“I want to learn to play a cello in my middle age. I want to learn how to make tinapa from scratch. I want to open a training center to improve local service levels. I want to invent a device that virtually slaps silly bus drivers who cross the yellow line on EDSA… I want to be complete…” – Marketman filmed in the shadows with a Panama hat hiding most of his face.
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With practically a whole basket worth of malunggay, green papaya, tanglad, etc., the natural next step is almost certainly to look for a chicken… and preferably a nice tasty native chicken. Back at the office, Mhai-Mhai and Victor, two of the office staff, cooked up one of the finest tinolas I have had in years. It was brilliant in its simplicity, superbly flavored because of the freshness of the ingredients and a perfect way to use the bounty of vegetables we had acquired roadside minutes earlier…
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On the way down from a cebu mountaintop, we passed two ladies carrying large baskets on their heads, heading down steep foothpaths on their way to the city markets 
with their recently harvested vegetables. We stopped the van and got out to find out what they were carrying… Turns out they had lots of malunggay leaves (horseradish tree leaves), tanglad (lemongrass), green papayas, alugbati (Malabar Nightshade), kangkong, etc. At PHP10 for a large bunch of malunggay and a huge bunch of tanglad, we decided to buy up almost half of the contents of their baskets! The produce had just been picked hours before and they all looked and smelled so incredibly fresh. The lemongrass blades were still razor sharp and the citrusy fragrance was out of this world. For PHP100, we ended up with an incredible amount of produce. It is always so much better to get produce as close to the source as possible and these ladies grew all of these vegetables themselves, harvested them, packed them in baskets lined with fresh banana leaves and carried the baskets on their heads on the way to the market… I gave them double the amount asked for the vegetables and with super wide grins on their faces, we headed on back down the mountain…
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Despite the heavy downpour this morning, we had an appointment at the top of a mountain on the outskirts of Cebu City, just 12 minutes drive from the Capitol. I had climbed this mountain before, about 3 months ago, climbing about 1.5-2.0 kilometers in distance and up to roughly 350 meters (1,000 feet) in height. I thought I would die at the time, worse than a stairmaster in a hot gym, but actually, I managed to do the climb in about 1 hour using really narrow trails and a walking stick. This time, thank goodness, there is a new road under construction that climbs all the way to the peak. If you are from Cebu, can you guess where this photo up top is taken from? Another clue, in this second photo taken from the Marco Polo Hotel, is the same mountain from a distance… and I am standing from the highest peak of the range….
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Don’t get me totally wrong, I am a capitalist at heart. But when you draw open the curtains in your hotel room early one morning in Cebu, stare out at a passing rainstorm, and suddenly, a stunning, nearly solid and very vivid rainbow appears, you inevitably smile, and suddenly life seems a little better and richer than just a few seconds before. I seem to recall seeing far more rainbows as a child. Is that because adults no longer bother to look for them? Are we so cuaght up in the daily grind that we don’t stop to appreciate a rainbow? And just as I was staring in awe at this rainbow (it took a half minute before I realized I should photograph it), a second, slightly less intense rainbow formed just behind it! Two rainbows with perfect arcs that stretched as far as the view from my room and windows allowed! I know the scientific explanation has to do with refractions of light on rainfall or moisture in the air, but I don’t care really, I just love the resulting rainbows. And that silly other saying that you need to follow the rainbow to its end to find the pot of gold? This bright rainbow seemed to end exactly on top of a nearby home, and I wonder if the homeowners realized they were wealthier than they thought they were, if only for a few seconds, this morning. Actually, the rain should have been a major bummer, as we were scheduled to climb to the top of mountain that was 350 meters high… But just as quickly as the thunderstorm blew in, it blew out, taking the rainbow with it… Next up, a spectacular view of the city of Cebu from the top of a nearby mountain…
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I am in Cebu at the moment, and very busy, hence the relative quiet on the blog, and thus the need to do posts where you can all amuse each other with your fantastic answers to the question of “what you do for a living? I am utterly amazed by the variety of things everyone is involved in… it’s really fantastic! But I did want to do a post on a recent visit to the Carbon Market in Cebu, which is the mother of all produce markets on the island. Similar to Divisoria in Manila, The Carbon is where a lot of produce on the island of Cebu changes hands… When I announced at the small family office that I wanted to hit the Carbon that afternoon, everyone looked at each other like, “is he out of his mind?” A few years ago I went to the Carbon at about 10pm (near the peak of the market) and it was WALL TO WALL PEOPLE and produce and frankly, at one point it did seem a bit unsafe to be waltzing around, an obvious tourist. The Carbon seems to have more “interesting characters” than other markets I have spent time in. Located at the end of the Cebu railway line (yes, there used to be a railway), the area was used to store coal in the days when it powered steam engines that in turn generated power for the city. With all the huge mountains of coal stores, it became known as The Carbon…
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Anyone who has read my “About Page” knows that I was previously a commercial and corporate banker and a strategic management consultant. I retired from consulting work at 38 and currently help manage a small family owned real-estate business on behalf of all my siblings. I probably worked more hours in my 15 years of professional employment than most folks work in 30 years or even their entire career. But I had a lot of fun and I am thrilled to be in “partial retirement” at this stage of my life, and would rather be enjoying myself now and having to go back to work at 60 than the other way around… after all, doesn’t it always amuse you when you see a really nice car like a Porsche or Ferrari and the guy or lady behind the wheel is like 70 and on 6 different pills with breakfast? I think all folks should have a nice car from 20-30 and drive a Minica in their later stages…. but that is just me. At any rate, the announcement of the Kalamansi Marmalade winners brought up an interesting set of questions… WHAT DO MARKETMANILA READERS DO FOR A LIVING? I don’t mean to pry, but if you are willing to share your occupation, vocation, etc., I think it would be really neat to read about it… I can tell you that 60+% of you live abroad, and that on a daily basis, I have readers logging in from at least 75! countries around the world. I can tell you that you come from an amazing spread of ages (surprisingly so, actually) and you can see the data on the poll at right at the moment with 25-45 year olds making up a majority of readers. I can tell you many of you are pork lovers, freaked out by frogs and a few are vegetarians. I am hoping most of you agree with my owning a fish pan, and if you don’t, don’t even try to tell me off about it… At any rate, I think we would all appreciate it if you could share what it is you do or what your profession is… many thanks in advance!!!
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Gosh that is a long name for a dish. I got so much grief for publishing a photo of hanging frogs, I wonder if fish head soup falls into the same “ewww factor” category. Somehow, I don’t think so, or at least I hope it doesn’t. The taste of this Green Mango and Salmon Head Sinigang was utterly marvelous, scrumptious and rice-a-licious. I have been meaning to attempt a green mango sinigang (as part of my quest to do as many types of sinigang as possible) for a while, but the comments in my recent sinigang posts and the purchase of some very reasonably priced frozen salmon heads sealed the next experiment…
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