Off the Beaten Track and into a Pothole

Posted on 21 November 2011 by sheg4184

A large sign at Manila airport offers massages to relieve the stress. It was a timely suggestion after almost an hour in a queue going nowhere at a snail’s pace, followed by a long trek through a barrage of security checks. Seriously, Manila has the most secure airport in the world!  I wasn’t feeling so much stressed as defeated. We rashly succumbed to the temptation of coffee and a chocolate croissant on the final lap to the departure lounge. Of course they heated the croissant in the microwave.  I  hate that. Microwaves make the pastry soggy, and then, lo! the melted chocolate squirted all down my new blouse. The flight left almost on time, however, and we were on it. So, no real disaster, just resigned grubbiness…

The Radisson Blu, Cebu. The ubiquitous Filipino incongruity: luxurious, spacious five star hotel posing elegantly, hand on hip, between SM shopping mall, an expanse of tarmacked car park and acres of shipping containers. The view beyond the hotel was aesthetically appalling. Yet at night it was transformed into a showground, the main road suddenly looked like a fast flowing roller coaster through the city, while a storm breaking on the horizon provided a breath-taking fireworks display. The city is at your finger tips, and within the confines of our gilded cage, we were in heaven.

The hotel boasts 400 well-appointed guestrooms with all the mod cons.  A relaxing retreat on the edge of the port, it offers a shady landscaped garden, an attractive lagoon-style swimming pool and vast spaces of quiet, soothing marble interiors.  The entrance foyer alone is large enough to host a ball or a football match! A beautifully designed dining room serves an exquisite buffet breakfast and lunch. I have never really been a fan of the buffet. In its heyday in Australia in the 1980s, it so often forsook quality for quantity. The Radisson dining room was a completely different experience. Various stations exhibited attractive displays of Chinese, Filipino, Japanese and Mediterranean cuisine,  seafood, and desserts. The chefs were wisely promoting the theory ‘less is more’: dainty tasting dishes, freshly arranged, rather than congealing unappealingly in huge luke-warm chafing dishes. My boys went through the buffet like the efficient eating machines they are, with barely a pause for breath. For them, the highlight was the chocolate orange ice cream, for me, it was the prawn and pomelo salad.

Our room – sorry rooms as we had been generously upgraded to an executive suite – was the epitome of elegance. Two bedrooms joined by a comfortable sitting room, a selection of bathrooms, a clutch of TVs and a view over the pool and gardens. The boys were thrilled with complementary access to the internet and I was equally thrilled with my state-of-the-art coffee machine. An added bonus was the executive lounge down the hall where there was always a drink and a snack on offer – or a quiet retreat from noisy computer games. All was right with the world, and a far cry from my childhood holidays. I grew up in a tent, camping across Europe or in the Australian outback. I loved it, but my idea of luxury was a B&B with a bath. I never thought of myself as a five star princess. But hell, a girl could get used to this!

After two days relaxing in air-conditioned splendor, the heat hit us like a heavy, wet blanket as we emerged from the hotel. The traffic was seething: bumper to bumper trucks and taxis. Horns. Heat. Help! But I was on a mission to get the boys outside and see something of our surroundings.

We found a taxi and pointed it in the direction of Mactan Island. We wanted a day at the beach, but apparently the only decent beaches were privately owned by the hotels. However, we had been told that some of them would allow us to use the facilities for a small fee.

‘Small fee’ be damned. Gob-smacked by the fees they were charging for a ‘day package’ we looked about for a taxi to escape. ‘No taxi ma’am, but we have hotel car.’ Sure – for three times the price of the taxi that had delivered us to their door. So we walked to the front gate (no mean feat), determined to find our own way home.

And here Alan found us. His pedicab had just pulled up and he was more than happy to take us into town for a taxi. Or if we preferred, he had a car, a boat, a beach, a brother with a jet-ski…

We greeted Alan with enthusiasm and wedged ourselves into his Polly-Pocket-sized-side-car, then found ourselves bouncing over potholes, through potholes and into potholes. Eventually we turned down a dusty lane to a public beach and the promise of a jet-ski. The public beach was nothing special: a short walk through shop houses and bamboo huts onto a tiny, sandless cove. But the water was crystal clear, there was shade, and eventually Alan’s sister’s husband’s uncle’s third cousin turned up with a jet-ski. I am sure we could almost have bought one for the price, but it kept the boys out of the hotel and happy for an hour or so, and I sat amongst the villagers, warding off the old women who wanted money for nothing, or to rent me a tyre, or to sell me an ice cream. Ducks and dogs mingled in the lane, the village kids were leaping from the jetty, and an elderly gentleman named Alfred bobbed about on his inflated inner tube, chatting with the boys as they waited in the shallows for their turn on the jet-ski. It was only a little adventure, but fun nonetheless, and we have Alan’s number so he can take us out in his boat next time…

After one successful sortie beyond the confines of the Radisson, we attempted another. Remember those old movies in which deep sea divers dressed in space suits and wore brass goldfish bowls on their heads and then got attacked by giant octopi or the air tube snapped? Sea-walking was a bit like that – without the octopus or the snapping.

We drove out again to the far reaches of Mactan Island, to a rather run down hotel where a small speed boat took us out to a raft about 200m off the beach.

Now the boys and I have never been too keen on the idea of scuba diving. I am even a bit hopeless with a snorkel and goggles – I always get the ones that leak – but we thought sea walking might be an interesting compromise. There was momentary panic as I watched the boys disappear beneath the water in their goldfish bowls, and another anxious moment when I felt the weight of my goldfish bowl push me down the steps and under the water, but except for a slight wobbliness of the neck – think jiggling dogs on the dashboard – breathing was easy. The beveled edges of the bowl made it tricky to work out where your feet where going, but hidden beneath the surface was a maze of railings to guide you round the sea floor. Our guide and wildlife photographer gave us each a cup to wear around our wrist. Like a bird feeder, with tiny holes seeping culinary delights for fish, it brought those little fellas skibbling straight for us. I am not usually too thrilled to get close and personal with fish or chickens, but with the protection of my pudding bowl helmet, it was really good fun.

