Sunday Market at the Lung Center, Quezon City
The Sunday Market at the sprawling Philippine 
Lung Center compound near Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City is fantastic! A reincarnation of the Sunday market located at the Sidcor parking lot on Edsa near Cubao, it has grown tremendously and offers an impressive selection of vegetables, fruit, seafood, meat, plants, dry goods, native delicacies, cooked food and even pets! I used to frequent the Sidcor market several years back and wasn’t really sure where they had relocated to until I read an article several months ago that they were now at the Lung Center. Since I have to drive from way across town to get there I kept putting off a visit until early last Sunday. The drive was actually painless… it took just 15 minutes to get from the South Superhighway to Quezon circle at 6ish in the morning with no traffic at all. I proceeded to get lost and circled the circle twice until I saw a traffic aide who then pointed me in the right direction. The market actually has an entrance facing Quezon Circle but it’s best to park inside the compound, entering through gates on Quezon Avenue.
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competitors were crowned with bay or laurel (name used interchangeably in some places) leaves, hence the association with the victorious, the glorious and those possessing tremendous wisdom. Garlands of bay leaves were given to triumphant Olympians as well (as opposed to medals). The word baccalaureate, for example, hails from the word laurel. And here I was thinking “laurel” was just an indispensable ingredient in my chicken and pork adobo! A couple of years ago I chanced upon a scrawny seven foot tall “laurel” or bay leaf tree at a garden club plant sale. The plant wasn’t too healthy but I debated whether I should buy it. At P1,200, it was a tough call as dried bay leaves are fairly common and economical. I didn’t buy it and regretted my decision for several years afterwards.
tea drinkers (China, Japan, Indonesia, etc.), it’s a bit odd that we are so coffee-centric. Or is it? Nearly 400 years of the Spanish with their hot chocolate and coffee, and 50 years of the Americans with their brilliant addition to our hot beverage selection in the form of Nescafe instant coffee, have left an indelible mark on our national caffeine psyche. If you ever get a chance to see the spectacular tea plantations in the hills of Bogor, Java and watch the harvesters go down rows of waist high bushes picking only the youngest and choicest light green leaves, you might reconsider tea as your caffeine beverage of choice. Well, that was a roundabout introduction to Pascale’s Iced Teas at the Salcedo Saturday Market!
in Manila is that of Maribel Van Hoven, who sells it at the Salcedo Saturday Market or through special orders from her base in Alabang. It is superb! I have always liked bud-bud or suman but usually find commercial versions too bland, too sticky or too boring. People often serve it with sugar or sometimes coconut in order to add flavor or simply mask the lack of it. A very common snack or dessert in the Philippines, suman is a result of abundant malagkit or glutinous rice and easy access to coconut milk across the country. But what makes this bud-bud kabog unique is that it is made from wild millet seed and uses a family recipe handed down through generations…
harvested across the archipelago and many interesting ones are now hitting the markets. Isn’t it strange how indifferent most Filipinos are to the type of rice they eat? Considering that we probably easily consume 1,200+ cups of cooked rice per capita per annum, we are generally not too picky about the rice or its origins. Very few will be able to tell you they prefer Dinorado, Sinandomeng, Milagrosa or R-64 as some of the rice varieties are named. We worry more about if we brush our teeth with Close-Up vs. Colgate or drink Sarsi vs. Pepsi. I vehemently insist on a Diet Coke (Coke Light in Asia) at a restaurant and nearly gag at the thought of another brand. Many restaurants offer 12 kinds of softdrinks or juices alone but you never hear them ask if you would prefer a fragrant Milagrosa, a long-grain Thai Jasmine or an earthy and totally nutritious Bohol Red rice. Why? I don’t know. They should. Maybe I am on to something, listen up chefs and restaurant owners, offer different types of rice, will you?
front of the stove for about 5 minutes max. This is a quick, delicious and elegant dish that takes about that long… I picked up a nice swordfish (malasugi) steak at Citra Mina that I had been meaning to try for several days. Defrosted, patted dry with a paper towel and sprinkled with salt and freshly cracked pepper it was ready to be cooked. I heated up a stainless steel pan, threw in a generous blob of butter and when this was hot put the fish into the pan.
Until recently, I had never seen snapdragons for sale in the local markets or floral stores. A very common flower in the U.S. and other temperate locations, snapdragons do very well in home gardens or in commercial flower beds. With a huge range of colors and varieties from dwarf to those that reach almost four feet, snapdragons are showy, voluptuous and beautiful. Antirrhinum majus or Greek for “like a rhinos snout”, snapdragon’s are also known as “rabbit’s lips” in Asia and “lion’s lips” in Holland. Apparently, if you pull down the lower petal of the flower it snaps back up, hence its common name. Native to the Mediterranean, the flowers need full sun but cool weather to thrive.