This is a story about a rare breed of husband: the husband who can cook. It’s also a love story without the googly-eye, romantic drivel.

The evening begins as it always does. The doorbell gives off a series of staccato dingding-dongdongs! The dog barks, the little bell on her collar ringing shrilly in accompaniment – the house’s one-member welcoming committee; if only she could open the door. The man of the house, my Bin, arrives from work, walks in purposefully, heads straight for the kitchen. Already, the ingredients he’s asked for – tomatoes, basil leaves, crusty bread, and Parmesan – are reposing on the counter, sentinels waiting for their chief. A quick kiss on my cheek, a tight hug, hand wash, and he gets to work.

Tonight, my Bin is making a simple favorite of his, tomatoes and basil on toast. It’s simple because it requires just a few ingredients and only minimal heat is involved. I cut open the package of basil leaves, its licorice-clove scent fills nostrils and mind. My Bin grabs a handful of the leaves, takes a knife to them. “Just rip them, hon. A knife will bruise them,” I blurt out. “No, I want to use a knife,” he replies automatically, not looking up, not missing a beat. Earlier in our marriage I would’ve pressed on, insistent on my way but 12 years has  taught me to let go. We each have our kitchen rituals. I look at the cut basil, it contrasts vibrantly with the glass bowl it’s been tossed in.

Short work is made of peeling two whole heads of garlic using – “your God-given tools, your hands” – I recall from some long-ago TV food show. My Bin throws the naked cloves – creamy ivory on black – into a skillet doused heavily with olive oil, a casual shower of coarse salt, and left to heat slowly. There’s no time to roast garlic so this is a quick recourse. In no time, the romance of garlic and oil permeates the air, a fragrance full of promise.

My Bin is slicing tomatoes, the sharp knife glides through the red flesh. I’m taking pictures of him, each snapshot seen through the digital screen is a mirror to the images in my mind, a mosaic of meals and memories past. I wasn’t versed in the ways of the kitchen until I got married, I was just a good eater. But my Bin grew up in the kitchen. He wooed me with food he’d cooked himself: paella; a creamy tuna pasta dish, the recipe of which was published in a national food magazine; and a multi-layer taco salad with a secret ingredient – a piquant sauce the color of carrots, its flavor rocketing through the vegetables it coated. While I’m the more organized of our couple, my cooking is limited to recipes, which effectively hinder flights of imagination. But my husband on the other hand, can cook on the fly, making do with whatever’s left in the refrigerator and pantry and setting them a-flight, his reliably precise palate the compass. He’s got a mind for flavors past and is inspired by what he sees while channel-surfing – “Lor! I gotta tell you what I saw on TV last night…” He makes a truly memorable carbonara (eggs only, no cream) and his salpicao is something Boo can eat for days.

Shreds of basil and tomato slices now huddle at the bottom of the bowl. More coarse salt and then pepper shower down to them from up top: crackcrack! go their mills. A wedge of aged Parmesan is grated and follows into the bowl. “Sugar, maybe?” I suggest. My Bin’s head leans to the side, considering. He’s the one cooking tonight. A mere spoonful is added to offset the tomatoes’acidity, coaxing out their inherent sweetness. Glug-glug goes the olive oil in agreement. A large rubber spatula is dispensed – it’s the magic wand that intersperses, intertwines the ingredients that run, tumble, chase after one another.

I imagine it might be a more scintillating story to say that my Bin swills wine while he cooks, a cutting figure in the kitchen evincing someone worldly, the business executive who handles corporate life and a cleaver with equal finesse. In truth, my Bin is a simple, straightforward man who prefers to drink water as he tends to the stove. And he likes to cook. I’d have it no other way.

Thick slices of crusty bread muffle the hiss of the butter-greased pan, and emerge from that heated kiss glistened-yellow with the occasional burn spot. The cooked garlic spread on top is its salve. My Bin piles the bread slices hill-high with the tomato-basil mixture, a motley of reds and greens speckled with yellow. Its lushness makes it collapse unto itself, littering the white plate. Another smattering of cheese and then the lot is laced with swirls of caramelized balsamic vinegar.

Dinner.

Table set, we sit. A separate dish has been cooked for Boo as she’s yet to become fond of tomatoes. “Thanks for cooking, hon,” I say simply as I set my camera down and look into his eyes. He flashes me a bright smile in return and reaches out a hand. I reach back and squeeze. Every wife should be lucky enough to have a husband who can cook.

Maybe I should’ve given these rolls to all those people who asked me whom I voted for. Then they would’ve judged me on my baking prowess instead of criticizing my choices.

Every month, PMS arrives with what I’ve come to call the “food of the month.” It’s a crazy craving where I’ll eat the object of my craving for two weeks straight. Last month it was sampaloc, this month it’s chocolate bread. A few days ago I made a chocolate yeast cake that cut like a bread but tasted like cake. Last Friday night, I’m overcome by a desire for cinnamon rolls, soft and bready and stuffed with chocolate.

Wading through my favorite cookbooks – no easy feat since I have about 500 – I realize that I’m out of butter. So I step out at 8.30 pm no less (!) to buy some. It’s two days to go before the national elections, and I get caught in a last-minute rally. Police and barangay tanods are crawling everywhere guarding several metal barriers that impede the progress of my SUV, which right now, is just another nuisance along with the other vehicles of the two, three, and four-wheel type. Determined to get my butter at all costs and refusing to be dissuaded since I’ve already made it this far, I make several illegal U-turns, park in a tow-away zone, and wade through a multitude of humanity to get to the supermarket. Throughout this desperate butter-or-bust! undertaking of mine, I’m repeatedly muttering, Please keep me safe, let me get home to any hallowed beings above who may be listening. Almost immediately, a smart-alecky voice punctuates my incantations: Well, who had the smarty-pants idea to go out for butter at an obscene hour days before the elections? Oh, how inconvenient a conscience is! But how right, I grudgingly admit.