While it felt a little stage managed, I was soon bedazzled by the array of little Nemos dancing round my head: fluorescent turquoise; orange and electric blue stripes; salmon pink racing stripes on grey; a Tiger’s football jersey of black and yellow; a sleek slim-lined silver speed boat of a fish the size of my little finger…

Their navigation skills were flawless, as they dipped and dived like swallows all around us. One or two accidentally swam into me, but they frightened themselves more than me,  apart from the one bully boy who spent two minutes dive bombing my elbow like a cranky mosquito.

In the meantime, we drifted along the railings, stopping every few feet to pose for our acrobatic photographer, who was leaping on and off rocks like a moonwalker. Just as I was finally getting the hang of balancing my goldfish bowl, it was over. We emerged gleefully onto the raft. And as they had promised, our hair was still dry!

The next stage of the journey involved a banca, some more fish, an island picnic and snorkels. We were offered a huge wooden bowl of appetizers for lunch:  a couple of crab; orange and black spotted lobsters that looked like giant Moreton Bay Bugs, scallops and two large and beautiful shells that it seemed sacrilegious to crack open for the sake of the poor quivering sea creatures within.

Anyway, the set menu was plenty: chicken satays, squid and prawns, tuna steaks and pork, all perfectly barbecued, and followed by a refreshing fruit platter. Two musicians wandered along the beach with a couple of honky-tonk guitars whose frayed strings badly needed tuning. So did the singers! Most Filipinos seem born to sing, but not these two. They cheerfully warbled their off-key way through the Beatles and Lionel Ritchie while I snoozed beneath the trees and the boys snorkeled in the shallows. We fed the fish off the jetty and admired a vast colony of hibiscus-coloured starfish on the reef, before sailing on to deeper water at the edge of a wildlife sanctuary. Here the water was all the shades of blue and green common to precious and semi-precious stones: sapphire and turquoise, jade, aquamarine and emerald. And here we anchored for the rest of the afternoon to dive into the clear blue water that glittered like a diva’s dress with tropical fish. The sunburn was ridiculous, considering all the precautions I took, but it was worth it to get salt in my hair and seawater up my nose. Yes, of course my goggles leaked!

 

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Saving Face

Posted on 19 November 2011 by sheg4184

I recently received an email that made me laugh out loud. Entitled 5 Tips to make your house appear cleaner than it is, it was based on the premise that your house is a complete rubbish tip  and you have just been warned of the impending arrival of unexpected visitors. How can you quickly tidy up so the visitors won’t guess how negligible your housekeeping skills are?

Suggestions included collecting everything in a basket or shoving it in a cupboard, hiding the washing up in the oven and lighting scented candle to disguise any bad smells. The best tip came from a reader: put the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the room just as your visitors arrive and say “Oh you caught me in the middle of cleaning up!” They will hopefully assume the chaos is part of the cleaning process and your face is saved.

In many cultures saving face is a more serious matter than this flippant tale would suggest, where it is about preserving one’s dignity, social status or honour. Many societies devise strategies to maintain smooth social functioning and prevent humiliation.

Here in the Philippines, for example, there is an ever-present respect for age and authority. Po, Sir or Ma’am are terms I hear in daily use in Manila, while children may also accompany this with a ‘mana po’ by taking your hand and touching it to their foreheads as a visual sign of respect to accompany the verbal. Professionals are referred to by their titles: Doctor; Professor, Engineer.

These days, in Australia, the theory of democracy and equality has overtaken the practice of social hierarchies and has led us to largely discard such small courtesies in recent years.  Australians may see Filipinos as unduly interested in social status, overly sensitive to insult, and overly cautious in the avoidance of even constructive criticism. For better or for worse, our priorities have changed and most Australians place directness, honesty and speaking one’s mind above saving face. To Filipinos this can show a rather selfish or hurtful disregard for the feelings of others, something that sociologists describe as ‘social bankruptcy’.

Unfortunately this means cross-cultural communication is rife with opportunities for misunderstanding.

In the Philippines, surprisingly, when dealing with cultural or language barriers, speaking louder does not actually improve communications. Here, harsh or even firm words spoken in public are not an option. One does not embarrass oneself or others with public displays of anger or irritation. Such public humiliation means loss of face for everyone involved. This is not always something the frustrated Australian expatriate understands.

During my years overseas, I have assiduously tried to rise above my own cultural ignorance. Sadly, I am hampered by a personality flaw or genetic dysfunction common to red heads. I have a very short fuse. While I am equally quick to recover my humour, the damage is done. Confronted by my all too visible frustration, Filipinos respond with either a laugh or a wall of silence. What I see as passive resistance or rudeness, they are using as a means to diffuse an awkward situation.

I had one recent encounter with a stall holder who had sold me a faulty mobile phone several weeks earlier. We had endless problems with the battery, which would go flat after only 6 hours. I had tried to replace the battery and had even taken it to Australia when it was suggested that the battery had been affected by humidity. But I had no joy there either. So we re-visited the stallholder who finally offered to exchange it. However, it seems that in the meantime my phone had dropped about 40% in value and replacing now meant upgrading and paying the difference. I later realized that the girl’s bowed head and seeming distraction, the nervous giggling, her sudden refusal to speak to me in English but only in Tagalog to our driver was her way of attempting to diffuse the steam now pouring from my nostrils.

I am ashamed to admit that I lost my cool. I felt totally ripped off. To to me, the girl’s behaviour seemed rude and dismissive. My anger got me nowhere. I hissed and spluttered and left the store with the same damaged goods with which I had entered. Half way back to the car I was already regretting my embarrassing outburst. In the heat of the moment, despite my best intentions to control my temper and respect the local culture, I forgot everything I had learned about managing these situations effectively.

Later I ‘fessed up to my husband who just laughed and said ‘well, you did the best you could’.

No! I cried. I didn’t! I behaved really badly, & I’ll never be able to go back there again!’

‘Yes,’ he reassured me, ‘but that was your best.’

