Recipes from the Garden

This newly-received cookbook carries much of the food typically served in Filipino homes, with the addition of modern-day dishes.

That’s the subtitle of the Good Food Book which our friend Chita gave us recently. It is a recipe book but is more meaningful because it  is a collection of recipes – heirloom and modern – which a group of ladies who lunch (long before that phrase became a reference to women who gather regularly for lunch) decided to put into print.

The word “garden” made us a bit nostalgic. We spent our early childhood in the town (now a city) of Biñan in Laguna. We had a big lawn planted with various vegetables and fruit-bearing trees. Our Tia Bana, who was in charge of preparing our meals, would simply order our houseboy Victor to pick whatever she needed in the kitchen, be it kamias (a souring fruit), green papaya, kamote tops – name it, she would have it.

Thus this new cookbook brought back memories of typical Filipino food she used to serve. This newly-received cookbook carries much of the food typically served in Filipino homes with the addition of modern-day dishes. The influence of foreign cuisine is also noted in some of the recipes.

This book is a project of the Lay Affiliates of the Good Shepherd congregation where the ladies, while going through their regular agenda, of course, discuss and analyze the food they had. Most meetings were held in private homes and they were served specialties of the house where they met. Needless to say, this led to the idea of putting the recipes of the food served into a book so they can be shared with homemakers who love to cook and who are forever on a quest for something new to serve their respective families.

Considering our increasing exposure to foreign cuisine, we note regional and international influences on a few of the recipes in the book, like the Thai pomelo salad and the Mediterranean falafel balls made of garbanzos. It is a bit spicy with cumin.       

The Lay Affiliates are the Mission Partners of the Good Shepherd group in its advocacy to serve women and girls with their spiritual needs. It will be recalled that their store in Baguio City has become popular also because of their strawberry and ube jams. No one visiting the city would skip driving to their store to bring home these jams.

Try and secure a copy of this book and support the mission of the Lay Affiliates of the Good Shepherd in their humanitarian endeavors.

Be charitable.

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