Sweet Summer Nights

CEBU, Philippines - The recent launch of Waterfront Food Concepts (WFC) at Treff of Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino featured a variety of breads, sandwiches, snacks, pastries and desserts for in-house bakeries, coffee shops, restaurants and other buyers. These were the creations of the 50-man team of Chef Adam Schihab, a Maldivian national trained in pastry schools in France and in Malaysia (at the French Culinary School in Asia). Everything worked on the theme "Sweet Summer Nights."

When your favorite food reviewer writes about pastries, he is actually treading into the unknown because he admits this subject is his Waterloo in the area of food. Throughout his life, he has very limited exposure on the topic of pastries, and many of his meals have ended without any pastries or dessert in sight except fresh fruits.

Chef Elizabeth Falkner once said that "Dessert is allowed to be more obnoxious than most foods because it's only there for fun. You don't have to have it [in order] to survive." And this statement came from not an ordinary pastry chef but from someone who is hailed as one of "America's 10 Top Pastry Chefs," and named by Bon Appétit Magazine in 2006 as "Pastry Chef of the Year."

Back in the 60s, the only pastries I was familiar with were the "hojaldres" and "rosquillos" of Ramona's Hojaldres, then located in front of our house in Barangay Parian, and the Sans Rival cake of my Aunt Leonora Paras, a Home Economics graduate who baked her pastries in an ancient enamel-coated Tappan oven. She had other cakes, but I was happy with Sans Rival. I was lucky to have tasted the "hojaldres" from Ramona's because the elements needed to produce this delicacy are now gone. They could be replicated but at tremendous cost.

"Bakhaw" or mangrove was used in the wood-fired ovens; yolks from native chicken eggs and lard freshly made from pork fat were used to produce the dough. They were all kneaded by hand and perhaps a drop of sweat or two were added to the mix but the end product was flaky and totally delicious. Oh, I always get this sense of nostalgia by just mentioning it!

Back to the "Sweet Summer Nights," I met Ms. Hanski Garcia, WFC Sales and Marketing Officer ([email protected]; phone: 0917-7218517) and Rommelle Don Mendoza, Waterfront Marketing Communications Manager, who briefed me on the tidbits in the service industry, including movement of personnel. The only thing permanent in the hospitality industry are the official titles and the mobile numbers of those who hold them that it can get to be quite confusing after a while matching names and titles and mobile numbers.

I immediately took photos of the various pastries on display during the WFC launch, and tried just a little of each kind so that I could taste the maximum number of those sweet delights.

I am thankful to the Lord that my pancreas has remained efficient despite my years. Diabetes used to be a rarity in the past and was thought to be mainly heredity, but the easy access to sugary drinks and excess in body weights, coupled with reduction in exercise, excuse me, have now made it as common as the flu virus.

"Sweet Summer Nights" had about 15 pastries on display, and my favorites that night were the Pistachios Macaroons, Cappuccino Macaroons, Chocolate Tartlets and the Banoffee Opera. Again, these were my personal choices and my beloved readers may find their own, too, upon personally checking the various offerings of Waterfront Food Concepts. (FREEMAN)