Well that is Aussie honesty for you, and doubtless exactly what I deserved. But sometimes I wish we Aussies were less honest and more in touch with the notion of saving face!

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A Tropical Christmas

Posted on 15 November 2011 by sheg4184

Is it a little early for Christmas tales? Not in Manila, where the scent of Christmas has been in the air since late September. My guidebook says Filipinos pride themselves on having the longest Christmas in the world, and so it would seem. The official Christmas season starting date is Advent, four weeks before Christmas. Yet in Rockwell, the palm trees are gift-wrapped in glorious orange lights in late October; enormous cone-shaped Christmas trees are erected inside and out of every mall as soon as Hallowe’en is over; the supermarkets have been filling the aisles with food baskets (gifts for staff) for weeks, and the pianist at St Luke’s Hospital was playing carols in September.

A legacy of Spanish colonization, Christianity encompasses the vast majority of the population, and most of the Catholic churches date from that era. But American influence predominates in the malls. Despite the tropical heat, images of a northern hemisphere Christmas still abound in the Philippines, as snow is sprayed onto Christmas displays, and poor old Santa is clad in his traditional heavy red coat and huge black boots, melting away in his sleigh on Makati rooftops like Frosty the Snowman. Last year our mall had a display of life-sized Polar Bears, Snow Leopards and Siberian Tigers. This year it is white antlered deer and a small white bear nodding on a sleigh. As is perfectly acceptable in the Philippines, Santa sits cheerfully beside a solemn tableau of Christ’s birth in the main foyer.

In Europe, Christ’s birthday was arranged to coincide with the mid-winter solstice, bringing a heart-warming message of hope and new life during the bleakest days of the year. In the Philippines, Christmas coincides with the rice harvest so it is hardly surprising that pre-Christmas Festivals that begin in November and reach a crescendo on Christmas Eve, all  involve a frenzy of feasting. Celebrations finally culminate on January 6: Epiphany or Three King’s Day. And then it’s probably time to diet.

In Australia, Christmas coincides with summer holidays. In his poem A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote ‘one Christmas was so much like another’ and so I remember my childhood Christmases in Australia. An amalgam of Victorian conventions crossed with hot Australian summers, Christmas always contained the same basic cast of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins and the incongruity of a 40’C day served up with a steaming roast turkey and platefuls of baked vegetables – heavy meals that left you bloated and sank like a stone to the pit of your stomach. Eventually the aunts rebelled at spending hours in a sauna-like kitchen, and Uncle Jack stepped in with cold seafood hors d’oeuvres and a barbecue.

The Christmas pudding, however, was the one tradition that could never be forestalled by adult rationale. Prepared months before and hung in its calico hammock in the cellar to age like a good wine, on Christmas day it was resurrected and set to steam in the vast marmalade pot. At the last minute, it was doused in brandy and set alight. Blue flames licked greedily up the sides of that mountain of raisins and orange peel, finally setting on fire the holly that was perched on the peak. A sacrifice to the gods or a Christmas martyr?  This ritual was rapidly followed by another: the children’s frantic search for the silver favours. Mum still finds a way to deliver a home-made plum pudding into whichever corner of the world we may have strayed.

My husband has similar memories, although the food culture was southern European. Food and plenty of it, seems to have been the underlying philosophy. It is one we have adopted with our own family, which makes us a perfect fit for the Philippines!

Here, the food culture is an extravagant mix of Filipino, Chinese, Spanish and American and the locals simply like to eat. As with religion, the Spanish have left a lasting impression on the lexicon of Filipino cooking: caldereta, adobo, lechon de leche, tamales and empinadas. Also, several Spanish cooking methods, such as sautéing onions and tomatoes, stewing meat in wine, and frying were adopted by the Filipinos.  Many Chinese and Filipino names were  translated into Spanish for the Spanish clientele, glamourizing the dishes in the same way we have used French to add a soupçon of sophistication. These included arroz caldo (rice and chicken soup) and morisqueta tostada (fried rice). Comida China (Chinese food) was cooked in a carajay or wok and served at panciterias (noodle cafés).

Yet on the whole, Spanish cuisine made little impact on the day-to-day culinary traditions of the indigenous Filipinos,, for whom it was too expensive to reproduce. Dishes that were common in Spain and Mexico, such as stews, paella and rellenos required expensive imported ingredients in the Philippines.  Thus they assumed a dignity they did not possess in Spain. Instead, they would gradually seep into Filipino kitchens to be adapted into ‘fiesta fare’ or food made only for festivals and special occasions. Spanish stews now combine everything from pork and beef, to chicken and chorizo, paella is filled with anything that can be caught in the sea, while Amy Besa, Filipina restaurateur and cookbook author, claims rellenos became ‘anything that can conceivably be stuffed’.

Brazo de Mercedes

Rich, elaborate desserts such as tortas imperiales (almond cake) and Brazo de Mercedes (a meringue roll filled with butter cream) are still popular today, and leche flan (crème caramel) remains forever number one on a list of top twenty desserts compiled by Filipino food blogger Market Man.

Unfortunately we won’t be celebrating in tropical Manila this year. A family vote decided that we were overdue for a white Christmas so we are heading to New York. But I will get my taste of the Philippines – I am planning to book a pre-Christmas feast at Purple Yam with Amy Besa!

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Body Language

Posted on 8 November 2011 by sheg4184

Today I had to give my fifth speech for Toastmasters International, a club for learning to become a better public speaker. I had it all planned and prepared, and then this morning, over a cup of coffee, I opened the guide book to check I had everything covered.

Speech Five was entitled “Your Body Speaks”. I was to use stance, body movements and gestures to convey my message, and movement should be smooth and natural. Well, I thought, I can’t do it. Why not? Because I have been crippled by my personal trainer and body language is beyond me. It’s all I can do to stand up straight.

So, you probably need to know a bit more about me. I am a pretender. As in: ‘pretending to be Australian.’ As you probably know, all Australians love sport. My family did. My parents still play tennis every week. My brothers kicked footies and swung cricket bats. My sister played everything and still travels everywhere by bicycle. They watched cricket all summer and Aussie Rules all winter, even if it meant taking it in turns to prop up the coat hanger that doubled as a TV aerial.

