Thrills by the grill
THIS WEEK’S WINNER
Cheryl Chan Nolasco, 37, was one of the winners of Philippine STAR’s Lifestyle Journalism Awards last year. She is a full-time wife and mother and a supplier of women’s RTW fashion to department stores “to sustain my love for luxury” and good food.” Having spent so much time in the kitchen, “you’d think I’d be a wiz at cooking, but the truth is there’s a big stack of takeout menus by the phone, the microwave is overused, and I use my oven as extra cupboard space.”
Amah fished out the thinly sliced pork from the wok bubbling with oil. “You have to take it out while the oil is still hot, otherwise the oil will seep in and it will not be crispy.” She mixes equal amounts of sugar, vinegar and tomato sauce to make a smooth sweetish paste, the steady rhythm of her fingers hypnotic.
I spent many summers in my grandmother’s kitchen, back in the day when there were only five channels on TV, and Tony Ferrer was the local James Bond. Watching my grandmother preparing our meal was infinitely better than sharing sofa space with my bully of a sister.
We had a big yellow kitchen, shiny yellow cupboards, white square tiles, yellow Formica table with sharp aluminum edges, and matching yellow Formica chairs with metal legs. It was not a pretty kitchen, I didn’t mind. The kitchen presented so much warmth because my amah always welcomed me there.
I remember she kept the cooked food in the wooden cabinet with screened doors to keep out the flies. The Frigidaire with its rusted edges, the heavy wooden bench near the stairs, the blue Shellane gas tanks I sometimes sat on, the bright red thermos with a big cork on top, the dish dryers filled with colorful Duralex plates, and the window that lets me peep into Merly Fernandez’s kitchen. My nanny said she was a bomba star; it was thrilling to live so near a celebrity, never mind that I had never seen any of her movies. We often saw her come down in nylon negligees, the gauzy fabric hinting at the curves underneath. The maids regularly sniggered and pretended to be shocked by the spectacle, but they were mostly just hoping to catch a glimpse of Ms. Fernandez’s younger brother Rudy, his tall presence enough to get them swooning.
The kitchen was always teeming with activity, takeout was unheard of and nearly everything was made from scratch. Fish was de-boned, beaten, mixed, kneaded and formed into balls. Live chickens were slashed at the neck, their blood saved in a cup of rice for later use. Nothing was thrown away in amah’s kitchen. Rice washings went into the sinigang; eggshells saved to fertilize plants.
When in season, the vendors would knock and offer creepy crawly talangka — little baby crabs with juicy orange fat. There was no such thing as cholesterol testing — we happily feasted on the aligue until supply ran out. There was an old lady who brought tiny baby mangoes, only as big as my palm; amah buried them in uncooked rice until they were sweet enough to eat.
It was always a treat when the Magnolia ice cream vendor rang his bell. We would all rush down to get a vanilla wafer sandwich wrapped in delicate silver foil; it was akin to opening a present on Christmas Day. Some nights the balut vendor would call and cajole papa to buy half a dozen eggs from his basket; I would crack the still-warm shell gently so as not to spill the soup — the best part of the evening treat. Next I would eat the tasty yellow part, the duck embryo I saved for last — slightly hairy, slimy — and if I didn’t wolf it down fast enough I would still feel the soft cartilage passing down my throat. I did not really like it, but I ate it anyway because it always made Papa laugh.
The summer before I turned seven, amah moved out to live with another aunt, and manang Lisa took over the kitchen. She was a tiny old woman who had to stand on hollow blocks so she could reach the stove. Like amah, she distrusted kitchen gadgets. Her kitchen consisted of a couple of stockpots, a wok, a cleaver and a wooden cutting board. Although her menu was entirely different, preparations were just as laborious. For lechon kawali, liempo was boiled till tender; the skin pricked a thousand times and dried on a wire rack then later plunged into smoking hot oil, its skin bursting and popping like firecrackers on New Year’s Eve. Ube halaya was made from fresh ube from
Summers we brought out the ice crusher and made halo-halo. The blade cut me once, tinting the ice a light shade of pink. On some days, we rolled bilo-bilo balls and popped out fleshy langka for guinatan.
On rainy nights, we made hot chocolate from cacao balls, slowly stirring the chocolate balls over low fire until they melted. Unlike with Spanish chocolate, Manang cracked fresh eggs into the thick chocolate, one yolk per person, the softly poached egg bursting like a delicious bubble inside my mouth.
The air was sweet occasionally. Salagubangs, grasshoppers, dragonflies and frogs would find their way to the kitchen through an open window. My brother taught me how to cup my hands and put the salagubangs to sleep. Our hands were quick and often caught dragonflies by their wings. I am not sure why they came. Perhaps they smelled the aroma of food. Or perhaps they heard the tinkling of laughter.
