From the kitchen of showbiz friends

(First of two parts)

With all the hungry in Africa and even here in the Philippines, don’t you feel guilty that almost two weeks after the holidays your ref is still groaning with so much food you don’t know what to do with?

We at home are among the guilty ones, except that much as we’d like to share it with the street children of Metro Manila there’s not really enough of it to go around — just a little bit of this and that. And there are also some food items we don’t want to part with because you don’t just find them in any store or commercial bakeshop.

Food at home started piling up when friends began sending them over during my birthday (second week of December) and all the way till Christmas. There were food baskets that were very useful, especially those with boxes of pasta that came with bottles of ready to mix sauces.

And there were the bags with healthy food options like cereals and low-fat milk that I should start subsisting on now that I’ve gained four lbs. — no thanks to all the binging I did during the holidays.

The weight gain I blame on another type of food gifts I received during Christmas — those that came from the kitchen of friends who took time to prepare or at least oversee special treats to be given away during the last holiday season.

From multi-Palanca winner and my Startalk director Floy Quintos I would alternately get pili pie or sans rival — prepared in their kitchen. Those two recipes come from his grandmother and I swear the sans rival (bathed in butter) is more sinful than illicit sex — although I don’t think dear old granny would appreciate such description.

This year he gave me pili pie and as always every inch of its surface was peppered with pili nuts — like Floy got the entire harvest from Sorsogon this year. This is not an exaggeration, but one reason I look forward to Christmas every year is that I know I am in for a treat from Floy with either his pili nut or sans rival.

Also from my Startalk family — Ronnie Carrasco, one of our head writers — came a whole big bilao of biko. Now biko, as any lover of native kakanin knows, isn’t exactly on the top rung of Philippine rice cakes. But Ronnie’s biko is made special with a generous addition of jackfruit. There is so much jackfruit in it that you don’t only taste its flavor, you actually bite it.

Ronnie said the biko was whipped up by his ex-father-in-law (a Pampango). Ex? Apparently, it was an amicable separation. Otherwise, if there was bad blood between them and the ex laced it with a toxic substance, I wouldn’t have survived it — given the amount of biko I ate.

Still happily married are Carlos Siguion-Reyna and Bibeth Orteza — although Carlitos is now based in Singapore where he teaches. Even before this couple got married, they would send friends dried fish in olive oil for Christmas and I’ve written about this in past columns. The way I recall it, Carlitos would even be the one to drive to Quiapo (in the ilalim ng tulay area) to buy the containers (transparent bottles with a tight lid). The dried fish would then be fried in the Orteza family kitchen (I don’t know how the neighbors were able to stand it) and then transferred into those nice bottles where it soaked in olive oil with garlic.

Now that the couple stays in Forbes Park, I guess all the preparations were done there. This Christmas I was again a recipient and that made me very happy — and fat. The dried fish begs to be eaten with rice and last Christmas Eve, while everyone feasted on ham and queso de bola, I happily ate my tuyo in olive oil, courtesy of Carlitos and Bibeth.

From another fashionable district of Makati — from Bel-Air this time — comes the best ensaymada I can recommend. For quite a number of years now, I’ve been getting huge ensaymadas as Christmas present from Susan Calo-Medina (host-producer of Travel Time, which now airs on ANC every Saturday at 9:30 a.m.) 

The ensaymada was originally the recipe of the Pampango cook of the Medinas and was passed on to Susan’s son Marc. But since Marc is now in Oxford, he in turn gave the recipe to the Medinas’ current cook, who now sells it at the Salcedo Market every Saturday. This ensaymada is buttery-rich and has plenty of queso de bola, which makes it extra special. Stored in the freezer it can keep for about a month. But considering the fact that it tastes so good, it’s one confection that doesn’t have to be stored as it gets demolished in a matter of minutes.

If Susan Calo-Medina’s family has a special ensaymada recipe, the kitchen in our old home used to boast of the best fruitcake. It was my Mom’s and, unfortunately, she is ill and she passed it on to a cousin, who — strangely enough — is also sick in the US (that fruitcake recipe must have a curse!).

Last Christmas, Susan Aquino, the senior staff member of Celeste Tuviera’s Symmetria Salon (they’re moving to 17 M.J. Paterno in San Juan this week) gave me a fruitcake she herself baked in her Pandacan kitchen. While the consistency was different (it was spongy) from my Mom’s fruitcake, the taste was almost the same and it allowed me to hark back to the good old days of my childhood. With all the things I had to do during the holidays, that fruitcake made me pause for a while and reminded me that it was indeed Christmas.

 (Next: The fruit salad battle royale between Judy Ann Santos and Dr. Vicki Belo.)