I didn’t. I hated cricket and rugby and badminton and horse racing and snooker and soccer and swimming… although I have to admit, I do enjoy watching my sons play basketball. I play really bad tennis as rarely as possible. I don’t like exercising. I loathe sweating. I am not even an armchair sportswoman. I read books. I like Scrabble.

Once I had removed myself from the school netball team (totally feeble, no stamina and I hate bashing frozen fingers on the ball) my only exercise was riding to school. Two whole blocks. And that was simply to disguise the fact that our puppy had eaten my school hat. Both of them, summer and winter. And they were too expensive to be replaced just for Milly to chew them up again.

I continued to ride my bike until I left Australia. Not for the exercise I hasten to add, but because they were the only wheels I had. For years, this minimalist approach to exercise was fine. I had a fantastic metabolism. I could eat anything and everything without gaining weight. Through three pregnancies my friends laughed at the basketball on a stick. Then it all went pear-shaped. Literally.

Three kids, thirty-(late)-something-ish, and we had moved to the UK where I discovered Sainsbury’s cheese counter. My o-so-brilliant metabolism went screaming off down the aisles. I gained more weight than I care to admit. Suffice to say that one basketball had multiplied into four. Curvacious? Nope. Circular. I had lost my waist and gained huge thighs. Moving to Sydney was no help. While the rest of Australia was jogging along Bondi Beach ten times a day, I was sitting behind my computer working on my Masters and drinking too much wine.

Anyway…

I surprised myself. I was lunging, lifting, leaping, and loving it. I had the sweetest trainer: enthusiastic, energetic and encouraging. I wouldn’t say the pounds were melting off, but I was slowly toning up and discovering muscles I never knew I had. By the time I followed the boys to Manila I was looking less rotund and feeling much better. And I wanted to keep it up. I had worked too hard to want to go backwards. Our apartment block had a great gym and I found a good trainer.

But…

A year on, and I was bored. Let’s face it, gyms are boring. I took the boys to Cebu for a week. Then my trainer had a week off. I lost momentum. So, on Monday, I decided to ‘act on yesterday’s good intentions’ (Toastmaster’s saying for the week) and I hit the gym again. Or rather, it hit me.

Lunging, lifting, leaping and definitely NOT loving it! At the end of the session I nearly fell down the stairs my legs were so wobbly. Today it’s worse. My legs are stiff and sore and cannot climb stairs.  My shoulders and stomach muscles ache. I can barely raise my arms.

And they want a speech with fluid body language? Sorry, that won’t be happening. Their bodies may be able to speak. Mine is just screaming… for a massage, a bath and bed.

Posted in Biography, Philippines | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Manila: City of Contrasts

Posted on 5 November 2011 by sheg4184

An oxymoron is something that consists of incongruous, disparate or contradictory elements. For me, the word oxymoron describes Manila perfectly. And the first jarring disparity struck me almost the minute I stepped off the plane at Ninoy Aquino International Airport: namely the extreme juxtaposition between rich and poor.

Five star luxury

On the one hand, the luxury lifestyle of the upper class inhabitants of gated communities like Dasmarinas, Forbes Park or Rockwell: the huge houses; the staff; the top of the range imported SUVs; the State of the Art schools for their kids. On the other hand there is the stark contrast of the cut and pasted tin shacks in shanty towns like Tondo, where there is no running water, erratic electricity and transport that consists of one’s feet, a rickety Pedicab or the brightly painted but antiquated jeepneys. Schools? Well, let’s just say there is nothing State of the Art about the rough and ready orphanages for the homeless street kids.

As I have become more familiar with Manila, so I have become more and more aware of its oxymoronic nature. Consider the weather. In the rainy season, the heavens open and the deluge could knock you off your feet. You wonder if the torrential downpour will ever cease as the typhoons rampage through the city, and the skies seem to be permanently overcast. You find yourself on the lookout for sandbags or an ark – even on the 32nd floor! And then suddenly it’s over, and for months the sky is crystal clear. Not a drop of rain. Not a whisper of a cloud.

Then there is the popular perception of the Filipinos as friendly and hospitable, the image of the ever-present smile, the warm ‘Mabuhay’.  All of these are valid, but all are in sharp contrast to the ever-present security guard, the personification of suspicion and mistrust.

High security batons

There he is at the entrance to every shopping mall, waving his magic baton over your bags in the expectation of finding a knife, a gun or perhaps a hand-grenade. Or alternatively the security guard that checks your shopping bags ten metres from the checkout, in case you have somehow managed to top up your shopping with pilfered goodies in those final five paces to the exit.

The most fascinating incongruity I have uncovered, however, is that of religion and capitalism.  In the sixteenth century the Spanish colonists arrived and quickly converted the Filipinos to Catholicism. Since then, Manila has become a devout and devoted City of Churches. On a recent exploration I discovered more than half a dozen churches only a stone’s throw from our apartment, from the garishly gilded to the starkly simple. I have watched penitents crawl on their knees to the altar, and children decked out for their first communion. I have seen hearses crawling through the streets of Angeles while relatives and friends trailed behind on foot. I have queued at the airport while a woman tried to gently arrange the family saint through the scanner on its way home to the provinces for the All Saints day holiday. Four hundred years later Christianity is still alive and well in the Philippines.

SM Mall of Asia

Yet, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Americans arrived to colonize and capitalize, and Manila also became a city of shopaholics and shopping malls.

But the Bible suggests that we can only serve one master, either God or Mammon; spirituality or greed and materialism. Jesus threw the shopkeepers out of the Temple. Still, in South Australia in the 1980s, the shops closed at noon on Saturday and didn’t re-open until nine o’clock on Monday morning. Sunday was a holy day; a day of rest quite separate from a weekday, and never the twain shall meet.

So imagine my surprise, during my first weekend in Manila, to discover a chapel on the top floor of the Power Plant Mall. The congregation had overflowed onto the concourse, where the faithful leaned on the railings listening to the service through loud-speakers while surreptitiously watching the shops and the shoppers out of the corner of their eyes.

