Cooking for chef Cristeta

MANILA, Philippines - I was so excited! Me, go to Washington D.C. and cook?!

The prospect of cooking abroad already excited me and the probability of meeting the first-ever female Executive Chef of the White House – who is also a Filipino – just thrilled me to bits.

 Last Oct. 3, the Mama Sita Foundation conferred an award for culinary excellence on the White House’s Executive Chef, Cristeta Comerford. Last year, when I read the news in Philippine newspapers about Ms. Comerford’s appointment to the said position, I shed tears of joy and pride. I thought to myself that maybe, it can be the beginning of recognition for Filipino food.

But my tears were also for all the female cooks because I know what it takes for women to be in the kitchen – and to be in charge of one at that. Her triumph is our triumph.

After months of speculating, planning and coordinating, the event finally pushed through at the Philippine Ambassador’s residence in Washington. I spent seven days in the US capital – the first four days working, and the last three days de-stressing. You may have already heard about this event, but this is my side of the story – what happened in the kitchen.

Day 1 

My aunt picked me up from Dulles airport and after a quick lunch, we went to a couple of supermarkets to find out if there were read-to-bake puff pastry shells. We found some at Giant supermarket. Then we proceeded to the ambassador’s residence to meet Linda Gaa, the Ambassador’s wife, and to do an ocular inspection of the kitchen, the cookware, serving ware and the dining rooms. I got to meet my kitchen helpers-to-be, Annabelle and Jenny. I also checked out the lamb shoulder for the caldereta and the oxtail and tripe for the kare-kare, which my aunt had brought from Texas a few days before. I had the meats transferred to the refrigerator for thawing out. A date to do the purchasing of ingredients was set with Mrs. Gaa for the following day, then my aunt and I headed to our hotel to check-in. After a quick shower, I slept through to the following day.

Day 2

Knowing that it was going to be a full day ahead, my plan was to eat breakfast and lunch in one meal so as not to have to break for lunch anymore. That was what I did for three straight days. Of course, I also wanted to lose weight (which I knew was a bad way of doing so). My aunt walked me to the ambassador’s residence which was only ten minutes away, so I would know my way around. It was a pleasant walk along Embassy Row.

Mrs. Gaa and I went to the DC market, which was a wholesale market where you could also buy retail. Each section specialized in certain items so we went from store to store, buying ox feet, chicken, shrimp, vegetables, groceries and fruits. For fish and fresher vegetables we went to Great Wall, a big Chinese supermarket. Then we went to Giant supermarket to buy the puff pastry, sour cream, eggs, cream cheese and butter. I was going to use the butter to baste the roast chicken and the scallop barbecue and to finish the mango jubilee sauce for the dessert. Mrs. Gaa was very knowledgeable about where to buy things and I was able to finish off the market list I had prepared on the plane within three hours.

Back in the house, I started my mise-en-place (a French culinary term which simply means prep work or putting everything in place before service begins, depending on the situation). Jenny chopped the chicken and I cut up the pork for the adobo, and marinated these in the premium vinegar. Annabelle tenderized the meats for the kare-kare. I learned that when blanching the oxtail and the ox feet, they would add baking soda to remove the impurities. When the water boiled, the heat was turned off then the meats and the water were thrown into the sink for rinsing. This is what is usually called unang kulo. The stock pot was rinsed and the meats were returned to it and filled with water, then set to simmer until tender. I marinated the lamb for the caldereta in Mama Sita premium vinegar and sliced all the vegetables for it. After one hour of marination, I proceeded to make the caldereta.

On this second day, I also poached the salmon for the spring rolls and chopped the vegetables and made the filling, made fish stock for the sinigang, and made chicken stock for the lumpiang gulay. We then stored everything in the refrigerator. Annabelle started toasting the peanuts and Jenny finished the task up to grinding the peanuts. I then asked her to puree the peanuts in a blender with a little water, to which she remarked when she finally finished, “Ay, peanut butter!” The kare-kare was to be made with all the peanut power I would find, kare-kare mix and store-bought peanut butter, included.

I called it a day. I was ready to drop. I walked back to the hotel and my aunt and I went out for dinner. After dinner, I watched a little TV to relax then promptly collapsed in bed.

