Food and More Food

got this meme from the love of my life (paul, not kitty). am taking time off my busy christmas vacation to stay all day at gateway to shop (made lots of money off the naughty-and-nice christmas cupcake business gina & i had) and enjoy the free wifi. the signal is strongest on the 3rd and 4th floors but from figaro (where i was earlier) and from mandarin oriental cafe (where i am now), it's pretty good too.

the lack of posting here shows me just how insanely busy i've been this second semester. am hoping the rest of the sem will be a little more kinder to my nerves and my eyebags. i'm hoping i'm wrong but methinks i've only had 3 full nights of sleep this second semester. boo hoo. but i did earn more money. yay. but overall, i've had to deal with more dullards. boo. but in terms of food finds and takaw-mata adventures, the 2nd half of 2007 has been fabulous. the polymath and i plan to end the year with lunch at cafe ysabel. yehehey.

and but so... the meme:

What were you cooking/baking ten years ago?
shoot. i honestly don't remember. in 1997, i had yet to take control of the kitchen so i guess i wasn't cooking much back then. i remember much more clearly the culinary disasters that marby and i had circa 1993 involving excessive cornstarch, bad strawberry wine from baguio, and cream (mercifully, not all in the same dish).

What were you cooking/baking one year ago?
again, i don't remember. i must have baked something for christmas to give away to friends and relatives since i'm much too cheap now to go shopping for individual gifts. ooh, i do remember The Great Brownie Bake-Off. i needed to write something for my creative nonfiction class under neil garcia so i decided to compare the brownie recipes of alston brown (good eats), irma rombauer (joy of cooking), and nigella lawson (domestic goddess). i followed their recipes and served up samples during my workshop session to bribe my classmates as well as get flavor comments for the ending of my essay. kasi, when you bake 3 different batches of brownies in one day, it becomes hard to tell them apart after a while. the domestic goddess won, of course, for subtlety and best cleavage.

Five snacks you enjoy:
1) real camembert made from unpasteurized milk
2) kwek-kwek from UP
3) cheetos, especially the jalapeno variant
4) instant kimchi ramyon in a paper bowl (my korea survival food)
5) cold buckwheat noodles with zarusoba sauce from a bottle and fake wasabi

Five recipes you know by heart:
1) three variants of banana muffins (kahlua, rhum, and orange-splenda)
2) mixed dal soup (lots of ground and fresh coriander)
3) morocco-inspired ratatouille (lots of paprika)
4) bahala-na laksa (made with ho fan and whatever's in the fridge)
5) bahala-na pasta (again, using whatever's about to rot in the fridge)

Five culinary luxuries you would indulge in if you were a millionaire:
1) my very own kitchen stadium
2) monthly takaw-mata sessions abroad
3) become a cheese affineur in france
4) go to japan and have an edo-style sushi meal
5) foreswear vegetarianism and eat my own weight in jamon iberico

Five foods you love to cook/bake:
1) banana bread
2) brownies
3) soft-boiled eggs
4) chicken neck adobo and boiled pork bones for kitty
5) anything that will make the polymath happy

Five foods you cannot/will not eat:
1) people (they're filthy!)
2) dogs (because they constantly lick their nethers)
3) cats (siomiao)
4) rats/field mice (there are so many other things to eat, like bugs)
5) chicken heads (i prefer my food not to stare at me)

Five favorite culinary toys:
1) my calphalon pans (soooo pretty)
2) this little italian-made wooden peppermill i bought years ago
3) my microplanes (haven't used them yet, just like looking at em)
4) all my silicone bakeware and cookware
5) wooden spoons (just can't cook without them)

Five dishes on your ‘last meal’ menu:
1) cheese omelette made perfectly by the polymath
2) oysters in butter and garlic by tita daphne
3) perfectly ripe raw milk camembert with crisp grapes
4) one of those mini baguettes freshly baked in the vietnamese refugee village in the outskirts of puerto princesa, palawan
5) one of those ginormous plate-sized crabs papa used to get from the south when we were in grade school, heavy with bright orange aligue, with pinakurat vinegar as dipping sauce

Five happy food memories:
1) that first risotto the polymath and i cooked together, with really fat prawns imported from project 4 (courtesy of tita daphne's largesse). this, like most of our best meals, was the result of cooking-on-the-fly and pure greed. i remember we put the prawn heads in a blender with some hot water and actually giggled/groaned when we saw the mush turn bright orange from the fat.
2) eating lamb vindaloo and palak paneer for the first time with tenzin and kalinga at shankaranthi restaurant near crimson house in jegi-dong. the first of many many good meals prepared by ramu the pakistani cook and eaten with our hands (a huge no-no in korea). despite occasionally bumping into the crazy kazakh museum curator there, shankaranthi became one of our favorite haunts. it was dark, musty, almost hermetically sealed (read: bad ventilation) and sometimes smelled like cockroaches but we loved it dearly.
3) that dinner with eung hwa at mad for garlic restaurant near coex mall. as the name suggests, everybloodything on the menu (except for the wine, thank goodness) had garlic. my favorite appetizer of all time would be their roasted garlic fondue. how to eat it: squeeze out squishy cloves of whole roasted garlic on warm crusty baguette slices, dip into boozy gruyere-and-emmental fondue, and cram the lot into your mouth. try not to die of happiness.
4) the sagada picnic series with the polymath. honestly, this one deserves its very own blog post. even if it happened way back in april, i still feel happy remembering even just occasional minor details (the wine cork that refused to yield, chef aklay's magical quiche, the bread studded with nuggets of smoky etag, the macaroni halo-halo, the old people rehearsing their gong dance outside the episcopal church, dodging cow patties that dotted the baseball diamond, the random baked stuff bought from the co-op). i'm gonna cheat and also include here that first meal we had at the log cabin--a haven after walking through town in the miserable rain. we ate in the kitchen, or more precisely at the table by the kitchen. the perfect meal.
5) tasting spring food for the first time on a rooftop restaurant at ssamzi market (the open plan building/art gallery/shop complex) overlooking busy touristy insadong. it was part of one of the walking tours we had for the 1st seoul young writers festival. eating fresh sprout soup and cool sesame-seaweed salad with alejandra costamagna right after a visit to a knife gallery courtesy of the korean novelist whose name i can never remember is one of my top korea memories.

may 2008 be even yummier! woohoo!