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Thursday, November 24, 2005
Undying in a diet
By Jo Magsaysay
Whatever
DIET or Die! A harsh dictum with no sugar-coated palliative from a daughter who obviously loves me so much and wants me to live forever, she treats me like a hothouse flower, and Limoges porcelain rolled up into one corpulent…okay, fat! old pigheaded mother with a crooked spine. Another daughter hovers over like a guardian angel with an eagle eye and memory bank, guides me, guards me, protects me from carbohydrates and sugar. My 10-year-old granddaughter, a tough warden, monitors every morsel that comes in contact with my lips…no, no lola, only 10 peanuts, five lanzones, no mangoes, no melons! A third daughter mindful of my weakening spirit and flaccid will rah-rahs like a cheerleader: Cope! Overcome! Survive! I feel absolutely precious and desperately stifled!
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Cope I did at the sitdown dinner when Paparazzi went wild with mushrooms. While my colleagues transported themselves from Dante’s Inferno to Paradise, imbibing cocktails of their choice from a staggering wine list, I nonchalantly sipped my Wilkins mineral water, my heart livid with envy as Jimmy went into ecstasy over the white wine. Discarding the creamy polenton and crispy panchetta, I settled for the mushroom ragu seeking and finding the three varieties and the tiny bits of porcini mushrooms drenched in the cheesy sauce of the balls of potato gnocchi. With a vengeance, I tacked the medallions of beef stacked like pancakes and accepted Chinggay’s offer of another tenderloin medallion. To assuage my craving for dessert I had a teaspoon of semolina pudding and one strawberry. Could have hugged GM Tim Wright for his timely arrival rescuing me from wallowing in self-pity. Such a love! Wright buzzed by for a hello and goodbye, taking off on a vacation leave to Australia with his beautiful Mona and their boys growing like proverbial weeds and thriving in the expanse of playground that is Shangri-La. Sharon Samarista whose stunning track record is scoring more high points as publicist, journalist, production manager and all-around versatile persona fitting in quite nicely, thank you, ushered Chef Marco Anzani for a bow. Aye! Mama mia! He is guapisimo but sorry girls, he’s already taken, smitten with Amore over a bellisima young lady from one of Cebu’s elite families and who for purposes of identification I will refer to in that obsolete and eeky word “orchidaceous!” Speaking of romantic relationships, my pet, Jaja Chiongbian, actually blushed when we disclosed her “secret,” a romance of seven years standing with a certain young public servant with an impeccable lineage. Jaja, who has grown from a happy-go-lucky teenager with a free spirit to a mature young woman with both feet solidly planted on the ground, was completely starry-eyed as all of us gave our seal of approval.
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Next, overcome by a compulsion to where the action is, I couldn’t resist the unveiling of UNO…An amazing make-over by Waterfront GM Marco Protacio whose multi-faceted talents I am slowly uncovering. He, as design director in collaboration with chief engineer Vincent Lazaro and the WCCHC’s appointed committee has transformed Café Uno to Numero Uno, the number one restaurant with a distinctly elegant ambience, sophisticated in tone, and vibrant color. Italian mosaic tiles, frosted glass sheets water cascades. Cool. That abstract piece of whimsy on the wall? Look again. That’s another chef-d’oeuvre of Mr. Protacio who gave one of his Mona Lisa smiles when congratulated for his work.
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Two ladies of substance, Numero Uno in their fields of endeavor Gwen Garcia and Amparito Lhuillier cut the ceremonial ribbon opening UNO and the Gourmet Walk. Four Action Stations demand attention where sandwiches, bread, cheeses and dimsum were displayed at the Bread and Dimsum Station which I bypassed in favor of the Cold Station where sashimi, mix-and-toss-your-own-salad, huge succulent oysters and giant prawns beckoned…not prawns, says the kitchen character Nestor, crayfish!..oh no, there are no pinchers, asserts Aissa of the kichen stories. Slug it out, you two, while I enjoy the superb antipasto of executive chef Dietmar Dietrich, the king regnant, held court over the Hot Station where international cuisine from noodle soup to grilled meats, pasta dishes and roast beef boggled the eye and would have wrecked havoc if I had not ingloriously stuck to my starvation diet and over at the Dessert Station, the Pastry chef Gabriel Garcia had churned out every conceivable concoction that ever sinfully tempted a sweet tooth so I turned agonizingly away to look at a more pleasurable sight seeing Mike Rama and Mary Ann de los Santos enjoying each other’s company. No, nothing there but politics and they happen to be two wonderful people I admire greatly not only as exemplary public officials but as very dear friends.
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Finally, survival of the marathon meals meant testing my endurance in a four-hour 15-course dinner. A Lucullean banquet? Outright gross. This one was most decidedly and exquisitely epicurean. Not a pigging-out for gourmands but a leisurely repast for gourmets so that each serving was downsized to micro mini to savor the flavors of each dish with pleasurable delicacy. No better master for fine dining than Jeremy Young, executive chef and chief mentor in his Academy of Culinary Arts, who with his disciples, student chefs presented Le Grande Finale, the culminating dinner event of the two-year program of ICAAC.
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For starters, alternating hot and cold appetizers to whet the senses like a sliver of salmon, a small roll of crab meat salad, grilled Portobello mushrooms, a slice of foie gras, tiny sprouts of snowpeas and a little bowl of roasted red pepper cream soup. A lemon sorbet to rinse the palate followed by shellfish, thin slices of pepper-crusted tuna, a couple of pink slices of duck and then a dollop of passion fruit sorbet to welcome anew cubes of Angus beef and slivers of herb crusted lamb with kalamat olives, fruit and cheese plate, pralines and French macaroons for dessert. Scrapping the squash mash, rice pilaf, risotto and soba noodles with great reluctance and longing to enhance the flavors of the fish and meat with white and red wines that the connoisseur Dondi Joseph brought in, I filled my goblet with mineral water. I am told Dondi can tell the vintage year and French region of his wines from merely smelling the bouquet. Speaking of which, a nosegay of petit green mums and aster buds on each table looked so delightful I had to ask and Jeremy with great pride presented his adored and adoring disciple Fatima who ordered the floral arrangement. Are those wedding bells ringing? Definitely a blushing bride flashing her radiant smile was Doris Enterio whose warmth and culinary savvy so impressed me during a previous ICAAC event, I wrote about her making an ideal wife for some lucky guy someday. She announced her marriage to Christopher Crosby of Georgia just a few weeks ago. You’d think I prompted the happy union! Whatever. All my very best wishes, Doris and Cris! Having coped, overcome and survived, I look forward to another challenge although I haven’t lost a pound of flesh to date.
(November 24, 2005 issue)
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