Later I discovered Greenbelt mall. Arguably the most attractive shopping centre in Manila, Greenbelt consists of five buildings filled with fine restaurants, bars and designers shops, clustered around a lush green linear park. A chain of ponds run through the centre, bejewelled with goldfish, ducks and turtles. And at the top end, like a hovering space ship or a giant water lily, is the Santa Niño del Paz Community church. On Sunday, this open air chapel fills and spills its congregation across the bridges into the park. Hymns waft through the air, and an unlikely peace descends on the park, the worshippers and the shoppers.

Yet, while I may find this contradictory – church and mall intertwined – the Filipinos seem to take it in their stride and seem to see no incongruity in serving both God and Mammon. As reflected in their eclectic food culture and their heterogeneous race, Filipinos are adept at blending black and white into all shades of the rainbow. It is a national trait.

So a local website describes the Greenbelt chapel as ‘a blessed pause with the Lord for the busy office workers, the tired shoppers and the nearby dwellers.’  It is truly a piece of heaven in the middle of a shoppers paradise; spirituality in the midst of materialism. An oxymoron? Not in the Philippines!

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Jamming at the Fruit Garden

Posted on 4 November 2011 by sheg4184

“The rule is: jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today”

So says the White Queen to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass’

For those of us who like jam every day, I would like to introduce you to Pierre Marmonier and his wife Andrea. Foodies of long-standing, the couple recognized a niche market in luxury, locally made jams that used neither additives nor  preservatives. After some experimentation, they tested twenty flavours on a bunch of their friends. The Fruit Garden’s first products appeared in October 2009.

After years of working in the tobacco industry in Europe, Africa and Asia, Pierre finally settled down in Manila two years ago with Andrea and their two daughters. At this point Pierre decided he needed a sea-change. “I always wanted to do something on my own,” he shared.

The inspiration for jam-making came from his childhood. “My mother always made her own jams” he explained. Years later, living in Paris with his own family, he would take them out to the country every Summer to go strawberry picking. And they always collected extra to make jam.

The Fruit Garden jams are sold in pretty jars that come all the way from Italy. Pierre is determined to recycle, so every Sunday morning at the Legazpi market you can return your empty jars. And the hotels that serve Fruit Garden jams are also trying to implement this policy.

Flavours? There are plenty. Currently, the range includes strawberry (forever a favourite with the kids), pineapple, mango and a dalandan marmalade (dalandan is a native orange). And it doesn’t end there. The pineapple jam comes solo or accompanied by mango or coconut rhum. Strawberry jam is blended with mango, or with mint or banana. And there is a glorious range of mango jams, where mango is combined with ginger, white chocolate, vanilla, papaya or spices. My personal favourite is an interesting mango and lavender.

The range also includes a delicious pure honey from Abra, fruit chutneys and a special collection of jams made with seasonal fruits. In a recent new development, the Marmoniers are hoping to produce soy based candles in chocolate and vanilla.
Thinking Christmas? There are also beautiful boxed gift sets.

So where can you find these mouth-watering jams? Try the Legazpi Sunday market or the American Women’s Bazaar. They are also available at the Bacchus Epicierie at Power Plant Mall; The Market Deli in Salcedo Village; the Dusit Thani lobby delicatessen, and Paris Délice . Further field, look in True Deli, Victoria Tower, QC, Deli Boys in San Juan, Manila Airport and even in Cebu, Baclod and Borocay. And I noticed that the honey even put in an appearance at the BWA Afternoon Tea recently. So here’s to the Marmoniers and their scrumdiddlyumptious jams!
http://www.thefruitgarden.net/

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Who Will Buy?

Posted on 25 October 2011 by sheg4184

The Flowers
All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener’s garters, Shepherd’s purse,
Bachelor’s buttons, Lady’s smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock…
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Well, we didn’t find Lady’s Smock or Hollyhocks, but then the Dangwa market is a million miles from London’s Covent Garden, somewhere in the wilds of Manila. To be precise, it is tucked behind Tondo, north of the River Pasig from Intramuros, and about a 20-40 minute drive from Makati depending – as always – on the traffic. And it gets its name, less-than-poetically, from the Dangwa bus depot in Santa Cruz and Sampaloc.

Dangwa is Manila’s largest fresh flower market. Reputedly set up in about 1976, it was then surrounded by middle class neighbourhoods, obviously all on the look-out for freshly cut flowers to fill their homes. The market rose to glory during the Marcos Era, when it provided vast quantities of flowers for the florists who stocked Malacanang Palace. By 1994, the market was open 24 hours, 7 days a week, with flower deliveries arriving mostly in the late evening to ensure freshness and longevity.

Flowers pour in daily from all over the Philippines, and from as far afield as Ecuador and the Netherlands. And this wholesale market is still a popular source of fresh flowers for local florists. Peak seasons include Holy Week, Valentine’s Day, All Saints Day, Mother’s Day, and Christmas, when prices soar. On Valentine’s Day, customers will flock to the market until almost midnight.

It has been suggested that late evening or very early morning are the best times to visit, but we ignored all such ridiculous advice and arrived at the more civilized hour of 10am. A small boy ushered us into a parking space outside Chow King and then attached himself to us for the morning. This young but cheeky guide then proceeded to present us with single red roses and pink carnations, till we had to tell him to stop pilfering the stalls.

The market stalls spread up and down several streets. We began our walk at a covered market, wandering past banks of vividly coloured daisies and walls of roses. Glorious arrangements for weddings and funerals were set up on bamboo tripods down the centre of the street, and clusters of smaller, rainbow-coloured table decorations dotted the pavements. We cheerfully acknowledged a stray poinsettia, gerberas, irises and carnations.

It was fun, too, to introduce ourselves to the tropical plants – note that these will last longer in the heat than the more vulnerable imported flowers.

~ See those soft, velvety, tightly crimped celosias in musky pink, dusky red and dusty orange?

