American Filipina

Cooking "Filipino Buffalo Wings"      There was a group of elderly women who made up the party circuit in my childhood.  They were inseparable.  I guess they could be referred to as the "Asian Golden Girls".  The group was made of my grandmother Lola Cording, Lola Fely, and Lola Trining.  (Apologies to any lolas I am leaving out here).  I believe they knew each other from their old home town - Agoo, La Union.  Recipe swapping occured naturally amongst this entourage.  Imagine, all they had to do was invite each other's families over, cook an outstanding dish, and ask the other how they made it.  The "Asian Golden Girls" shared the ingredients and instructions in between gossip and voila a recipe swap occurred.  The recipe might be written down on a napkin or spare piece of paper if you were lucky.  For the most part, ladies just committed the swap to memory.  The process seems quite integr...

     I was tasked to host a Merienda at my house and the mission for each attendee was to attempt a Filipino recipe that means something to them, a comfort food that ignites a memory.  The actual Merienda event deserves a chapter of its own, as does my experience making the Cassava Cake for the event.  I dedicate this entry the Cassava chapter.      I chose to make the Cassava Cake for the event because I remember eating it at several Filipino parties and I recalled shreds of coconut in one recipe that made me want more.  I wanted to duplicate the taste and texture.  I have not eaten anything close to it since.  My mother or grandmother were not really known for their Cassava Cake because they did not make it very often.  Grandma was known for her rice cake and my cousin was already making that for the party.  The Cassava Cake was to serve as an alternate dessert to the rice cake.  In the end, my decision was solel...

Photo from Life's Ambrosia I am starting to blog about my adventure in collecting comfort food recipes.  I am starting with Filipino dishes because that is what I grew up with in Texas.  I was fortunate to have a father who grew his own vegetables in the backyard of our suburbia home and a mother and grandmother who provided us with home cooked meals every day.  This was organic cooking before I knew the definition of the word organic.  Mostly home cooking was motivated by cost back then.  With a family of five hungry mouths to feed, it is no surprise that going out to eat was considered a luxury.  Since my grandmother died a few years ago, my brothers and sisters and I have been dissapointed at gatherings where versions of our favorite childhood dishes did not taste like grandma's.  So, this lesson of nostalgia has motivated me to go on a search to find the stories that go behind the dishes of our family and other families that have immi...

Our memories are all we have left at the end of the day.   All my life I have been a collector of memories, pictures, and stories.   I think my biggest fear is forgetting these things because they are the basis of what forms us.   Alzheimer’s runs in the family.   I know it has not hit everyone in their old age, but chances are fifty-fifty.   This brings me to think that I have to keep writing as much as I can down before I forget. One day, I hope my children will read the thoughts that contained me.   I want them to know the feelings I lived so that they may remember I existed as a whole being once.   I want them to know that I spent my life always seeking inspiration and enlightenment and was always happy in my space, but never settling for stillness.   I want them to know how proud I already am of them, even if they are only small people now. If I were to ever look back on what it was that I stood for, it would be that my family and friends wou...

Like petals on the forest floor not abandoned and left to be forgotten but with a mission to nurture the earth with my blossoms that are leaving one cycle to enter another my mission can not be complete without the passage of time some drops of rain and the seeds I left in the ground seasons passed that hold the memory of my genetic make-up to become again a flower to take in the sun to give back in all it's glory a bouquet more complete than the last.

Connected and focused Rhythm and rhyme Circle in completeness Irrelevant is time Light effervescent or strained in bind

Clay from earth old as time Many forms created and destroyed Once served a purpose to line palaces of great men Now lies still in tattered erosion Awaiting to evolve to a stone chair