Talbos ng Ampalaya / Bitter Gourd Tendrils
Tendrils or young leaves of bitter gourd (talbos ng ampalaya) are not 
something I have ever purchased before. I have eaten it many times but never really paid attention to it at the market. I never even wondered until recently if the practice of eating young leaves such as tendrils of sweet potatoes (talbos ng kamote) or fiddlehead ferns (pako) or young sampaloc leaves is a “third world thing,” something born out of economic necessity from times when there was simply nothing else to cook in the pot. Who knows, but all of these young growths are very much a part of the Filipino diet today. At the market last week, I noticed an abundance of bitter gourd tendrils (talbos ng ampalaya) probably a result of recent rains. I decided to buy a bunch for PHP10 and decide what to do with it after I got home and photographed it.
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visiting different vineyards and just taking in the scenery. At lunchtime, we stopped at a nice looking restaurant and proceeded inside and requested a table for two. They looked at us like we were nuts not having a reservation made months before but eventually they gave us two seats at the bar for a late lunch… the restaurant was Tra Vigne, with celebrated chef Michael Chiarello at the helm. I don’t remember what we ate that day but I do remember thinking that it progressed from very good to excellent to superb. Only later did we find out we were lucky to have even been given bar seats. This recipe for Roasted Crab with Garlic is patterned after a famous dish that Chef Chiarello published in his Tra Vigne cookbook. It is incredibly easy, incredibly succulent and a favorite when we are at the beach.
The crisp salty chip is an excellent foil for a sharp, tangy, spicy and chunky tomato salsa. On a recent beach trip with several house guests, I noticed we had a huge bag of Tostitos but I had forgotten the bottled tomato salsa. I scrounged around the fridge and decided to try a tomato and tropical fruit salsa which yielded terrific results. The salsa photographed here is made with chopped ripe pineapple, mango, tomato, salt, lime juice, chopped chillis and some chopped coriander. Let it sit for a while in the fridge for the chilli heat to build. This salsa is excellent with a soft or hard drink.
the bee or wasp resting on my red gerbera. I had brought the vase out to the garden to get some natural light and I suppose this bee is a sign that this is an attractive flower. I never used to be a fan of gerbera but they are incredibly cheery and bright and reasonably priced now that they are grown in abundance in Tagaytay and other greenhouses around the country. At PHP130 a dozen for extra long stems at my wholesale source (sorry, can’t divulge just yet), they are far cheaper than the PHP25 they sell for in the malls. Put 2-3 dozen in a clear crystal or glass vase and they cheer up just about any room and or occupant of that room! Their primary colors are in your face, but work well when you use them boldly.
cholesterol and fat content, they are now the darling of high protein diets that have been all the rage recently. Eggs are an essential and versatile ingredient… critical for many baked goods, great for breakfast in all their forms (boiled, poached, fried, scrambled), and a key ingredient to so many delicious and nutritious dishes. Ever since I moved back to Manila, I have noticed a funny watery quality to the eggs that are sold in the groceries here and their yolks are this “death warmed over” yellow. Their whites aren’t clear when uncooked, either. Not too appetizing for a being that was never born or fertilized for that matter. Not to mention the puny size of a local “medium” egg despite what must be a global grading system (or so you would think). It has taken time but I have located vendors that have all sizes on offer from “peewee” to extra-large and even double-yolked varieties but the watery nature of the egg white continued to disturb me.
I am truly grateful to the many readers who took the time to send a short greeting or an email… really, thank you very much. Some have mused or directly enquired what “feast” must have been planned for the big day. I didn’t lift a finger. Marketman was on “day off.” I did go to the market because I like doing that. For lunch, my daughter suggested Chilli’s at Greenbelt Mall. While the food is solid family fare one notch up from fast food, I think she was more intent on embarrassing me with the singing waiters bearing a fried tortilla with a scoop of ice cream and a candle. What with a half dozen waiters belting out an “uno, dos, tres, quatro… Happy Birthday to You, Happy…Happy!!!” Yikes… public humiliation! My daughter was sufficiently amused. And their chilli was not bad at all.
Part of the bargaining that would occur prior to the trip would include how many cans of broas (lady fingers) and how much tablea (chocolate) I would be able to bring back to Manila. The home that we stayed while on these holidays was in the middle of a small cacao plantation just by the main road. Cacao fruit were plentiful on the trunks of the trees whenever we visited during the summer. The cacao was eventually harvested and the beans converted into little cocoa cakes known as tablea. The tablea made a memorable hot chocolate, unlike the refined Hershey cocoa versions that came in cans at city groceries. And the best things to dunk in the hot chocolate were either crisp broas (since they were from nearby and wickedly fresh) or back home, some freshly fried up churros. One of my readers recently sent me an email asking if I had a recipe – and frankly, I had never cooked them before but started to search around.
You may be asking what the heck is a post on toilet paper doing on a food weblog but indulge me for a minute or two. First, what goes in must come out, right? And for a very rational person like Marketman, I believe that you only use the best when it is closest to home, if you know what I mean. Ever since my paycheque exceeded my spending requirements, I have paid that little extra for some premium toilet paper. I think it is a much better use of extra disposable income than say a fancy car or a snazzy pen. My friends know that I am almost pathological about keeping a good supply (say 50-100 rolls in reserve) of Charmin in the house. At the height of the post-1997 financial crisis, most stores in Manila stopped carrying this Marketman necessity and I nearly resorted to balikbayan boxes filled with rolls of Charmin shipped from the U.S.!