~ And the banana-coloured ‘Mickey Mouse ears’? Although, personally, I think they look more like giraffe heads.

~ And look at the extraordinary, prickly red pineapple flower!

One stall was choc-a-block with greenery – ferns, variegated leaves, grasses – another boasted a pool of blue chrysanthemums. We found huge white orchids bowing gracefully from terracotta pots; fragrant, butter-coloured cassia in vast, grape-like bunches; numerous varieties of regal heliconias, with their distinctive geometric stem pattern some that can grow as tall as 30 feet. Some looked like bright orange crab claws, others resembled pink flamingos. We stroked the watermelon pink torch ginger, soft and girlish, but with a slightly unpleasant scent. And I love those lanky shower heads – some kind of water lily..?

We wandered down the two or three streets that are closed to cars, but the river of flowers didn’t end there, flowing down the narrow pavements along the traffic-laden roads. As we dodged jeepneys and pedicabs, potholes and puddles, I suddenly realized why it might be better to come earlier. Gradually our arms filled with newspaper wrappers. I couldn’t resist the deep marmalade rose buds, despite knowing they would wilt like braised cabbage in a couple of days. They did too – not lasting even a day, but drooping limply over the edge of the vase like languorous ladies-of-leisure before dinnertime. But they did smell sweetly nostalgic.

I also acquired some hardier flowers which are still standing upright a week later. Much to my delight, I discovered stalks of achuete – like pod-shaped rambutan – feeling very proud to recognize them after only being introduced in Pampanga quite recently. I had to ignore the lilies, they give my husband instant hay fever, but I found some interestingly pale, corn-coloured flowers, stiffly shaped like a fossils or a centipede on a stick – but actually, I later discovered, nicknamed for the rattlesnake.

And everywhere we looked we saw those waxy red anthuriums with the large stamen you need to touch every time to check they are not made of plastic. We nodded to stately vases filled with white calla or arum lilies that I hadn’t seen since I was a child, when they grew under our almond tree, happy feasting for snails. We also unearthed some mini ones in daffodil-bright-golden-yellow, and others of a dusky claret or mangosteen.

By the time we decided to flee from the heat, the boot of the car was heaped high with flowers of all kinds and colours. We gloated over our purchases which included a couple of tall and promising vases. Now if I only had some talent for flower-arranging…

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Volcanoes in Salcedo!

Posted on 20 October 2011 by sheg4184

Once upon a time, an Aussie wandered east to California, to train as a chocolatier. Returning to Sydney some time later, he launched a range of chocolate dipped fruit, fresh, dried and glace. He dubbed them Naughty Fruits and supplied them to delis and cafes across Sydney. Then he packed his bags for Melbourne where he and his family wove their magic to create the Chocolate Fire Coffee Lounge to captivate the chocolate capital of Australia.

Now, grab my hand and we will whizz through time to September 2011. Chocolate Fire has vanished in a puff of smoke from central Melbourne, and has magically reappeared in the heart of Salcedo Village in Manila.

“Why Manila?” you ask? So did I. As the magician’s daughter Koby was upstairs designing a chocolate wedding cake, her new husband Casey related the family history.

The Parcell family first came to Manila in the early 80s. A far cry from chocolate-making, Peter, our audacious chocolatier, was now on a mission to run around the world. This particular chapter involved running the length of the Philippines, from Ilocos Norte to the Malacanang Palace in Manila. During this episode, Peter and his family fell in love with the Philippines and the warmth of the Filipinos. So they stayed on and made an early attempt to start a business here with “Fudgies.” Despite the infamous Filipino sweet tooth, the locals weren’t too sure what to do with fudge and the idea never really took off. In the meantime, however, running became a family pastime. To celebrate the fifth anniversary of Peter’s first run Koby’s sister, aged only fourteen, ran the length of the country with her father, at the particular request of President Corazon Aquino.

Several years later, with the success of Chocolate Fire in Melbourne, investors suggested developing the brand internationally. After much debate, it was decided that Asia might just prove to be a better market than the States, and Manila, (strategically placed, English speaking, and still friendly) could be the best starting point. The café in Melbourne was sold, but the family took the name and the product with them and Chocolate Fire opened for business in the Philippines in March 2010.

Walking into Chocolate Fire is a delight, even if you are not a chocoholic. Slabs of chocolate, truffles and cakes elbow for room inside the glass display counters. And I was like a kid at Christmas even before I started to notice a vein of Aussie nostalgia running through the cafe.

Chocolate frogs and chocolate crocodile lollipops; chocolate crackles and cornflake crackles, the mainstay of every 70s children’s party; chocolate dipped ANZAC biscuits; a slab of chocolate bark called True Blue seething with Macademia nuts (yum!) AND the honey comb crunch, a firm favourite with every visiting Australian, and a close relation to the long-time Aussie favourite, Violet Crumble.

The chocolate dipped fruit strikes a chord with the locals: Californian strawberries, orange slices and dried figs, as well as seasonal favourites such as pineapple, mango and papaya.

Kids love the chocolate lollipops and the Baby Chinos, and the coffee is the best I have found in Manila.  Planning a romantic tête-a-tête? Try the chocolate fondue for two with a bottle of wine.  Or for ladies-who-lunch, there are fabulous toasted sandwiches, something I fear I will be revisiting on a daily but doubtless calorific basis! Perhaps you are thinking of Christmas? There are some lovely boxed treats for family, staff and friends. And there are some great little dome-shaped, muffin-sized cakes nicknamed ‘blobs,’ that come in chocolate, banana and carrot.

Chocolate Fire also supplies other cafés, and is happy to cater for private events in the upstairs lounge. An earlier dip into the World Wide Web found Chocolate Fire starring in popular Filipino blog ‘Our Awesome Planet’ as the venue for a baptism party, complete with white-chocolate-Angel-cupcake. My son recently celebrated  his sixteenth birthday there, and had a brilliant evening. Simple but sweet: Spaghetti Bolognese and chocolate fondue – at the same time, if you don’t mind!  But, I hasten to add, at his guests insistence, not Koby’s.

