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Thursday, August 24, 2006
Magsaysay: Food, glorious food!
By Jo Magsaysay
Whatever
Oh no! Not food again! Oh yes! I have been getting a lot of flak for always writing about food. It is obvious of course that I love food and that unfortunately for my figure, food loves me back so unconditionally, they surreptitiously sneak into my bodily tissues, snuggle luxuriously under my chin, my arms and my tummy so that I have ballooned into a grotesque caricature of the fat lady in the circus.
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So, what now? If you, sweetie can’t stomach another hosannah on food, go away! Shoo! Scat! Scram! Turn to some other reading matter that will elevate your mind. Impress yourself and your ego by reading Sigmund Freud to discover your id and what makes you tick! Be scholarly and read a historical treatise on the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Be au courrant and be informed about the Hizbullah missiles target on Israel. Hey! Have rollicking fun reading ‘Travels With My Aunt’ or indulge in the latest gossip in the tabloids reading about the open secret of the new shape Kris Aquino has gotten herself into.
As for you, dear Foodie, who can’t seem to get enough of my deathless prose, slobber on and enjoy!
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Enjoy the Singapore Food Festival in the Cowrie Cove of Shangri-La. I am told that eating is Singapore’s national pastime. Lovely! Historically, the crossroad of the ancient eastern spice route, Singapore offers a fusion of Chinese, Malay, Indian and European food and the chili crab is "unofficially" Singapore’s national dish. Trevor Stevens, the executive chef who looks too young and too good looking to be puttering around the kitchen concocting all those delectable menus for the Mactan Island Resort, having immersed himself in Singaporean food during his stint there, had cautioned Herman Long, the guest chef for the festival to go easy on the chili because the Cebuano tongue is chary and wary of spicy food. Not so, our petite host Sharon Samarista…so sorry GM Tim Wright couldn’t be with us, some urgent happening needing his attention…helped herself to a steaming bowl of laksa, a soup of thick coconut gravy with prawns, tofu, fish cake and beehon rice noodles so fiery hot and spicy, this perky Bicolana actually had beads of sweat glistening on her forehead. Or was it humidity and the air conditioner having conked out?
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The presentation was the thing in the Kueh Pie Tee, a vegetable appetizer of julienne strips of carrots and turnips, bristling out of crusty pleated pie shells and in the Rojak, spicy hot paste anointing raw zucchini, bean sprouts, turnips and pineapple.
Piece de resistance naturally was the chili crab, monstrously huge pincers to be tackled and manhandled, sucked and slurped to enjoy the sweet succulent meat.
Although Honey Loop preferred to be ladylike and dainty, digging her fork and knife to scrape a teeny-weeny bit of crab meat while she sparkled about the awesome experience dining in Japan which she will be burbling about in her column. Stephen Kapek, F&B Manager, who confessed he doesn’t like spicy food, lamb chops (grilled to absolute perfection), not even the superb crisp fried fish with wasabe, being German you see – so that’s why there were platters of frankfurters and wiener sausages among the appetizers.
Quite a switch of roles for our former colleague, the twinkling almond-eyed Lesley Ann Tan who would have sat with us to enjoy the food as Daily News journalist who was now hovering like an angel over our shoulder to make sure we had everything we needed. So exciting! So wonderful she gushed over her new job as assistant communications manager. Kept on her tippy toes bustling around the hotel, working under pressure. I love it!!! Fingering a lobster tail, I referred to my encyclopedia culinaria Nestor Alonso to be sure it was what I always believed it always was. A rock lobster? A lobster tail? That, my dear, pontificated Nestor, is a horseshoe crab also known as "pitik pitik". So there! A crowning glory to the sous chef should be the two-toned chocolate wisp, fragile as a butterfly wing that hovered on the panna cotta that stood out among the dessert, a veritable master work of art.
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"You have a masterpiece right there!" Reynaldo Reyes, the great master himself reportedly told Cecile Licad, former child prodigy now the quintessential artist of international fame and acclaim. "Right there" sat Alfonso Medel, a 10-year old boy with a prodigious talent playing on a piano.
The little pianist was performing for the masters, his repertoire an amazing selection of musical compositions by great classical and romantic compositions by a great classical and romantic composers from Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Tschakovsky. Name it , he played it. Having learned how to play the piano barely a year old, his piano teacher reportedly told little Lorenzo, "I have taught you everything I know; you have to get higher musical education." So now, Lorenzo, a fourth grader in La Salle, goes to the U.P. Conservatory of Music after classes to take up higher education in music and to rehearse for a concert sometime in November with the Philippine Philharmonic in Manila. Bubbling over with understandable pride and joy is Celina Moras, who is Lorenzo’s "Tia Lola" a sister of the late Mariking Espeleta, his grandmother who had been a "genius" in writing poetry according to her relatives. Celina had lent me a video tape of the child prodigy and I was stunned seeing and hearing this handsome mestizo playing his favorite pieces, every note sparkling crystal clear, his fingers rippling up and down the scales like a water in a stream. Then there Lorenzo was, his face painted with greasepaint, thickened brows, red lipstick a huge smear on his mouth, a cape over his shoulders hamming it up singing (lipsynch) the ‘Music of the Night’ from Phantom of the Opera. He is so "pillo" glowed Celina.
He is a little boy after all with an awesome God-given talent. Bless him!
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 24, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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