Turones!

Today’s blog subject is thanks to the writer at SubjectVerbObject.

Remember when I said (in my very last post) about the writer who’s helping some of us find new things to write about? This week her topics are about food.

I. Love. Food. Like…loooooove. Would marry it if I could.

My favorite Filipino is the turon.

It’s a dessert. You take a banana (and maybe some jack fruit), wrap it in spring roll wrapper, fry it, and immediately after it’s out, throw some sugar on it. When fresh these are a very, very tasty dessert.

Please forgive the shortness of this post. I am packing out in one day and am so busy.

If you can get a hold of a turon – do it! Your life will be better for it.

Stocking up

There’s a monthly bazaar here put on by the American Women’s Club of the Philippines (AWCP).

It’s a large event held in the World Trade Center in the third or fourth week of every month.

I haven’t made it a habit to go every month. I’ve only gone a handful of times. I really love seeing everyone that goes. It’s a mixture of so many cultures under one roof. You see, even though the AWCP hosts the event, everyone and anyone is welcome to go, as long as they can pay the P100 ($2.25) entrance fee.

You’ll hear so many languages, and different accents. Today I didn’t pay much attention but I did hear French. I even talked to the French speakers a bit (in English…no French knowledge here).

There are plenty of things at the Bazaar to buy. There are the typical local products, things made of capiz, things made of wood, or coconut. There are the handmade crafts that you can personalize. There’s lots of jewelry. Lots of clothing, there’s a large area with tables and food booths set up. It’s quite a site, and is a monthly social gathering for many.

Today I went knowing that it was my last bazaar before we pack out next month. Actually, I forgot the bazaar was today until I was in the embassy after my workout and saw today’s date. Why does April 22 sound familiar, I thought. Oh yeah! The bazaar!

I had my driver drop me off at the bazaar before going to run an errand. Then I spent almost two hours looking at things, making purchases, and chatting with friends. I dropped quite a bit of money. But I’m not ashamed of it, and I know that between now and pack out I’ll think of things that I want to bring home from the Philippines, or something that I want to give someone.

Lucky for me there’s still Greenhills mall.

I will miss…

Anyone who knows me here in Manila will be completely surprised when I list the second thing I’m going to miss in Manila.

I’m going to miss driving.

I usually hate driving here. And when I say hate, I mean…absolutely loathe. The driving here is so stressful.

However, there’s a freedom in driving here that doesn’t exist in the States. For instance, if someone is in your way, you just go around. No matter what the situation is. If you can fit around them, you can go around them.

Rules aren’t widely known, loosely enforced, and almost never followed.

I feel like my skills in driving, and parking have increased exponentially since I started driving here.

I don’t know what I’m going to do in the US when the driving is ordered, predictable, and restrained. Or what I’ll do about all the wide lanes and free large parking spots. Probably stress out less and enjoy it more, and save money on parking. I feel like it’s possible that John and I might fight over the keys for the first week or two.

We’re trying to sell our car here. It’s served us well and I’m hoping it will serve someone else in Manila well after we leave.

I’m going to miss…

I’m going to miss a lot about Manila. Sure, I’ve spent a lot of time here acting (and sometimes being) miserable. But there have been a lot of good times here.

I’m going to miss the people here.

I have a feeling this is going to be my number one answer whenever I leave somewhere. Relationships are the most important part of my life. Luckily I get to take the most important ones with me.

Possibly the hardest part of the Foreign Service life (for me at least) is making good friends and then leaving them.

For instance, two months ago, or less, an officer, her husband, and their daughter arrived at Post. We’ve spent a good amount of time with them and I’m so sad that we’re leaving in two months.

One of the benefits of social media is that I can stay connected with them. I’ll be able to watch their daughter grow up, even if I can’t see it in person.

One thing we wanted to do in The Philippines is make relationships with people who were outside of the Embassy community. We accomplished this, during our tour. We’ve met Americans, Filipinos, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Australians, Brits, Scots, and more. The Philippines is a place full of people from all over.

I’m really going to miss the people here.

The Art of Doing Nothing a.k.a. how to take a whole day grocery shopping

I’m not an expert at much, but sometimes I think I’m an expert at doing nothing.

Somehow in Manila it’s much easier to be busy doing nothing. One errand can take up a “whole day.” Take, grocery shopping, for example. Let’s say you want to go on a big shopping trip. You have a long list of things you want including local and imported ingredients.

You obviously don’t want to have perishable items sitting in the car for a long time, so you are going to hit up one of the regular grocery stores first. You can try Landmark Makati, Rustan’s Fresh Makati, or SM Aura. Those are my favorite grocery stores here. You’ll spend probably sixty to ninety minutes gathering things.

It takes a long time to shop here because even after you’ve been here for a year you still have to look at all your options and make sure a couple of things: 1. you’re getting the product you actually want 2. you’re not paying too much money for it.

Then you’ll spend twenty to thirty minutes in the check out lane. Once all the groceries are packed in the car (if you have a driver this is an easier task, I do not have a driver), you can head out in traffic to the next stop.

The next stop is S&R. This is the warehouse shopping that we have in the Philippines. It feels just like home, and I love shopping here (I do all of my “basic” stuff here). You can also get fairly decent perishable items. The pricing is only a little higher than the other stores, if at all (that isn’t to speak of how most of the stuff costs vs. the U.S., the stuff is much more expensive here). Just avoid the meat at S&R. Every time we bought chicken there it was bad in a day or two. We now buy meat at the other places.