Koby apparently excels at creating buzz for the café. “Twitter is a really strong tool for us” says Casey. And new creations pop up on their Facebook page daily, although Koby laughingly says she’s run out of room on the register and has told Peter to slow down on the inventing.

When dropping in for the BEST mortadella paninis, I asked my sons if I could pick them up some treats. ‘What is your favourite?’ I foolishly asked. Anything and everything it seems. “Mum, its chocolate!” came the heavily sarcastic “der” response.

And my favourite? Without a doubt the pyramids of dark chocolate heavily flavoured with chili to make your tongue tingle, known as Volcanoes. Happy days…

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Drifting Down the Mekong

Posted on 15 October 2011 by sheg4184

Flying into Saigon provided a stunning aerial view of immense snaking waterways, twisting and turning through the city and surrounding countryside.

Growing up in a South Australian city that boasts only a narrow creek, I am always impressed by the presence of real rivers, and Saigon is generously endowed with these, situated as it is on the Mekong Delta. (Please note that I will continue to call it Saigon – it sounds much more romantic than HCMC, and the locals don’t seem to mind.)

On day two we boarded a bus to visit it eye-to-eye. Our guide lugubriously warned us that the bus trip would be long and slow, the floating markets were ‘not for tourists,’ so there would ‘not be any souvenirs for sale,’ and a number of other equally dismal messages that I couldn’t decipher over the crackling of the microphone. As a result, we felt mutinously cheerful that the day would be fun. Luckily for the reputation of the tour company, it was. Our guide got us to the river in less than the anticipated 4 hours (managing expectations, perhaps?) and our boat was waiting for us at the pier as we descended stiffly from the bus, thanks to the whiplash-inducing potholes in the road.

The Mekong River is considerably wider and faster than the Pasig at this point, and the water is the colour of turmeric. Our boat was powered with a clamorous 2-stroke engine that set our teeth on edge, and we perched precariously on folding wicker dining chairs on the highly polished deck. For US$1.00 I had purchased a traditional Vietnamese cone hat at a street stall – a very wise extravagance as it turned out – and off we went, to find the not-for-tourists floating markets. As we turned off the Mekong onto a slightly narrower tributary, the river started to resemble EDSA at rush hour.

Barges and boats cluttered the water and the riverbanks. Many sported eyes like those of the ‘wise-eyed boats on the Yangtze River.’ (Remember “The Story About Ping”?) The boatmen announced their wares by hanging them from poles on the deck. We looked about and saw mostly potatoes and pumpkins on display. Not for us to buy, though, but for the local shopkeepers to buy wholesale. Many of the traders were sprawling nonchalantly from hammocks strung across the decks, as we wove between the slumbering flotilla, making our way upstream to a handicraft market that was, unquestionably, designed for tourists.

Here, we were enticed to buy all sorts of artifacts crafted from polished coconut shells, while admiring the skills of local sweet makers. We then took a short walk along a riverside track, hemmed with rockeries of coconut husks and hillocks of rice. Through the village, we were dodging bicycles and motor bikes, chickens and children, morning glory vine winding itself exuberantly around fences and trees.An open-sided café produced a cool place to sit and sip local tea, sweetened with honey.

Later, suitably replenished, we wove our way between the ‘wise-eyed’ barges and headed back out on the Mekong. There the 2-stroke and the current hurtled us down the river to a creek which narrowed rapidly as it was squeezed between walls of invasive jungle. At this point we were unceremoniously unloaded, four at a time, into roughly made wooden gondolas, where we sat in single file, every one of us bedecked in a borrowed cone hat – for those of us that hadn’t sensibly invested earlier! Our gondolier stood calmly at the rear of boat, resting on two long paddles, until we were settled. He then steered us smoothly upstream to our lunch.

This was a simple repast on the shady verandah of an elegant, old wooden house. After our rice and chicken we could choose to board either an old, but sturdy black bike, or a string hammock. Given barely half an hour before we were due to head homewards, three of us cycled furiously up the road, standing on our pedals to push up and over several hump-backed bridges, until we reached a small village and a curious little white church. My companion, a very efficient girl guide, earned her cyclist’s badge by cleverly contriving to tie up my recalcitrant bike stand with a piece of yellow string she found on the verge, which thankfully saved my ankles from further bruising.

We made it back before our guide could miss us, to join a throng of nervous tourists admiring the length and weight of a 3-year old python caged at the gate. Only a handful of us was prepared to make his acquaintance, but I have a photo to prove I was one of them, as we draped him round my sagging shoulders like an 18th century milkmaid’s yoke, and attempted to keep his tongue out of my ear. He was surprisingly heavy; a long, length of rather soft muscle, as indeed who wouldn’t be after spending his life in a 5 foot cage?

The return trip was long, and seemed longer. Many dozed on the boat, many more snored on the bus, but we finally made it back to Saigon in time for a late, lazy dinner, tired and sunburnt and culturally satiated!

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Cooking up a Storm in Saigon

Posted on 15 October 2011 by sheg4184

Our day started at dawn. We were to meet Chef Bao from the Vietnam Cookery Centre at the Ben Thanh Market in downtown Saigon. Chef Bao proved hard to miss. Dressed in his white chef’s jacket, he was shaped just like the cook in The Magic Pudding: a roly poly puddin’ of a man, the polar opposite of his companion Miss Khanh, our petite and quietly spoken Interpreter and guide.

Ducking through the crowds, we followed our guides through the market, examining longan and rambutan, jackfruit, dragonfruit, durian and marvella – or gac in Vietnamese which you say in the back of your throat without any vowels, like you’re choking.

We trawled through the seafood where live soft-shell crabs were being packed on a tray like packs of cards. Surprisingly, they don’t run away: apparently they are too weak. However a hefty, blue-pincered crab, despite being tied up with string, was hanging from the side of the basket by one huge claw. I suggested a rescue mission, but the stallholder merely shrugged and went on gutting fish. We inspected an assortment of fish, many still alive and squirming in an inch of water. There were shellfish of all shapes and sizes, and buckets of giant, British-racing-green garden snails.

