Champagne
Someone once described me as having “champagne taste on a beer budget.” 
It was a dig at the time, frankly, a poorly veiled insult. Jealousy, perhaps…now I’m the one getting witchy…heehee. The lighter side of me thought “it’s better than the opposite, beer taste on a champagne budget” – and let’s just say who went where in the past twenty years leaves me happy with my choices, thanks. So we are now on the cusp of a new year…a chance to make all those resolutions that dissolve into the crisp February air before the summer hits with a vengeance and airconditioning earns its place in the Top10 inventions of the past two centuries… And it’s time to pop a cork or two or three. I don’t drink champagne too often but I do enjoy it on special occasions 3-4 times a year…
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Several readers have asked for ideas to use up remnants of recent Christmas meals. One ideal use of extra queso de bola is to make a cheese pimiento spread. It’s incredibly easy and so much better tasting when you make it yourself. Just grate any leftover queso de bola into large bits (I like a chunky rather than an extra smooth spread) and add lots of mayonnaise and chopped grilled capsicum or bottled pimiento. Mix well and store in a clean container in the fridge…this spread is excellent in hot pan de sal, used sparingly on white bread or toast sandwiches, etc. Super easy and delicious. Some folks add chopped sweet pickles to moderate the saltiness of the cheese and the richness of the mayonnaise. Lasts several days to weeks in the fridge…
It has a really funny portion which had me in stitches for the better part of an hour (when it actually happened). On Christmas Eve, I shot over to the Salcedo market to get my herb selection up to par and as I careened around at 8 am I quickly purchased what I needed and was disappointed to note that my ensaimada and budbud sukis were both absent! Outrageous! At any rate, I needed serious stocks of eggs for the baking over the next few days so I stopped by Joey’s vegetable stand (the biggest one there) and haggled for two trays of organic eggs. Out of the corner of my eye I spied a small plastic bag filled with small stunning yellow peppers. It was just too good to be true…could these be fresh habanero chillies? I asked, with bated breath, and Joey didn’t actually know what they were… but he did say the Ilocano suppliers said they were wicked spicy so I took a chance and asked him how much they were… he said, “take them and Merry Christmas!” – so much for not accepting gifts…
features a major hunk of four legged animal (beef, lamb or pork) or substantial fowl (turkey, duck, goose, capon), I like to start with a seafood appetizer to balance the meal out. Usual suspects are large prawns, crab claws, rock lobsters, smoked salmon or tanguigue. A little more involved are a raw tuna seviche, a crab salad with mayonnaise and dill or fried crab cakes tinapa spread or Italian style seafood salad. I rarely serve shellfish in this country because I am rarely certain where it comes from. Shellfish such as clams, mussels, etc. generally sit in the sand or muck in one area and feed off of all the nutrients in the waters surrounding them. If the waters are slightly dirty, I am of the notion that the shellfish is likewise dirty. I may have high “cooty- factoritis” but that’s me…I only serve shellfish when I am certain it comes from cleaner waters… tell me it’s from somewhere in Manila Bay, read “ay, sa Cavite pa po yan” or “malinis yan, malayo-layo galing sa Boulevard kinuha” and you will see me running as far away from the vendor as possible with arms flailing in the air…
and I’m not sure it matters much at all. At first I thought puchero was the local equivalent of the continental Madrileno cocido, or Spanish hotpot, but some basic googling suggests that puchero is evolved from a Mexican and South American tradition which in turn likely came from Spain to begin with… I also thought the addition of saba bananas must make puchero uniquely our own evolved version until some basic recipes for the Central American pucheros yielded ingredients such as peaches and other sweet fruits as part of the recipe! At any rate, I ain’t gonna sweat it and will just give you a run down of the puchero/cocido that I served to some guests last night…
As much as I love all of the Filipino food traditions around the holidays (pineapple on ham being a notable exception), I have also embraced several Western traditions such as gingerbread, roast beef and rolled butter/sugar cookies cut into all kinds of holiday shapes. With things getting frenetic in the past two weeks, we only managed to make one batch of holiday cookies that my daughter decorated herself and brought to her school Christmas party last Friday. On good years where I have tons of time in the kitchen, I make good use of up to 60 different cookie cutters that I stock for the holidays…some are made of beautiful copper and others just plain tin or aluminum. There are also cases upon cases of sprinkles, colored sugars, dragees, etc. in the pantry One year I even made a gingerbread carousel with different animals that were each hand-decorated with colored icing!