More kare kare for breakfast at Auntie Minda’s house.
Escoffiette has moved and joined forces with Randwiches.
escoffiette
The spread at a Santo Nino fiesta in Villia, Ilo-Ilo. Apparently, the hostess/ owner of Momma’s bakery knows my parents?!
Our friend Cassie is a blast of sunshine, for real !
Be Optimistic Soup
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you went to a party last night. Let’s say you drank. A lot. Let’s speculate that when you came home, finally, you first fell asleep on the kitchen floor of the apartment that you’re staying in, hands folded on your belly, before you regained enough consciousness to crawl, sensibly, into bed. Let’s say it was the best night of your life. You danced for like seven hours. You were still out when the snow started. Then you slept better than you ever had before. When you woke up, you thought: “Life could be pretty okay this way forever.” Let’s say!
If all that were true, then you would make yourself this soup, drink a cup of coffee, shake off the hangover, and do it all again.
Ingredients:
1 med. yellow onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
Thinly sliced ginger, to taste
A lemon
A carton of chicken broth (unless you want to make it from scratch)
2 sweet potatoes, diced into big chunks
3 parsnips, diced into big chunks
A bunch of collared greens, de-stemmed and shredded.
A bunch of rainbow chard, de-stemmed and shredded.
To make:
Slice the onion and sauté it in olive oil over medium heat, seasoning generously with salt and pepper. After about five minutes, add the minced garlic and the ginger. Cook for a minute or so more. Add the broth + 2 cups of water, the sweet potato, the parsnip, and the collard greens. Bring to a boil and then let simmer until the parsnips and the sweet potatoes are soft enough to be pierced with a fork. Add rainbow chard and lots of lemon. Let simmer another five minutes. Add salt + pepper to taste. Remove from heat, serve with a hunk of extra-crusty bread. Add chili flakes if you’re feeling it.
Grilled fish at my Auntie Belinda’s house. I’m starting to notice a pattern with breakfast…always some kind of fish!
Chicken gallentine is a popular dish around here. It combines famous Filipino indulgence with economy of using all parts of the bird.
Brodestarter Party
We catered a party for our friends Marc and John who launched Brode, a hangover supplement in pill form. We served up an array of party snacks:
- Randwiches (Adobo pulled pork with cinnamon pickles, chicken salad and tomato with kale.
- Ginger tomato confit with tortilla chips
- Assorted homemade pickles
- Homemade Ranch dip (no MSG!)
- Homemade beer cheese with pretzels
Fried chicken balls with spicy sweet sauce from a Boracay beach-side stall called…”Eat My Balls.”
I didn’t even want to caption this. Another street food stall in Boracay. 20 pesos is about $.50!
Sauteed kangkong and beef with oyster sauce from Mely’s Garden in Bacolod.
