformation is not only possible but inevitable.

Nourishment: the hope of paddling (by literal paddle or otherwise) into balance

Mom and Dad Agree: We Should Know About GMOs

My parents have embraced change their entire lives. They were two young healthcare workers who fell in love, eloped, and faced the unknown of migrating from Manila to New Jersey in the 60's, learned how to disco and perm their hair in the 70's, bought a microwave in the 80's, adjusted from typewriters to word processing in the 90's, and (at least, for my mom) hopped on the Facebook wagon in the 2000's.

They've never stopped adapting, even as they carry a sense of the past. What this means is, no matter how fascinated they may become with the latest technologies or innovations, they don't think change always equals "progress" or better. Like, say, global climate change. Or GMOs.

Having spent decades working in hospitals, clinics, and rural areas with tens of thousands of sick and unwell people, so much of their lens on the world is framed around health. They wouldn't call themselves "political," but they do have opinions on matters that affect health and future generations. 

California is set to vote on GMO labeling, so I sent them a few articles and asked for their take on the labeling of genetically modified foods:

Aileen-y,

Enjoyed reading the article. Make sure you bring us a copy of Hyphen when you visit! Its sad and unfair to know there are thousands of farmers in India who committed and are committing suicide after the introduction of gmos. 

As a nurse, I feel everyone should know what they are putting in their bodies. Growing up in the provinces of Mangaldan and San Fabian, we consumed organic veggies, fresh from our garden or from the market. In the patalan, we ate from the fishponds and fish is harvested from the river, and fowl and chicken were cooked and served right after being caught.

I remember how we used to prepare rice from the palay by using the old fashion way of grinding it. My Lolo Roman had many cashews, langka, durian, guavas, mabol etc and a modest coconut plantation. Our means of livelihood was the mango plantation (which we still have in Mangaldan presently). I did not have an inkling of GMOs in our diet! 

Love,
Mom

Will write more when I open the computer. Am texting on my cellphone. Well, when we do research in medicine, even antibiotics were tried out on animals before being tried out on humans. If something could cause cancer in rats, it could cause cancer in humans. There should be better research to be sure its really safe or not.

Love, 
Dad

And that's what they said. Our mom is a little more loquacious, and dad is a man of fewer words, but they are refreshingly in agreement. While our Lolo Jose, a farmer-turned-pilot, is not with us any longer, I'd like to think that he would also be in support of real food.

Whatever you decide, don't forget to VOTE!

California RIght to Know

A Multilingual AAPI Voter Guide

Philippines GMO Eggplant War

Organic Filipino Farms Beat GMOs

A Feast of Stories

I'm a bit overwhelmed by the profusion of Bay Area Filipino/American History events. In a good way. From the Kodakan exhibit, to Oakland Museum's Dia de los Muertos exhibits, to Joe Bataan crooning at Yoshi's, to a 100-year-chronology and exhibit of Filipino civil rights struggles "We Are America: Resistance and Resilience," and more, there is a wealth of spaces to be. There is so much to celebrate!

I was thrilled to join Lit Crawl for the first time, at the lit reading "Barrio Fiesta." Hosted by Philippine American Writers and Artists, the theme was "celebration" - and that's exactly what we did, with stories, a packed house, and hundreds of Irma's crispy, golden lumpia at the venerable Irma's Pampanga Grill:

I always wondered what I'd look like as a cartoon!

Recalling Carlos Bulosan's words, "They are even afraid of our songs of love," still rings true in many ways. Reclaiming our history is about making stories visible. Celebration itself is a liberation. Our generation is blessed by the struggles of countless ancestors who carved out survival, the possibilities to know their stories, and through them, our own selves. This didn't come easily and there's still ways to go.

I'm thankful. There is so much to celebrate, including the very act of celebration.

Salamat, Jennifer, Justin, Melissa, Lisa, Oscar, and Karen (not pictured). Photo by Melissa Sipin.

More Foodstories:

365 days ago, I wrote "Foodstories on Filipino/American History Month." I feel blessed to have met - and continue meeting - even more fierce and fun Filipino/American foodies, writers, and all who care about the continuation and evolution of food traditions.

Many warm thanks to KQED's Bay Area Bites and Anna at East Bay Ethnic Eats for covering the most recent Cooking with Coconut class at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center!

Filipino Soups for the Soul

Soup makes my soul sing. Sharing soup with company is, well, even better. As the winter has slowly crept in I have been dreaming of a time to bring together family stories, warming soups, and many cooks in the kitchen. Last Saturday was the chance to do just that. Thanks to support from the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, I organized a workshop with the theme of "Filipino Soups for the Soul" (The wonderful Jo Boston has a writeup here!)

