If there is a trend in eating during lazy and rainy days that I so love, it’s eating in. Without having to bother with preparing everything from scratch. That said, you have to keep a handy directory of joints you can call for delivery or takeout. There are the usual burger and pizza places, the reliable manang, who has been in the family forever, who can whip up a meal, and then there’s Tippi.
Thank God for Tippi and her line of scrumptious treats, all stacked together deliciously under the brand Saltine. (Yes, after the cracker we all know as either Skyflakes or BluSkies.)
Tippi never rushes the food she prepares. Tippi’s first creation was croque monsieur, the French version of grilled cheese and ham sandwich. As if to seal her fate, her mom, who was active at the Zonta Club, asked her to join a Christmas bazaar. Armed with bottled pasta sauces and her now famous lemon squares, her products sold out. She was then only 16 years old.
Little did she know that that would be the turning point of her life.
She was enrolled in a hotel and restaurant course at De La Salle University when a dining experience with her sister at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) at Hyde Park, New York clinched her destiny. Without her parent’s knowledge, she filled out an application form. She got accepted. Being the youngest, it was not easy to get the approval of her parents, but she did.
She set about fulfilling her CIA requirements, one of which was that she had to gain work experience in a restaurant or hotel. She had stints at Prince Albert and Le Soufflé for four months.
She studied for four years at CIA because she chose the bachelor’s degree course, which was decidedly more prestigious and more comprehensive. An internship at the famous French restaurant Lutece followed, and after graduating in October 2004 with a Bachelor of Professional Studies degree in Culinary Arts Management, she joined The Modern Restaurant located at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. The resto is owned by Danny Meyer. Tippi credits this place for giving her a well-rounded learning experience, doing all the food preparation stations and serving as many as 600 covers in a day.
Everything fell into place for Tippi. She did not need to rush her career. She took her time, and as we know, all good things take time.
The same goes for the food Tippi prepares. Her pasta sauce is made with the choicest tomatoes that are lovingly roasted for three hours. I love tomatoes, this humble plump veggie-fruit that I adore. (Is it just one or the other, or could it be a little of both? I do not really know.) I love it in a savory dish as much as I love it in jam. But I adore it as a pasta sauce, especially if it is done Tippi’s way. Over perfectly al dente spaghetti, the textured sauce tastes like it came straight out of a pot on a stove in Italy. It is bubbly, mushy but not soupy, almost creamy, even if there is not a drop of cream in it. It must be the cheese she uses, and the way she expertly incorporates it into the sauce. The sauce is a superstar.
Before the pasta, I already had two servings of salad, because she had prepared two different vinaigrettes: one a balsamic caper variant, and the other with mustard seed. I wanted to try both. Both are great. I also had countless servings of her chicken pâté and her dips in two flavors, white bean and white fish. I’m telling you, this white duo is addicting. So is the chicken pâté. All three I enjoyed with saltine crackers, and the only thing that stopped me from eating more was that there was more food coming my way.
The salad and the dips were a portent of things to come. A lot of good things come in small packages, and this particular afternoon, the next good thing that came my way was in the form of triangular pouches, in six different flavors. Tippi calls them patties. After I first tasted the food, I found myself describing them to family and friends as meat pies. They were good.
The foundation of a good pie is the crust. It always is all about the crust. This one is yielding, but it is not doughy. It is flaky with a crispness that is evenly found in its many layers. You would almost think she just bought the best phyllo pastry locally available, but like I said, Tippi chooses to do it the long way. I guess that is what separates real chefs from the rest. Going the extra mile is almost always the only choice for the former, while taking shortcuts is the usual way of the latter. The premium taste of this piecrust is not left to chance. It, in fact, takes no less than a full day to prepare, and one of the fillings alone takes six hours to cook.
Let me tell you about the fillings. They come in six flavors. Throw in your usual chicken and tuna. How do spinach, oxtail, pork belly, and chorizo sound? These patties are up there in the superstar department, together with the pasta and the roasted tomato sauce. Somewhere between the pork belly and the oxtail, I decided I loved them so much I could even eat them with rice. You don’t have to take me up on that, that’s just a quirk I have. I will eat most anything with rice, especially if it has a Pinoy taste. And as sophisticated as these meat patties look, they have a Pinoy taste. The oxtail is tender, like melt-in-your-mouth-this-is-so-good tender, and the pork belly tastes like adobo almost, in an I-have-to-have-one-more-just-like-this kind of way. These patties always sell out when Tippi joins bazaars.
About two years ago, I got as a Christmas present a tin of cookies (I would later find out they were toffee cookies), and what do you know? They, too, apparently came from Tippi’s kitchen. Try them. They are salty, buttery, and sweet. Her lemon squares are the best I’ve ever tasted (it comes in a sugar-free version, too!), and she has this bread pudding that is rich and decadent. It is the type of bread pudding that can trick you into thinking it is not a sinful indulgence.
One more word before I leave you to dream the stuff edible dreams are made of – Enganyo. It is another one of her desserts. Be sure to ask her about that.
You’ll probably hate me if I do not give you Tippi’s contact numbers. They are 843-8970, 843-8971, 0918-811-8088, and 0919-895-8603. Call now for your orders.
After all, what better day to satisfy food cravings than on rainy days. And Sundays, too.
Tippi also does catering for private parties and she is currently working on bottled dessert sauces that you can pour over ice cream and fruits. Mmmm, I almost cannot wait for that.