Then a stall of offal had to be deciphered, as I was not familiar with pig’s womb, its intestines, stomach, or gizzards. And what was this? I asked, pointing. A ball of cooked blood, of course. Good for soup I am told.

Vegetable stalls abounded with green leafy plants such as water spinach and morning glory. There were knobby Lotus roots, hairy Indian taro and gourds called bittermelon that looked like elderly, wrinkled cucumbers. One stall was overflowing with a wide variety of bean curd tofu (dau hu). Another was crammed with small sacks of different-coloured rice, jars of sharks fins and dried sea horses, crystallized ginger and crates of small dried fish. It was like something out of Diagon Alley: myriad stalls brimming with exotic ingredients for Potions classes.

Miss Khanh was finally forced to deflect my barrage of questions and take us to the cooking school. It seems Chef Bao came in even earlier to buy the ingredients for today’s class, so the shopping was done. A short taxi ride ended down a pot-holed lane at the wide, open doorway of the cooking school, an old-fashioned, wooden structure with a cool, dim interior. There was a distinct lack of the stainless steel we are used to seeing in professional western kitchens. Instead all was polished wood, ceiling fans, pretty blue and white china bowls, clay pots and coconut shell stirring spoons.

We joined the only other student at the dining table – another Australian – and together we explored a large bowl of favourite Vietnamese spices: cinnamon or cassia sticks, fresh chillies, turmeric, star anise, cardamom, gingko and galangal. The three of us were then encouraged to don aprons and look at the day’s menu. Chef Bao took his place on the dais and we sat down obediently at our stations as Interpreter Khanh took us through the ingredients we were to use: ingredients which had already been prepared earlier by the kitchen fairies. The tiny bowls were filled with chopped garlic, slices of ginger, fish sauce and Thai basil.

Vietnamese cuisine may not yet be as well-known, globally, as Chinese or Thai, but it is rapidly rising up the charts. Here in South Vietnam the food bears a distinct family resemblance to Thai, with undertones of Chinese, which is hardly surprising after more than one thousand years of colonization, (from approximately 200 B.C. to 1000 A.D.) Stir-frying, egg noodles and Buddhism have made their mark. Buddhism dictated strict vegetarianism, which led to the evolution of many delicious vegetarian dishes designed to tempt the carnivorous locals.  In the south, Indian immigrants arrived with the French in the nineteenth century and introduced hotter, spicier dishes than can be found up north. And indeed, freshly chopped red chillies glisten brightly in one of the bowls at our station.

From the French, the Vietnamese took bread, coffee and dairy products which are still very popular here in Saigon, if the number of bakeries and coffee shops around the city are anything to go by.  We discovered a special local coffee named ‘Weasel’ because the beans have been eaten and regurgitated by rare Vietnamese weasels. This cycle radically alters the taste of the coffee resulting in a strong, smooth coffee with appealing hints of chicory. The French influence also means that here in the south, sautéing is often preferred to wok stir-frying.

In general, the Vietnamese use oil lightly and heavy sauces are rare. There is a profusion of vegetables, eaten raw or lightly steamed, and an abundance of fresh salads that often include fruit such as pomelo or mango for that popular combination of sweet and sour. And like many South-East Asians, the Vietnamese prefer grazing over a feast of small, shared dishes rather than indulging in individual plates heaped with food as we do.

So, back in the kitchen we began to create our own Vietnamese feast. Chef Bao started us gently with a yellow soy bean sauce to accompany the fresh spring rolls we would make next; an easy enough exercise to follow the Chef’s instructions step-by-step. The fresh spring rolls proved a little more problematic. Apparently we had to dampen the rice paper first, before folding in the edges and arranging the prawns, pork slices, rice noodles and julienne of egg omelet on top. All of us made the error of using too much water and ended up with a limp, sticky sheet, but we salvaged what we could and learnt a valuable lesson before wrapping a second, and a third. Each ingredient was settled in place like a mosaic on the slightly damp rice paper. I was pleased to be able to adjust the ingredients, as the spring rolls we had eaten in the market earlier had been heavily over-worked with Thai basil, and other more delicate flavours were lost. Our results may not have been perfect, but we were pleased with our efforts nonetheless.

We then gathered around Chef Bao to watch him prepare the rice, just a little differently from me with my electric rice cooker. The rice was rinsed three times and poured into individual clay pots which were then placed in a huge steamer, a couple of knotted pandan leaves tossed in for extra flavour. We were then asked to produce what I understood was a dish of salty chicken with ginger, until I later examined the recipe book: Miss Khanh was actually saying sautéed chicken!

Ginger was common to all the recipes we were using, so each of us cheerfully adapted the quantity according to our personal tastes. We marinated our chicken in a long list of ingredients, before stir frying it in a small clay pot until fragrant scents began to waft temptingly under our noses. Our final task is to prepare the soup: mustard leaf soup with minced pork. The minced pork gives the stock a light, salty flavour, but I think next time I will strain it out before serving, as it is too inclined to become over-cooked and then the texture becomes rubbery and unappetizing.

At last the feast was complete and we carried our various pots to the dining table to test what we had created. Thumbs way, way up for our spring rolls and the chicken dish, and I haven’t eaten such sticky steamed rice in years – the sort that only needs fingers and a good appetite. There was not time for us to make the pudding as well. Too much talking, perhaps? Instead we were given ones the kitchen fairies prepared earlier.  Familiar with the moreish rice cakes available in Manila, I was the only one who enjoyed the sticky corn pudding. Admittedly the rice looked a lot like Clag paste, but it was gently flavoured by the sweet corn, and it cleared the palate effectively after all the garlic and spices we had used. I am truly sorry this was one dish prepared beforehand, as I would love to have learned how to make it.

As a grand finale, Miss Khanh had prepared a short presentation. We arranged ourselves before Chef Bao and took it in turns to pose for a formal photograph on the dais as he shook our hands and presented our certificates. Chef Bao beamed at us, obviously delighted with his excellent students. I am very envious of those who are living in Saigon, and who are now contemplating a different class next week. Maybe I could fly back for the day..?

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