Day 3

Everything went according to plan. I had a head start because on day two I was just supposed to buy the ingredients. Well, it was a good thing because I was not even halfway through!

After a very heavy breakfast of oatmeal, whole wheat bran, over medium well eggs, bagel, smoked salmon, and fruits, I walked to the Ambassador’s residence, and was surprised that it seemed much nearer. I thought I was early at 8:30 but Mrs. Gaa had already left at 5:30 to buy the flowers in Silver Spring, Maryland. There is a flower depot there like Dangwa in Sampaloc, Manila. She’s indefatigable!

That day, I had planned to make the adobo garlic dip, sweet chili sauce, mango jubilee sauce for the fruit jelly, pineapple caramel sauce for the cheesecake, and lumpia sauce; marinate the roast chicken with barbecue sauce; cook the adobo; make the cheesecake; saute the kare-kare and make the sauce; and mold the jelly in individual glasses. All of the above were done except the lumpia sauce because it was already getting dark.

I had trouble with the cheesecake. My recipe was written in metric measurements, meaning in grams and liters as all my recipes are. In my one-track metric mind, I did not foresee that households usually do not have a weighing scale and if they did, it wasn’t really used.

I was relieved to find out that Mrs. Gaa had one but as I was measuring the sugar, the dial was not moving. Uh-oh! Then Jenny said, “Sira yan eh.” I therefore had to use measuring cups for solid ingredients – which is not how we do it in the restaurant. I had to rack my brains for the equivalent of one cup sugar. Was it 230 grams or 250 grams per cup? I couldn’t remember! I settled for 250 grams and prayed.

And how was I to convert 150 grams into tablespoons? Aargh! I scrambled for my cell phone to use the calculator. I spent half of the day just making the cheesecake and that really set me back.

On that third day, a Friday, the expected houseguests, some of whom had flown in from San Francisco and driven over from New York, were streaming in and out of the kitchen – looking, sniffing and asking about all the food they saw being prepared. I was trying my best not to get distracted.

Before the day ended, there was even a surprise. My cousin and my uncle who flew in from Texas dropped off two large boxes they had brought with them – one contained rags and one contained calamansi, freshly harvested from their backyard. “Ang dami namang basahan yan at mas lalong maraming calamansi!” we all exclaimed. It was a baffling but nonetheless pleasant surprise.

Day 4 

This was D-day. I psyched myself that I was not really going to eat lunch and I would only be able to eat dinner after service. 

Upon arrival at the residence, I took out all the vegetables from the refrigerator like a madwoman and began preparing them. Before I was halfway through, a friend of my aunt, Cecilia de Castro, a chef instructor from Los Angeles, had arrived with her entourage (a personal assistant, Angie, and a videographer). She volunteered to finish cutting the vegetables for the lumpiang gulay and the pechay for the kare-kare. Annabelle did the stringbeans and I did the eggplant.

Meanwhile, Jenny was filleting the lion fish for the sinigang. I wanted to serve one fish per person. I kept on looking at my watch. Annabelle did all the salmon spring rolls because I told her that it was not my forte. I roasted all the chickens and started making the sauce out of the marinade, which I parked when it boiled over and had later on forgotten.

It was already 4 p.m. and I still had not started on the last cooking stage of the kare-kare. I was panicking but I could not show it. I baked the puff pastry shells, made eggwash and brushed the tops.

Mrs. Gaa volunteered to be the one to cut the lamb into smaller cubes so that they could fit in the shells. A daughter of her friend who arrived early for the dinner helped stuff the shells and do the finishing garnish.

Beth, a cousin of Mrs. Gaa and one of the houseguests, peeled and sliced the roasted peppers for the garnish as well as the olives. I blanched the broccoli rabe for the sinigang, the pechay and stringbeans for the kare-kare, and the shrimps for the shrimp cocktail salad.

Once the burner was free, Annabelle jumped in to fry the spring rolls. Jenny was helping set up the dining rooms and she also thankfully began cooking rice in batches.

When Beth was finished with the garnishes, I showed her how to skewer the scallop, olive tomato and pineapple for the barbecue kebab. I had to rush and do the marinade in-between. Beth also helped me cook the barbecue.

