Saturday, August 18, 2007 Global resto, global teacher By Ober Khok
ONCE in a while entertainment news on TV makes me sit up straighter than a stick of barbecue or a rack of spareribs rippled with Mexican sauce.
It wasn’t even a sequel to the Ruffa Gutierrez-Ylmaz Bektas splitsville, which has now become staler than beer left unattended.
No, it wasn’t about what makes GMA7’s latest telenovela Mari Mar star Marian Rivera, she with the looks that combines the best in showbiz—Iza Calzado, Rio Locsin, Dawn Zulueta, Ara Mina and, well, add your own list. She’s a vision, a feast to the eyes.
Real food, it was about real food that ABS-CBN featured one night this week.
Executive chef Kristine Subido is very Filipino and truly global. Our girl works in Chicago—that city in Illinois, USA;
That windy city made so because it sits on a big body of water, and winds blow across it year-round;
That city edified by poet Carl Sandburg’s Chicago, challenging: “. . . Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud.”
WAVE (written in screaming capital letters) Restaurant & Bar is where Subido works today. That’s in Chicago.
The resto is done in vibrant red and warm beige. It is furnished with long tables where diners can share space and swap tales of the day.
In their website, WAVE says that strangers go home as friends after a meal at their place. Perhaps making this an even cozier world, the restaurant turns global in its special events through Subido.
Global Kitchen Class could be a new thing in the restaurant spectrum of things-to-do. It is not a “theme” menu. It is really a class, a dream come true for all-thumbs kitchen disasters like me to learn the secret of good cooking.
Every second Saturday of each month, from 2:30-4:30 p.m., Subido dons her apron and tok to impart culinary gems from countries around the world. Each month features a different country. May focused on the Philippines.
She teaches you how to prepare and plate (fancy for food presentation or decoration) your own food. What makes it fun is you are in the company of your own peers or a date for total bonding at a global level and eating your own reward.
Subido tucks in her deep pocket years of gastronomic wizardry starting with a culinary degree at the Culinary School at Kendall College.
Furthermore, her web profile says she served as chef du cuisine at Mossant Bistro, where she worked under her old mentor, chef Steve Chiapetti.
This began at Mango restaurant in 1994, where she started as line cook, then as sous chef.
Chef Steve tried to win the international Bocuse d’Or in 1995 and in 1997. He included her in his team, which won seventh place at the Lyon, France, tilt.
From Mango, she joined Chiapetti as chef du cuisine when Grapes resto opened in Chicago.
Global? For sure. Chicago is lifting its head singing so proud, and so are we Filipinos. (ober.khok@yahoo.com)
