To be on the firing line!

At the Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, the Culinary Journeys featured the Great Media Cookout, an event where select media personalities were asked to prepare their favorite dishes under the culinary guidance of Jessica Avila and the Marco Polo chefs.

Lifestyle columnist of  the Philippine Star Honey Jarque Loop prepared two family specialties: Pollo a la Chilindron and Lapulapu al Horno.  An Awesome Mango Float and Kini ang Kinilaw was presented by TV personality and Sun*Star columnist Alexis Yap. Photojournalist Tonee Despojo cooked the Grilled Boneless Bangus and Steamed Lapulapu with sunflower oil while the Sisig with Kesong Puti was arranged by Sun*Star Weekend Editor Noel Villaflor.

GMA Cebu’s station manager Ann Marie Tan, assisted by her daughter, handled superbly two dishes: Humba with egg and Chicken Binacol. I Luv Cebu’s Buenaviaje brothers, Doyzkie, Reymond and Edd, shared their dad’s special recipe: Crispy Pata with Kare-kare sauce.

And finally, Patrons of Café Marco from  April 12 to 21were able to taste three dishes prepared by your favorite food columnist: Jade Green Prawns, Beef in Perpetual Sauce and Crispy Squid Rolls. Thankfully, the reversal of the role from a food critic to chef was not really that difficult since these three dishes were cooked in the same venue, Café Marco, during a farewell party for Executive Chef Luke Gagnon.

I have had my cooking expeditions in the past, preparing an average of  eight to 10 dishes for one dinner and I am very grateful to Michel Lhuillier and family for financing some of these cooking experiments. I select what dishes to cook and what ingredients to buy, spend the next two days preparing the food, transporting cooking equipment and do live cooking and serve one dish at a time (interval between dishes, an average of 20 minutes).  At one time, I tried to cook 16 dishes but the dinner guests were groaning when dish number eight was served and learned that eight more dishes were yet to be cooked!

Chinese cuisine is my specialty and I must have cooked about 200 dishes and it is only by constant practice that you acquire the cooking skills though I have cooked a few Filipino and Japanese dishes. Books were the best guides then since Chinese Chefs are very secretive about their arts. And the best books about Chinese cooking are written by foreigners who have lived in China

Exception to this is a series of books, Pei Mei’s Chinese Cook Book written by Fu Pei-Mei . At one time I went to Ongpin to buy some Chinese ingredients; I came across a book store and bought these books and began cooking Jade Green Prawns & Crispy Squid Rolls. Beef in Perpetual Sauce requires that a portion of the old sauce is mixed into the next batch of fresh sauce until I had one that was 15 years old! I freeze the old sauce to be used in the next cooking but Typhoon Ruping came to Cebu and, goodbye 15-year-old sauce.

My personal thanks to Marco Polo Plaza Cebu for the occasion to share with my beloved readers the opportunities to taste some of my recipes and I hope, excuse me, that they really did like it. [email protected]