All smiles with the lovely cooks of the day.

Ginger-inflected tinola is a soup so familiar to the tongue that I based our class recipe on taste. It belongs to that universal lineage of delicious chicken soups fit for bodies on the mend. And, its even a traditional nourishing food for post-partum mamas. Like many Filipino dishes, tinola is resilient in nature. The vegetables can be switched up depending on what's in season and what's on hand.  Folks in the class shared memories of tinola with green papayas, chayote, or even summer squash. We made ours with tender-fleshed upo and the tiniest bok choi.

Waiting for tinola. Lemongrass, green onions, ginger, tatsoi, upo, and bok choi.

The soul of sinigang is its sour broth, whether using sampaloc (tamarind), fruits like guava or green mango, or citrus. Variations include chicken, bangus, and pork, and Jo Boston even mentioned short ribs. I got some salmon inspiration after a trip to the Pacific Northwest and the piers where Filipino Alaskeros began their watery voyage to Alaska's salmon canneries. The legacy of the Alaskeros and its imprints on Filipino/American history led to a unique twist on an essential dish. What was once a "substitute" for tropical fish, and a byproduct of the industry, is now a delicacy in its own right. In fact, my father, who grew up in Bicol province, favors salmon heads to any other fish even though the fish does not even swim in Philippine waters. 

Salmon heads!

Keeping in the spirit of previous OACC culinary workshops, we aimed to blend seasonal produce into traditional recipes, and mix cooking with conversation on adapting foods into kitchens far from the homeland. I felt the question of "authenticity" bubble up as we took on two soups. Some of our soups used local ingredients, like kale and bok choi, but other, far-traveling ingredients such as tamarind pulp were chosen in favor of capturing a traditional flavor. With all the rapid changes that communities - and our environments - now face, how do we keep the soul of those foods alive? 

Preparing onions, tamarind, and garlic

Maybe sinigang captures that question most clearly. For those familiar with this soup, Mama Sita's instant soup base packet is so common that its mention draws a familiar laugh. I shared a story about a balikbayan reality check. A few years back, I visited my mother's province in Pangasinan and trailed the home cooks around hoping to witness real down-home sinigang. We woke in the dark to trek to the market and buy still-flopping fish and the crispest vegetables. But at the moment of truth, when vegetables and fish were to meet broth, it was to my dismay - and laugh - that the familiar package was whipped out and sprinkled in. Here we were, in the heart of the province, and The Packet still made an appearance! I thought we'd be laborously shelling tamarind by hand, but no. (Still, I had to admit the result was delicious).

This is not to say the soup is no longer made in traditional ways - far from it. But it goes to show that the push and pull of instant and processed with slow and homegrown isn't just a question we're facing in the US. We live in a faster-paced time, where globalization and corporations are reshaping relationships to food. As a generation, as individuals, families, and community, though, how do we want to define that relationship? We can all be thankful for folks like Dominic Ainza in SF, whose culinary repertoire includes outside-the-packet sinigang, and Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan, whose Memories of Philippine Kitchens captures and documents living food traditions.

Maybe we can't all take the time to shell tamarinds or have a yard to plant fresh sitaw. But there must be some ways to honor the soul of our foods, no matter where and how we live. I'm thinking of the future, something bigger than any bowl of soup. Because if food traditions become all but disappeared, when those who plant and sow and harvest our foods are displaced, and when the keepers of culinary knowledge are finally lost, we will never know the foods that are at the soul of culture. And with it we will lose those delicious textures - a language, really - telling a story of who we are and who we can be. 

More On Tinola:

Belen, Jun. “On Slaughtering Chickens and Making Tinola”
Chang, Momo. “Asian American Mothers and Post-Partum Traditions: A Recipe for Chicken Tinola” 
Chang, Momo. “Motherhood Rooted.” 

More On Sinigang:
Salaysay, Cynthia. “Singing the Praises of Sinigang”
Fernandez, Doreen. “Culture Ingested: Notes on the Indigenization of Filipino Food”
Gapultos, Marvin. “An Interview with Claude Tayag.”

