Food tripping
Globally, Filipino cuisine has always gotten a raw deal when you compare it with those from the region. In Europe and the US, quite often they’ll rave about this little neighborhood restaurant that serves genuine Chinese, Thai, Indian or Vietnamese, with just the odd word for Filipino restaurateurs. So, it was exciting to pick up the August Esquire UK, and see the fruits of the Holy Week visit to Manila of its food editor Tom Parker Bowles (and yes, he is the son of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, wife to Prince Charles). Among others, he met with Claude Tayag, Gaita Fores and former First Lady Imelda Marcos; and his feature turned the spotlight on Filipino cuisine, in all its splendor and upsides, along with all its wrinkles and blemishes, in a very entertaining account. He loves sisig and lechon and in typical wry, British fashion, the feature is introduced as “our gallivanting gourmand encounters fried pigs’ heads, warm duck embryos, and a strangely seductive dictator’s wife only one of which he doesn’t eat!” It’s both hilarious and enlightening, and I encourage you to seek it out.
Bringing a picky foreigner guest to sample Filipino food is often a problem, and several attempts have been made to make our predilection to brown sauces and sour flavors more palatable to the wandering cosmopolitan. One relatively new effort is chef Bruce Lim’s version of Fusion Filipino Chef’s Table at the Infinity Tower, Bonifacio Global City modernizing our cuisine while retaining the original flavors and brio of the dishes. I brought my guinea pigs... I mean, sons, with me one Saturday lunch. Right off, the interiors cleverly stick to native material, but with a very contemporary look and finish.
My eldest, Quintin, loved his appetizer, the hot rock pusit, served with spinach leaves, and super tenderized by the hot rock treatment. Luca, 12, chose the ensaladang tuna and salmon, served raw and shredded, and on a bed of kamote chips. He asked for Kikkoman sauce, and had his two favorite sashimi choices. We shared the inasal na chicken Cesar salad, and it also got their thumbs up; the romaine lettuce is blowtorched, the chicken basted and topped with a localized dressing and queso de bola. Among the main courses, the chicken sat on salt is like our version of Hainanese chicken, but served with atsara and vinegared. Chef Lim’s tortang talong is enhanced with salted eggs. And leave ample room for dessert, our unanimous winner being the buko pie martini, with the crust crushed and served in a martini glass.
As is often the complaint when chefs do these twists on our traditional cuisine, some feel that the bestsellers are a tad too pricey for what could just as well be served at home. We avoided these bestsellers and went for the more unusual or “twisted,” and the boys left happy, remarking that the resto did deserve a second visit.
Modern life
The three novels today take on the societal pressures that impinge on living one’s life today. Each creates its specific milieu and yet, draws up something universal in the process something that all worthwhile literature aspires for. From a premise that would ask what a modern-day Jesus would encounter, to a novel set in the world of creative, artistic types and the struggles they face, to one about alienation and the search for identity in modern Europe the novels speak a language we understand!
The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey (available at National Bookstore): What if “Jesus” was born today, and inhabited our world? Would people believe he was the Lord? Would faith be tested? What would his trials and tribulations consist of? These and other questions are behind the new novel of the notorious James Frey. Using different voices the people who encounter him Frey does an amazing job of inhabiting his characters and imbuing his novel with a strength and creativity that shows he was born for the novel (and not the nonfiction memoir). Smart is how Frey takes episodes from the Bible, and creates parallels in today’s world. Definitely not a feel-good read; but one that leaves much food for thought.
Toxicology by Jessica Hagedorn (available at National Bookstore): Opening with what reads like a Heath Ledger-type episode, Jessica Hagedorn’s new novel thrusts us into the world of creative types who inhabit Manhattan. There’s Mimi, a struggling filmmaker, and her neighbor, Eleanor, an eccentric, fading literary figure who had a long relationship with the recently deceased Yvonne, an artist who seems to have drawn inspiration from Mexico and Frida Kahlo. In Mimi’s case, there’s a daughter who’s into drugs, a husband who left with the baby-sitter, and a boyfriend who’s flown the coop for parts unknown. When Eleanor is asked to do a reading at a literary club, their version of “hell” breaks loose. Absorbing read.
Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion by Johan Harstad (available at National Bookstore): Written in fragmented episodes, Harstad’s novel is highly stylized and very European (think early Kundera). Hailing from Norway, Harstad’s protagonist is someone who idolizes Buzz Aldrin, the second man who walked on the moon i.e., he’s out to pass through life in as unremarkable a manner as possible, afraid of being noticed. There’s rock music (the refuge of many), the Faroe islands (a physical refuge), and a rest home for the mentally afflicted (a literal refuge) as elements of the novel and our protagonist’s progress through life. Fragility, isolation and coping with the ordinary are the themes of this novel.
