Good Food

Friday, January 27, 2012

My wife made tinola isda - fish soup - today. I ate it for both lunch and supper. With fresh greens from the garden; lemon grass from the yard, just outside the fence; squash, onions, garlic, peppers and okra from the market, it ranks number one on my list of tasty and healthy foods.

The fish is always the day’s catch, bought from our fisherman/neighbors or from the market in town, and it’s almost always delicious. Today’s variety was one I’m not familiar with. It had a smooth, nutty-buttery kind of flavor, similar to yellow fin tuna, but milder. The flesh was very white and solid, not quite as solid as tuna, but close.

The greens warrant a more detailed description. The tastiest is one called alugbati. (I don’t know if there is an English word for it.) It is dark green and similar to spinach, but I think the taste is much better. Then there is malonggay, which is the small green leaves of the tree by the same name. The leaves are round and smaller than a penny. The taste is very mild. Malonggay has more concentrated nutrition than just about any other plant on the planet. Google it, if you are interested. It’s also called Kalamonggay. Last in our lunch and supper pot was camote tops, which are the green leaves of a native sweet potato. Camote tops are also packed full of nutrition and are tasty, however they are used.

My system is not used to a “strictly healthy” diet, so I balanced out all that nutrition with some coconut bread and a cup of malted milk (Milo) and coffee. In my estimation, coconut bread deserves a post all to itself. Briefly though…well…it’s just damn good! And it’s made in a wood-fired oven just a few blocks from here. 

Going with the Flow

Friday,  January 20, 2012

Grumble, grumble, grumble, pee and moan. It was just the mood I was in. Don't bother me about how I should have been in a better one, it would just piss me off. Goody-two-shoes and forever-on-the-righteous-road, beware! I ain't in the mood.

It can happen anywhere in the world; under the best of circumstances. It started when I woke up this morning. The sun had an ornery glare to it, as it passed through a dusty jalousy window and pierced my eyeballs. My wife was sleeping peacefully beside me. That could have been a slight smirk on her face and it rubbed me the wrong way. What nerve, to be sleeping  like a baby, right beside me, when life was a burr in my underwear.

I got out of bed hoping for something to go wrong, so I could work up a full of head of steam in the direction I was traveling. I was thrown a curve ball in the form of a little, half-pint, two year-old. She got up right after me, smiling her usual sweet smile and asking for num num. A change in attitude took hold of me before I could set a solid course for screwing up my whole day with a bad mood. In a matter of minutes Shane and I were sitting together on the porch, looking for ships on the sea, singing Barney songs and munching on yesterday's bread.

Life is Good.

I Can Smell the Sea Again!!

It is New Year’s Day, 2012. I’m home, sitting at the kitchen table. Shane is asleep in the hammock, on the front porch. I have the door open so I can hear her and look around the corner of the jam to give an occasional check. Frederick, Jan Mark and Clyde left to walk to the internet shop about half an hour ago. I like this quiet time when the kids are gone or asleep. 

Our septic tank was overflowing for the past week. Every flush gave our noses a fresh reminder of a part of the human condition that, with due cause, is seldom the focus of everyday chatter. But when the septic tank overflows we are reminded that the lowly and the great all put out the same crap. Maybe its not a nice thing to think about or proper to mention, but Marilyn Monroe pooped and peed, ever since birth. So did Thomas Edison, Alexander the Great, and Einstein. No more, though. They're all dead. But I'm still alive and pooping (as of this writing), and thankful for the opportunity.

Well,  because of today's diggings, there's a new hole in the ground next to the old one and a pipe that connects the two. When the old one overflows, it drains into the new one. Hopefully, we won't have to add a third or a fourth hole. I wouldn't want people thinking we have that much shit to offer the world.

Happy New Year!!!!!