Saturday Salcedo Market
The Saturday Salcedo Market in the heart of the 
Makati Business District is less than a year old but clearly a runaway success! The brainchild of several neighborhood residents in nearby apartment buildings, the market lies in the shadow of high-rises much along the lines of charming neighborhood markets in European cities such as London or Paris. The objective was really simple: to give the neighbors a reason to get out and see each other while satisfying their craving for fresh produce, native specialties and homemade delicacies from the best households in the metropolis. With help from Barangay Bel-Air, the vision became a reality in May 2004. Today, the market has 127 vendors or stalls that attract thousands of people on a sunny Saturday. Several dozen more vendor applicants are on the waitlist and market management carefully screens who gets through…
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throw on some serious fat (like liempo, pork barbecue, pork chops) or a nice hunk of fish, the perfect salad or side dish to serve with it is this totally simple but delicious talong or eggplant salad. I personally love the pairing of fat and acid – thus pork barbecue served with atsara (picked papaya), deep fried dried fish dipped in vinegar, grilled tanguigue served with green mango relish, etc. The acid does a nice job of “cutting” and or balancing the fat. If I want a taste of home even when I am thousands of miles away from home, this salad does the trick and its ingredients are so common there are few places that I have been unable to do this.
challenge: find her favourite but elusive yema with arnibal (sp.?). I don’t typically take on these requests as I would be forever scouring markets for one thing or another but the food Gods were tuned in and just minutes into my Saturday rounds I found these artisanal yema coated in caramelized sugar. How’s that for serendipity? Yema is the Spanish word for “yolk” and probably refers to either the confection’s appearance as a spherical yellowish sweet candy or to the fact that it contains quite a bit of egg yolks. Made with just a few ingredients - condensed milk, egg yolks, dayap (lime) zest for flavoring, yemas are intensely rich and especially so when they are coated in caramelized sugar. As an aside, I believe the original yemas were probably made with a version of dulce de leche which is just seriously boiled down and thus thickened milk. The milk gets sweeter as it gets more concentrated. Condensed milk is probably a more modern shortcut for the recipe.
Starbucks, Seattle’s Best and even homegrown brands like Figaro, it’s great to see a small challenger take on the giants. A love for coffee turned into a small business for Tommy Villanueva who now markets Tommy’s Freshly Roasted Coffee from the Salcedo Saturday Market and from his home during the week. Today he has five different blends on offer including one from imported coffee beans as well as several blends of local arabica and robusta beans that are either dark or medium roasted. The medium roasted beans have slightly less intense flavor than the dark roasted ones. Established early last year, Tommy’s started retailing coffee in August 2004. He now has a steady clientele for beans every Saturday at the market and sells cups of freshly brewed coffee as well. He has started to supply different restaurants and you can also order and pick up coffee from him during the week.
relatives in Bohol: breakfast comfort food that my mom used to cook… and top of the list was a ground meat torta, fried baby dilis (anchovies) patties made with egg, and other such goodies. The next morning, my brother and his wife invited me over for breakfast and they prepared a veritable feast that included fried fresh lapu-lapu, steamed shrimp that were alive minutes before, dilis patties and of course, a good version of mom’s old torta with ground meat. The name torta is really kind of bizarre because literally translated from Spanish it means pie or tart. And in Bohol, there is a very well known torta delicacy that is in fact a cake made with tons of egg yolks. So how did this egg and meat dish which is very close to an Italian frittata get its name? We may never know for sure…but it is delicious and very easy to make.
less intensely flavored variety of mango. It is a strange name however, as all mangoes are ultimately believed to have originated in or around India and to select this common name is a bit odd given that there are hundreds if not thousands of species of mangoes all related to the original Indian Mango. Nevertheless, Indian (dot not feather) mangoes are nearing their absolute summer peak right now and they are falling off of trees in the Southern Tagalog area. A favorite summer fruit from my childhood, I could eat half a dozen of these mangoes (green) with some rock salt or shrimp paste (bagoong) and I also like them semi-ripe. Now is the time to buy several kilos at the markets and enjoy this fleeting summer fruit.
article on this 
There are at least a dozen different species of anchovies (Family Engraulidae) in Philippine waters, but it’s difficult to identify to species level so I will group them all together under the anchovy family. Usually found close to shore in estuaries, reef sheltered areas and shallow waters, they feed on plankton and probably multiply faster than rabbits. Also known as anchois in French and boqueron in Spanish, anchovies are common in the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Most commonly seen in the west packed with oil in small flat tins or alternatively in bottles with lots of salt, their intense flavor is used in Italian and French cooking and is a critical ingredient in modern Caesar salad dressing!