Lunching with Gilda Cordero-Fernando

Two fabulous pre-Christmas gifts I received were Gilda Cordero Fernando’s autobiography (The Last Full Moon: Lessons on My Life) and Sylvia Mendez Ventura’s A Literary Journey with Gilda Cordero Fernando. These are going to be unequalled presents beyond the holiday season, and I suggest you get them for yourselves and for friends who really matter. Call GCF Books, tel. 4113048 to order Gilda’s life story, and the UP Press, tel. 9253243 and telefax 9282558 for Sylvia’s critique of Gilda.

I shall be reviewing the two volumes, but for today’s column, I am lifting a chapter from Gilda’s exquisite essays on her life, beginning with childhood spent in Quiapo, and reaching out to recollections of grandparents, a romance with a man who became her husband, jokes, episodes on the second World War, growing old graciously, a letter to a son, reflections on immortality, and many others. Each written the quintessential way of Gilda, filled with wit and humor and feeling.

Tomorrow’s Christmas Day, and today’s column dwells on how Gilda spent Christmas 2001 — with a menu and commentaries that show how the Fernando family loves to eat, how gleefully Gilda considers each moment of her existence, how quotidian matters are elevated to elegant yet simple prose. I print this without her permission as I could not reach her until deadline.

Christmas Lunch, 2001 By Gilda Cordero Fernando

It’s so heartwarming to look out our window into the two other houses in the compound. Mol and Lilli-Ann’s sala is aglow with a Christmas tree bursting with frosted pink balls (last year it was white) and Arcus and Bing-Bing’s pine has stalactites and ice blue balls (last year it was gold).

I never put up a Christmas tree in my house out of principle because I’ve propagated things Filipino all my life. Later when I felt it was "safe" enough, Filipinos were already identifying with their Motherland enough for me to hang loose and buy a Christmas tree. It was no longer necessary. Daughter-in-law Lanelle was already married into the family and she could make fabulous Christmas trees with toys and silk balls and things. Wendy, of course, always had her own Filipino Christmas tree, the last one made of "buddha belly" bamboo hung with paper mache horses. But if you have seen our children (combined weight including hubby, 960 lbs.) then you know that celebrations in our house don’t center around the Christmas tree but around the dining table.

This year’s menu for Christmas:

ROAST TURKEY: Not that anyone likes turkey but Dad has this head-of-the-family feeling that he must carve something. The battery of carving knives are ranged beside the bird and they have a deadly gleam. (I know no one will eat turkey – it will end up sandwiches on Monday).

CANAPES: Mol is making the canapés. He is the family’s best cook. His specialty is oriental dishes but nobody wants Thai food for Christmas, do you? Arcus does great pastas and a really mean cod but today he just decides to be in the sidelines. Mol has got a printed kerchief tied to his head just like pirates of old.

The canapés are: fresh asparagus wrapped in jamon Serrano; red caviar (pasalubong of Arcus which must be used before it spoils); smoked salmon with attendant capers and lemon slices; and hot salami (really hot!) (The boys like some nibblers with their spirits).

LAMB SHOULDER: Last year it was crown roast. I don’t think the Fernandos could live without lamb! Arcus even came back from HIS Australian honeymoon (long ago) with twelve kilos of lamb in his luggage. Today’s lamb shoulder is stewed.

BLACK PAELLA: Beni (the cook) has mastered this squid ink rice dish which she learned from Gene Gonzalez’ cooking class. She keeps perfecting it. Her paella was good enough to impress the gourmets of our Women Plus Group. The only secret to black paella, says Beni, is to have lots of squid ink. Every time our ulam is squid rings she packs all the ink that wasn’t used in the recipe in a plastic bag and freezes it. That way she can have a paella that’s really jet black and shiny.

LEG OF MAJESTIC HAM: An overkill. By the end of the day this hoc sui ham will surely be untouched. I feel it will end up in hot pan de sal for dinner (yum yum) because no one will be wanting anything heavy by then. For sure everyone will ask for a piece to take home.

GREEN SALAD: To balance the grease of the lamb (pampaalis ng suya), romaine and lamb lettuce are tossed with grapes, crumbled walnuts, thinly sliced apples, and capers on top. Fruit salad: This is Lola Nene’s recipe of fruit cocktail, fresh apples, canned peaches, the rest of the can of walnuts and whipped cream. Somebody forgot there was already green salad.

THREE KINDS OF CAKE: Refrigerator cake with fresh fruits on top; chocolate mousse; sans rival. All fattening. All made by Lanelle’s neighbor in Beverly.

FRUITS: Each of the children’s families is assigned a dish but Wendy’s and Roy’s is always a big tray of fresh fruits. This year they have brought pears, grapes, apples, peaches and plums (purchased in Chinatown yesterday). They are now in different footed glass fruit trays and overflowing on the white tablecloth. English ivy leaves plucked from Wendy’s garden are strewn romantically around the fruit. There are ivy leaves around each place setting also.

BLACK COFFEE.

It is of course I who set the table because that’s all I know. I decided to banish my informal patio stoneware for the moment and bring out the heirloom crockery of my mother. The shapes are graceful, very English, though they’re made in Japan. Each piece has two robins on a branch painted on it. There are eighty-three pieces in all and quite a chore to use but I do so want our (only) two granddaughters to like them and eventually adopt them. We also use my mother’s exquisitely embroidered, infinitesimally mended snowy white tablecloth.

Dad has opened the bottle of sparkling wine (he likes the sound of a popping cork) but tells us that there is some better wine to come. And so we begin.

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TO MY FRIENDS, admirers and unsolicited advisers, have a very Merry Christmas. The Lord bless you and keep you and give you peace.

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My e-mail:[email protected]