Rosal / Gardenias
Rosal or Gardenias (Gardenia jasminoides) have 
an incredibly strong scent that can permeate a large room. Native to Southern China, the plant now thrives in many parts of the world. Gardenias have these white blooms that get flatter as they mature… they turn yellowish as they “ripen” and die off. Their leaves are a shiny dark green. The peak of the bloom is brief but the strength of the fragrance is truly intense. I can see why they often form the base scent of perfumes or room fresheners! At the market yesterday there was a vendor with thousands of gardenias for sale. I bought ten small bunches for PHP150 (USD3) and made two small arrangements. They will last just two or three days but will leave an impression on the senses. In the past, these flowers were often used for corsages but I haven’t seen a gardenia corsage in many years.
11 Comments Send this post to a friend
Frankly, I died and went to glutton’s heaven for several minutes this morning. At 8 am, we had a 200gram piece of Angus Roast Beef Belly carved and they quickly fried it in a hot cast iron pan. Served with mashed potatoes, veggies and a homemade barbecue sauce, this was simply fantastic. You have to have it hot. You have to have it when you least expect this superb mouthful of fat and flavor. The caramelized fat and meat had crunchiness and chewiness. Bravo! At PHP 300 (200 grams) for this plate of diet sin, it was well worth it.
Pickled green papaya is a one of my all-time personal favorites. As a kid, I was told that when visiting other people’s homes I just had to eat whatever was put in front of me without making a fuss. This was a tough rule considering the only vegetable I consumed before ten years of age was sliced cucumber with a vinegar and sugar dressing… At any rate, on provincial sorties with my parents, I learned to be polite and place rice on my dish, a little of the viand (even if it was bat adobo!) and lots of achara if it was on offer. Then I would slowly move food around, eat all of the rice and all of the achara and wait for dessert. I did many a meal this way and look back fondly at the stuff that saved my rear…those pickled papayas. For someone who absolutely adores the taste of achara, I am amazed to say that I have never made it from scratch…
only for the food or other native delicacies. I missed this year’s Negros Fair (a rare disappointment, I am told due to the limited vendors participating) and I am not sure if I have missed the Bicol Fair as well, but I did make it to the Likha ng Central Luzon Fair at Megamall yesterday for just 20 minutes. I was rushing to another engagement but was determined to do a speed round through at least 40 vendors of native delicacies. The fair is on until Sunday, October 9, 2005 and it is worth a visit if you are in the area. First stop was the booth of fellow blogger Karen at 
people refer to the “chewy strings” in cold appetizer platters at Chinese restaurants as “seaweed” when they are, in fact, “jellyfish.” Growing up, there were dozens of occasions when this infamous cold Chinese appetizer platter would arrive table side, and then placed on the grease-streaked glass lazy susan (remember those?). Frankly, I knew the “stuff” was called jellyfish but all those years I just made myself believe it was something else… I’m not sure why, but I thought there was no way it could really be jellyfish because all of the jellyfish I had ever met were just way too soft, wispy, slimy, icky to result in something crunchy, chewy, rubbery and snappy… I once learned how to water ski in Hamilo cove in Batangas and it took me just 12 minutes or three attempts…why? Because I realized the entire cove was filled with THOUSANDS of humongous horror movie like jellyfish and I decided I did not want to spend any more time wading in the waters than absolutely necessary. Trust me, that story a few years back that a Luzon wide black-out was triggered by the shutdown of a power plant that had accidentally sucked in thousands of humongous jellyfish as part of its seawater cooling system is something I can totally believe! 
Others call the island of Culion, near Coron, Palawan home. Suffice it to say they enjoy seafood, whether fresh and writhing, dried and salty or in salad form. Here are two ways they enjoy fresh seaweed. First up, kinilaw na guso a la Toledo (seaweed ceviche). Guso is a gelatinous, substantial seaweed, and our cook likes to blanch it for a few seconds before adding a vinegar dressing with large chunks of ginger, chopped tomatoes, red onions, salt and ideally, coconut or tuba vinegar. The reddish flavorful vinegar is the key difference between a good kinilaw and a GREAT kinilaw na guso. Notice the more olivey color of the blanched seaweed compared to the uncooked seaweed below. Frankly, kinilaw seems to be a misnomer as the seaweed is blanched, but who am I to argue? Best served with fried fish and eaten with your hands. The salad has a real textural and mouth feel that is unlike most salads you have ever eaten. To many, this is comfort food from the sea.
probably looked at you with furrowed brows and said something like “are you trying to be funny?” Chervil is one of those great herbs that are an absolute necessity for some types of western cooking, that I have never been able to buy in Manila. I have tried to grow it from seed with no success. I have hounded specialty shops to bring it in with their other imported herbs, to no avail. So it was a real Marketman moment when aimlessly perusing the vegetable offerings at the Shoemart Makati Supermarket, I came across a package of fresh chervil grown by Vava Veggie, Inc. I have featured this grower before for their 
Well known for its Pahiyas Festival to celebrate a bountiful harvest, the whole concept of food, food as décor (thousands of rice leaves in stunning colors), pork sausages, noodles, etc. are right up Marketman’s alley. I just have to get there sometime soon. Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about the town and its traditions so it will take some research and inquiry before I muster up the courage… At any rate, I noticed a vendor at a local market selling packages of what looked like thin egg noodles labeled “Pancit Lucban” and I was intrigued enough to stop and eventually purchase a package for PHP50. Back home, I read the simple instructions on the back of the package for a classic Pancit Lucban or what is more commonly known as pancit hab-hab, which apparently is a noodle dish that is eaten off of banana leaf squares without utensils or the use of your hands. You are just supposed to eat it straight off of the leaf…