As the waiters came to collect the hors d’oeuvres from the kitchen, we frantically reheated the spring rolls in the oven to make them crisp per Angie’s command. The ampalaya rings had to be re-fried to be crispy so they were served last. We were scrambling for platters because we were not able to lay them out in advance.

A while before that, Cecilia made Mansitini, a cocktail she had invented and served in L.A., in order to use up half of the calamansi. Then suddenly the awarding ceremony began and they called me to go down to the reception hall. 

Everyone looked formal and distinguished and seemed very excited to be there. I was swelling with pride for Ms. Comerford and Mama Sita as represented by my aunt. At the same time, I was thinking, “Oh no, they’re going to eat soon and the kare-kare had just begun simmering and I had forgotten to make the lumpia sauce!”

I rushed back upstairs to the kitchen, which was beginning to look chaotic. My organized and systematic plan was slowly creeping out of the window.

Soon after, the plating of the sinigang began. I assigned Angie to the plating and expediting of all dishes for the evening. She was used to these things. Then I demonstrated a shrimp cocktail salad platter. Was there a squeeze bottle in the house? Jenny and Annabelle could not really say. So the tedious and uneven way of putting the cocktail sauce on the lettuce was done with a spoon. At that point, the niece of Mrs. Gaa jumped in to help. Meanwhile, I was finishing the kare-kare. In the midst of it all, another uncle of mine who flew in from Texas was observing the circus inside the kitchen. So, I commandeered him to stir the kare-kare, finish the lumpia sauce, and finish the roast chicken sauce with rhum.

I desperately wanted to taste every single dish but as the main courses were being followed up by Mrs. Gaa and the waiters, I had to rely on him to taste those out of my reach. 

The service in the formal dining room was family style, so we needed platters for every single dish; and for the presidential table, there had to be two sets. For the other dining area, it was buffet style. It was a blur as to how all the food went out because there were lots of people drifting in and out of the kitchen.

The roast chickens had to be thoroughly cooked so into the oven they went; so with the adobo, but they were following these up already. The waiter came back several times asking for “Oxy!” which meant oxtail. Everyone heatedly argued with him that it was not “oxy” but he was insistent. I did not join in the foray because I knew that we had run out of oxtail. A lot of meat fell apart in the thick sauce and unfortunately, my metric mind made a miscalculation – my apologies to all who yearned for oxtail that night.

But like a giant puzzle, everything did fall into place that night. Everyone was fed and the guests raved about the food. I’m the type who is too shy to ask about the food, but the guests approached me saying that the food was good. They were also intrigued by the inverted cheesecake because it looked like a leche flan but when you sliced it and bit into it, it was a cheesecake. Angie pulled me out of the kitchen so that I could be introduced to everyone. I finally met Ms. Comerford. 

So what was she like? Ms. Comerford is a gallant and unassuming person. She has no airs and no pretensions, is respectful towards elders, embraces her being Pinoy, and I could tell that she is the type of person who is firm yet gracious at the same time. Everyone wanted their photo taken with Ms. Comerford and she obliged each one, not showing a hint of tiredness or irritation. We got to chat quite a bit and later on she whispered to me, “Would you like to visit the White House, you and your family?” Wow! I screamed inside but politely said, “Yes, I would.” in the least gushing manner I could muster.

Back in the kitchen – it was one big mess and no surface was clear. Food was scattered all over the counters, dirty dishes and platters were piled up, and more were streaming in from the dining rooms. Annabelle and Jenny went into even higher gear, working faster than a dishwashing machine.

At the end of the evening, as we were putting the kitchen in order, I found a squeeze bottle in one of the drawers. I hollered to Angie, Annabelle and Jenny, “This is what we were looking for!” Well, too late, but next time…

THE MENU

Cocktails

Lamb Caldereta on Puff Pastry Shells

Salmon Spring Rolls with Sweet Chili Sauce

Scallop-Pineapple-Tomato Barbecue Kebab

Crispy Ampalaya Rings with Adobo Garlic Dip

Dinner

Lion Fish in Tamarind & Guava Sinigang Soup

Shrimp Cocktail Salad

Kare-Kare

Chicken & Pork Adobo

Oil-free Lumpiang Gulay

Roast Chicken with Barbecue-Guava Glaze

Steamed Rice

Inverted Cheesecake

Nectarine-Melon Jelly