The Hands That Harvest

This week, on Thanksgiving week, I want to pause in gratitude to hands and especially the hands of the farmer. There is no turkey dinner, no cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie, without someone's hands touching our food at each point in its nearly invisible journey - from the fields, the factory, the shipping truck, to the market, to the table. There is no Thanksgiving without acknowledging, too, how this federal holiday is steeped in the painful history of stolen lands and broken promises. So in giving thanks, there is also space to mourn and remember the true meaning of today. 

Corn and calendula

The hands that harvest are brown hands. They are black hands. They are hands in earthen hues from sand to silt. They are calloused hands. Grandfather's hands. Lola's hands. Old hands that know wet clay. Young hands that grow rougher with each season. 

These hands are Pilipino to Pomo. Chinese to Mexican. Korean to Puerto Rican. Hawaiian to Afro-diasporic. Japanese to Sikh. Irish to Guatemalan. These hands are cutting asparagus, pulling silver fish from the sea, praying into seeds. 

The hands that harvest are broken, bleeding, and torn. These hands are misunderstood and denied a share in the harvest many farmers cannot take to their own tables. The hands that harvest are nourishing, beautiful, and strong. They are life-giving hands. They are the ones that feed the world. I am grateful to those hands.

Amaranth and vaca beans

My hands are still soft and barely calloused urban hands. When I look into the palms, though, I see something else much older than myself. I see the lines that connect me to my parents, my grandparents, and ancestors that came before us. I see hands that tell the stories of their lives, their soil, their struggles and celebrations. I am grateful to harvest the richness of their history in my hands. 

 Sunflowers and sweet honey

More:
Brown Girl Farming on "A Woman's Hands" 
Tribute to a Lola's Hands, "Q if for Queen of Hearts" 
KPFA's coverage of Indigenous People's Sunrise Ceremony on Alcatraz and the original occupation

Where We Occupy

where we occupy
after june jordan
by Aimee Suzara

projectile canister fracture crack
baton bullet teargas attack
rise remote display destroy
disturb the peace
on native soil
return release unsettle sleep
unrest the dead upset unseat
veils oya elegba watch
bathala christ diwata cross
baree baree tabi po tabi po
remember those whose
names
I do
not know. 

My first night back in Oakland from the farm was the night of the raid on Occupy's encampment. I had grown used to hooting owls and coyotes, and the distant yell of college kids to break the silence. But this night was helicopters overhead and an unrest creeping beyond downtown. Morning headlines flashed stunning images of tear gas and police in riot gear targeted on peaceful demonstrators. Although I was feeling far from the soil, I realized here, the unrest was its own force of nature, a water that coursed through streets like stony rivers, buildings like sentinel trees. And like any force of nature, things moved quickly.

Within days a general strike was announced for November 2. The march was a vibrant and growing flood as thousands swelled into the street. Families, librarians, scientists, faith leaders, mothers of color, nurses, a children's brigade, musicians, immigrant rights groups, elders, environmental justice folk walked out in full force. Oakland was a different picture from images of mostly white-dominated Occupy actions around the country. Brown and black faces moved the crowd, lifted banners, pushed strollers, and rocked the mic.


"We got to hella hella occupy!"
"We are the 99%!"
"What do we got? People power!" 

I felt proud to raise my voice with the thousands as energy swirled around us. It felt strong to walk with Filipinos calling out for the recognition of justice, with food advocates protesting corporate food systems that fail to feed, as an ordinary person in a river of voices. Hearing "people power" called out in the chants by this river, a term coined by the Philippine's peaceful People Power Movement in 1986, lifted my heart. This was organized, this was peaceful, this was beautiful, this was powerful.

And yet...some corner my heart was unsettled. I don't want to be a naysayer as Occupy is sparking across the country, has a national and global impact, and puts a spotlight to many social issues. But I had to work through the emotions that "occupy" surfaced, linked to a long history of stolen lands.

I first heard the word "occupy" when living in Hawai'i, and witnessing Kanaka Maoli-led struggles for sovereignty on their ancestral soil. As a daughter of Philippine immigrants, the language of occupation meant that takeover of ancestral lands - and the fight for accountability - could transcend geographical borders. At Occupy Oakland and elsewhere, Native communities reminded folks of the ongoing occupation on this very piece of earth, from false borders to lack of federal recognition. 

As writer Robert Desjarlait posed, "How can decolonization be a part of the process if the occupiers are occupying occupied land?" I believe in Oakland as one of the places leading that much-needed conversation. As this all unfolds, I hope, like many do, that this leads towards true transformation. And that will take the continual self-reflection on the roots of a 500+ year old history wherever folks Occupy.