I get my sour cream, cheese, fresh orange juice (expensively imported from Australia), eggs, bread, cereal, some produce (it’s sometimes cheaper here than the other places), charcoal, toilet paper, paper towels, crackers, chips, shampoo, soap, toothbrushes, and more here. If you’re lucky (and you get there early in the day) then you might not have to wait in line, or your wait will be short. I’ve waited thirty minutes in line, though.

By the time you’ve left and get home you’ve been grocery shopping for four and a half hours (including travel time – about 30 minutes to/from each place). That’s more than your whole morning, because the first grocery store didn’t open until 10:00 a.m.

You’re exhausted from walking around for hours, plus the extended periods of head math for conversion (this is especially exhausting if you’re bad at math…ahem.), the stress of traffic and parking, and not being able to find the key ingredients for two of the meals you were planning.

You decide to take your lunch in your room and nap the afternoon away.

When your husband asks what you did that day you shrug and reply “not much.”

Durian flavored Guacamole

There’s a fruit that’s simultaneously famous and infamous. Some people love it, some people hate it. It’s called durian.

It’s popular here in the Philippines, and it reeks. It has such a pungent odor that it fills the stores that cut them up. Even though the fruits are wrapped after being cut, you can still smell it. Even in the warehouse store where the ceilings are sky high and air movement is great, you can still smell them when they’re near.

Yesterday someone gave me some durian candy to try. Even though the smell is horrible, many people love the taste. I’ve been avoiding durian for over eleven months, but I thought, “if there’s a way to try it, this is it.” So I took a small bite of the candy; just enough to taste it. And I didn’t like it. I thought it tasted a bit oniony, and like that horrible smell in the grocery stores that used to make me gag.

I was happy that I was done tasting durian. I felt satisfied that I’d done it, but I had no desire to taste it, in any form, again.

I’m currently in the process of making dinner for tonight. I’m making chicken tortilla soup, and I was going to make a salad (which I can’t make because the store didn’t have enough beans for the soup, let alone a salad on the side), and guacamole. I also bought mangos for John and our friend to enjoy (I don’t like mangos either).

I bought local avocados at S&R to save on cost. We had tomatoes and I had my helper go out later and buy red onions and look for jalapenos (no dice – they’re rare here). After my soup looked deliciously glorious and was simmering I started in on the guacamole. I did the tomatoes and the onions in the little food processor and mashed the guacamole (2 out of 3 avocados were good – woot!), mixed them together, added salt and lemon juice (also – limes aren’t common here, sigh. it’s not a great post for making Tex-Mex) and tried it on a home made corn tortilla (found only at the restaurant El Chupicabra near Makati Ave and Kalayaan) chip that I just had finished for the soup.

And it didn’t taste right. It tasted rather funny. I thought, maybe it needed more onion. I couldn’t taste it at all. There was a powerful taste that I couldn’t place that I thought must be the avocado because I hadn’t had local avocados here before and every other ingredient tastes “normal” to me when I cook with them. I added more red onion, salt and lemon and tasted it again.

And then it hit me. It tasted like durian. And I was sad. Not to the point of tears, but close. If my kitchen hadn’t been full with three helpers and four kids, I might have cried. I’d been looking forward to guacamole all day. I love guacamole. I love Tex-Mex in general, but I especially love guacamole. The fact that I haven’t had it in almost a year is depressing.

I hope that it’s the local avocados. I hope that if I want to splurge on the imported ones from America I will find the taste I’m looking for. I really, really, really hope that I can have some good guacamole soon. Because this durian flavored guacamole will not fly in this house. 

Facing a fear

If you're my friend on Facebook, you may have seen some pictures taken yesterday.

John and I decided to take the kids on a day trip. We wanted to get out of the city, and there are great places to go. John thought Tagaytay would be good and looked up ideas on what to do.

After eating brunch at Antonio's, we headed just down the street to Residence Inn. There's a hotel there with an amazing view of the lake and Taal Volcano, but there's also a zoo. It's small, smelly, and the cages are horrible.

However, the kids had a good time, and we got really close to some animals. Really, really close. Petting the tiger wasn't really scary, it was fun actually. I was excited to do it and even bought the photo.

This is taken with my camera by one of their employees. 

After going through the aquarium, we saw a similar encounter with a very different animal. A long, skinny, slithering kind. I guess you'd have to call it a reptile...a snake. A python to be exact. I have a strong fear of snakes. I had a nightmare once about being in a room full of snakes and not getting out before being bitten. The room went black before I woke up. I still shudder when I think of that nightmare.

This snake was rather tame and just laying there. I told John I kind of wanted to hold it, but that I was really scared. He pointed out that I should do it exactly for that reason.

The lady thought we'd want the face to be facing the camera. In all honesty her moving the snake made it worse.

So I payed the P50 ($1.25) and scooted my way down the bench towards the snake. The woman working that stand was just throwing the snake around like it couldn't kill me!

Maybe it didn't want to eat me, but I certainly wasn't thinking that way. But I held it, and John took pictures. And I was terrified. Like...couldn't-stand-straight-for-about-30-seconds-after-I-walked-away terrified.

But I did walk away. And I faced a (strong) fear. And I felt really good about that.

Next Stop...

Manila!!

This is the best possible post for us! We are so happy with our forward assignment (with the exception of maybe Bangkok, but who DIDN'T bid high on that?). Even Malachi says he's super excited to live in the Philippines.