Happy New Year!

Let’s keep the “happy” in our hearts and minds all the days of the New Year and through all the years to come! 

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We were happy to see, after such a long time, food innovator Vicky Pimentel, who pioneered selling pasta sauces at weekend markets years ago and who eventually opened the restaurant called Cocina Victoria in Filinvest Fiesta Mall. This was closed as she concentrated (temporarily) on catering. But old habits never die, even for restaurateurs, so Vicky is, again, at the helm of a dining place called Aruga.

Aruga in Tagalog means “to take care of.” The owners of a new hotel in Rockwell has aptly called their venture Aruga. Vicky’s new haven is thus called Aruga Café, located on the ground floor. It is a cozy little – by regular standards – place that can sit 40 guests. Here the lady does take care of her guests, with graciousness and an efficient staff.

As a regular at Cocina, we were fond of her Oriental Salad ingeniously combining roasted siomai with fresh greens bathed in light oriental dressing. Try it with her other specialties like the pasta and any of her other dishes such as chicken ala Victoria smothered with parmesan, parmigiana and mozarella cheeses drizzled with pomodoro sauce or the savory Spanish callos.

Nonna is Italian for grandmother. Our pre-holiday discoveries included a restaurant called such. Located in the bustling hive that is Solenad in the Nuvali area in Sta. Rosa, this is a spin-off of the popular Mama Lou’s Italian Kitchen chain, which started in BF Homes in Parañaque. They serve, as expected, a variety of pastas and pizzas. Among the appetizers, they have  grilled mushrooms, great!   

Kitchen lessons learned. A few years back, in the days when we were active in a food order endeavor, we equipped our kitchen with a meat grinder and a blender. They served us well. That was a very practical move, doing our own grinding and blending.

Because we have  sort of “retired” from cooking, we hardly have use for them now, until this past Christmas season. We needed ground beef for our spaghetti. We took out our grinder without realizing that the meat we bought had some litid (the white, string-y tendons). The grinder stopped working! It was the litid that did it, it would not go through the blades. That was one lesson learned – be sure the meat cut is totally free of litid.

On the other hand, for our chicken liver paté, we were confident our blender was in good shape. But lo and behold – it was not! It simply refused to work. Time to replace it, but in the middle of making paté? Our resourceful kasambahay said not to worry. She hand-blended the liver mixture and voila! We were able to produce the paté, even with some very tiny pieces of liver not totally liquefied. Lesson no. 2 – check gadgets that have been kept long in storage, at least a week before using them again.         

There you are – the New Year will bring many other kitchen trials. Be sure to be prepared and come out a winner.

Have happy cooking days ahead!  

E-mail me at [email protected].