 

Y is for Youth Transforming Food

Quilt Project at  Food, What?! Annual Youth Day, Santa Cruz

In the space of 5 minutes, the plain canvas squares transformed into colorful quilt blocks. Dozens of youth were asked the question, "What is one way you commit to changing food systems in your community?" With yellow, green, brown and blue markers, with crayons, and bold Sharpies, they responded.

"I commit to growing healthy food," read one quilt piece. "I will eat healthy and help my neighborhood to eat healthy," read another. "I will support small farmers."

I watched this scene unfold during the Food, What?! annual youth day here at the Santa Cruz farm. That day, over 100 youth from points spanning Watsonville to Richmond led workshops, built skills in candle-making to terrariums, rolled out pizzas and pies from scratch, and shared food under the orchard trees. They brought themselves, their stories, and their expertise - from youth organizing, urban farming, health education, to the culinary arts. These small and vibrant pieces of cloth piece only hinted at the daily work youth were driving in their communities.

That day, I and the other adult farm apprentices were invited to join as collaborators. I think it's safe to say we learned as much from the youth as we shared. I was blown away by the youth commitment to positive change, and their recognition of the root issues of privilege and power when it comes to food that, frankly, many adults struggle to even acknowledge.

If there is anything that gives me hope, it is witnessing the leadership of young people. It's true that many things are broken in this world. It is also true that our next generations are part of the transformation so desperately needed, and many are already charting the course in both big and subtle ways.

More: there's an outpouring of powerful organizations focused around youth leadership and advancing food justice. Below is a handful, including some involved with this youth day.

Youth Food Bill of Rights - because it's not just about the Farm Bill
Food, What?!
Live Real
Berkeley Youth Alternatives
Veggielution
Real Food Challenge
People's Grocery

S Is for Songs of Sustenance

Food is like music. It brings people together. It conjures from the elements, recalling lost conversations, a ripe exploding strawberry, lightning kissing mountains into sparks and fire. In a world that sometimes moves too fast, I am hungry for both food and music, the kind that nourishes, satisfies, and connects.

Today I was reminded of this deep soul hunger. I was sitting in a noontime gathering, Counterpulse's "Eat In" to mark Mardi Gras with food, music and memory. I didn't know just how hungry I was for the smell of homecooked food, for laughter and music, until the two hit me in waves.

From johnnycakes to lumpia - excerpt from "Our Daily Bread"

"Gumbo, adobo, lumpia," sang the women. Pancit, grandma's jamabalaya, empanadas, menudo, kimchee, and johnnycakes, they sang out. Invoking the names of beloved foods, they invoked beloved ancestors. The clang of spoons on steel bowls, shakers shivering, and voices sweet and strong as good honey were just right.

Food, like songs, can help remind us of who we are, the true things that sustain us. Who am I to resist a taste?

A Food-Song Buffet: Couldn't resist sharing these, ranging from powerful to silly. Other recommendations?

My poet-sister Aimee Suzara is a collaborator w/Deepwaters Dance in the powerful work, " Our Daily Bread." The premiere on April 14-24 is not-to-miss!
'From California Gurls, to Filipino Foods'
Dancing Salmon Home-Promo on salmon, the Winnemum people, and survival
200+ Pop Songs About Food

 

Q is for Queen of Hearts

An apo and a lola, photo by Aimee Suzara.

Lola, I remember your hands. Those soft and strong hands nurtured 3 generations, smoothed over glass rosary beads in prayer, and fed a family's memory of itself. Hands like yours build up and hold up the foundation. They are the hands of a queen.

I was 8 years old when we first met. It was 1992, a year after Mount Pinatubo erupted, and 24 years after my parents migrated to the US. You and lolo waited for hours to greet us at the airport, finding us when we emerged from a sea of balikbayans - those who have returned to the land. In a half-dream, I raised your brown palm to my forehead in the first mano po, a gesture of respect my sister and I were taught before leaving.

I know your favorite color was green, but I don't know what your favorite room was. I don't even know if you liked cooking, but you fed us, your visitors, like royalty. Early morning was the shuff-shuff of your tsinelas on the concrete kitchen floor. The way you dished up crisp fried eggs and hotcakes wide as saucers with such precision, who would know you were nearly blind? Years later, as your body slowly aged, it seemed you could see farther than most with those hands, just as your mind and laughter recalled the faces and names of those long past.

While an ocean divided us, I was blessed by every visit with you. Thank you for the gift of your hands; your legacy lives on in every loved one you helped to nourish. In memory of Pacience Erfe Muyargas (1921-2011).

The Kulinarya Saga Continues...

Banana hearts: halved and lovely

Whew. Sunday's Kulinarya throwdown was a culmination of many late nights cooking, tasting and general hustling.

It wasn't the way I imagined a culinary throwdown would be. There were no catfights. No divas. No Simon Cowell-esque judges. And there were no cuss words (except in my mind, when gobs of homemade peanut sauce dripped down my pants leg).

Not that I was disappointed. Instead, there was a warm swapping of stories and ingredients. Mouthwatering smells ranging from Batangas-styled escabeche to sizzling sisig transformed the 2nd floor of the San Francisco Metreon into a floating kitchen.

Maybe cooking is less of a throwdown and more of an act of bayanihan - of working together. Collectively, our recipes are living record to a people's sense of self, community and the earth from which all our food comes from. I know that this spirit is something that will shine through again on October 24, at the Kulinarya final round! Mabuhay Filipino foods.

More, Please:

Balitang America - plus a short interview with yours truly!

The Kulinarya Blog

SF Gate: Kulinarya Throwdown Shows Off Bay Area's Emerging Filipino Cuisine

The Challenge - 26 Days, 26 Letters, 26 Kwentos

Abundance.

Its the middle of the summer in Oakland, with ripe red strawberries, shiny blackberries, and early tomatoes bursting out of boxes at the market. So it seems only right to bring some of that abundance to writing!

Inspired by the' "poem-a-day" challenge, I've embarked on a challenge over the next 26 days of July to write a kwento-a-day, one for every letter of the English alphabet (yes, there's 26 letters and I counted).

Some kwentos will be pretty, others scrawny, but they will BE THERE, so stay tuned! Got ideas? Looking for recipes? Love it or hate it? Send your kwento over!

Pista Sa Nayon aka Filipino Meat On A Grill

Don't get me wrong. It would be unfair to oversimplify Pista Sa Nayon as a meatfest. This beloved fiesta originated in harvest celebrations and has taken root in many Filipino/American communities around the country. But my memories of nearly every Filipino celebration, from bazaars to baptisms to Independence Day - tend to be paired with meat on a grill. Something visceral to remember by, right?

Vallejo's Pista Sa Nayon sprawled out by the waterfront. Onstage, musicians like Little Brown Brother brought the music. On the lawn, I navigated the mix of vendors displaying everything from plasticized Filipino barbies, Hawaiian kukui leis, southern brass gongs, to t-shirts emblazoned with the iconic freedom fighter Lapu Lapu. But it was the combination of heat, smoke and the smells of cooking that are always the most intoxicating spectacle. I was drawn to the source:

Recognize this? It's a whole pod of longganisa sausages (and two wayward hotdogs) on the grill, getting crispy and ready to be served up on a mixed plate with rice and eggs, a combination called "longsilog." In fact, there's a magic formula for such meat, egg and rice combinations. Take the first syllable of the meat, and add "silog" (Itlog, by the way, means "egg," so you get the idea). A similar combo with bangus (a type of fish) = bangsilog, or with tapa (another meat) = tapsilog. Needless to say, there's endless variations.

My favorite eat, though, was not a silog at all. It was a tocino taco (a cousin of longganisa) served up by Ramar Foods, with chopped up bits of salty-sweet meat, salsa, and avocados bursting out of a warm tortilla. The only reason I don't have a picture of it is because I ate it, and fast. This taco was bound to happen some day - innovators like Seoul On Wheels won't be the last to figure out this charmed marriage.  And you could say Filipino and Mexican foods have been interwoven for well over 400 years now, beginning with the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade. So I guess this is keeping in tradition.

If I could have one critique of Filipino fiesta foods - its the usual lack of greens that makes veggie lovers and vegetarians alike weep. But for now, I was happy to dig in, knowing the greens are waiting patiently at home.

A Feast of Filipino Flavors

At long last - a forum devoted exclusively to Filipino food!
http://www.asianculinaryforum.org/ACF/Asian_Culinary_Forum_-_Symposium.html

 

Hosted by the Asian Culinary Forum at the SF Arts Institute, May 15-16 is going witness some fierce adobo throwdowns, conversations about Filipino foods past, present and future, and a live soundtrack from some fresh Filipino/American musicians. On Sunday, you will find me there, sneaking lumpia into my mouth and reading on the food lit panel, "Eating Our Words." In between this and the Asian Heritage Street Festival, its time to bring on the much needed celebration of our communities and good eats. Kain na!