I get lost coming home but I arrive alive as does my car (no missing tail lights or side mirrors) thank God, and totter off to bed, taking the time to complain to my Bin the hassle I’ve just been through. (That it’s a hassle I’ve invariably put myself through is beside the point). During times like these when something is just begging to be baked, sleep is an inconvenience, a chore that needs to be accomplished in order to get to the next level. I awake at 4 the next morning, woken by a gentle unseen presence I like to call the “guardian of early morning bakers.”

As I mix flour, eggs, butter, yeast and sundry into a supple dough, the silence is palpable. It’s so quiet that I swear I can hear the paint dry on my newly-renovated porch.

I like it.

It’s during the quiet morning hours when night releases dawn that I’m fully immersed in what I’m doing. I can hear myself think. I revel in the connectedness of my fingers with the dough, feel the silkiness of the melted butter, the walnuts’ nubby-ness, the grit of the muscovado sugar. And as the rolls bake, I’m there to witness their transformation from squat and stubby to tall and tantalizing. If you’ve ever baked bread for yourself, you know there’s nothing quite like the aroma it gives off. Compounded with cinnamon and butter and in this case, chocolate too, it’s an outstanding olfactory stimulus, almost too much to bear.

Three hours after I started the buns, my Bin and Boo come down, bleary-eyed but lured out of bed by the beguiling scent of baking buns. As we settle down to breakfast, I watch them, thrilled at their reactions: mouths open, eyes close, bodies go limp. Edible surrender.

“You’re like a woman possessed,” my Bin remarks, spearing the last of his roll into his mouth. “But Boo and I are the beneficiaries of it,” he ends with a chuckle.

Yes, it can be made at home – and quite easily at that – without any fancy equipment.

Disgusted with the watery texture of supermarket yogurts and unable to maintain a regular supply of Rizal Dairy’s Greek yogurt, I decide to try my hand at making my own yogurt.

Making yogurt is, surprisingly, easy enough; so easy in fact that I now make it regularly. No special equipment is required. All that’s needed is milk, a starter (about ¼ to ½ cup of store-bought yogurt), a stockpot that fits inside a larger pot (for a waterbath), and – this is absolutely crucial – an instant-read or candy thermometer; I use my Wilton professional thermometer (seen in the photos below).

Once I’ve got my equipment, I create a “water jacket” using the two stockpots. This ensures consistent results and prevents the milk from burning. The larger pot is filled with water while the smaller pot is filled with milk. I’ve used whole milk and carabao’s milk – both produce excellent, full-bodied yogurts (naturally, considering how much fat and milk solids are retained in these types of milk); while low fat milk produces a very thin yogurt with somewhat insipid flavor (again, not surprising). I beseech you to not even think about using skim milk.

When milk nears 185°F, a film forms on the milk’s surface. This is also the temperature, incidentally, when milk begins to froth as for a latte, say.

Placed on the stovetop over medium heat, the water heats the milk to 185°F, the temperature needed to remove the possibility of bacteria or anything else that may interfere with cultivating the yogurt cultures. The milk is then cooled to 110°F, the temperature at which the yogurt cultures start to reproduce. I do this by removing the smaller stockpot containing the now-hot milk and placing the pot over an ice bath (a huge mixing bowl filled with ice water). In such an “arctic” environment, the temperature drops quickly, something I wish this torrid summer heat would do as well.

Once the milk reaches 110°F, I pitch my yogurt. The term “pitch” is a beer maker’s term that simply means “to add.” Brewers pitch yeast to make alcohol, I pitch yogurt to make more yogurt. In these photos, I’ve pitched one-half cup of my previously made homemade yogurt to make new yogurt. If this were a new batch, I’d use one-half cup of a store-bought plain yogurt.

The prepared yogurt is then stirred in – the milk visibly begins to curdle almost immediately; the transformation is fascinating! – and I cover the pot with a clean kitchen towel. Curious minds and tiny hands have made it necessary for me to put a “DO NOT TOUCH” sign. Homemade yogurt needs to rest in peace for at least seven hours, no more or else it becomes too sour and thick.

Yogurt is created by “helpful” bacteria that ferment the milk. It consumes the sugars (lactose) found in milk, which cause it to curdle and produce lactic acid. It’s lactic acid that acts as a natural preservative and gives yogurt its pleasantly sour taste. We all know how healthy yogurt is – frozen yogurt, anyone? Yogurt is also a great source of protein, calcium, and other essential vitamins whose active bacterial cultures aid in digestion.

After seven hours, I now have yogurt (that looks a bit like broken up taho and whey, a clear liquid that separates from the milk solids and which I describe as a benign but indescribable shade of yellow-green; chartreuse perhaps? Though I’m not brave enough to do so, culinary enthusiasts use whey as a cold libation, a soup base, or as a cooking liquid for pilafs and risottos.

I strain the yogurt/whey by lining a large wire mesh sifter with a double layer of cheesecloth and placing it over a glass bowl. It’s quite relaxing to hear the pitter! patter! of the dripping whey, quickly at first and then intermittently.

I’ve found that it’s best to make yogurt early in the day so that after its seven hour rest, I just pour the strained yogurt into containers and let it chill overnight. The next morning, I’ve got the best yogurt I’ve ever had for breakfast along with some granola that I’ve also made.

The advantages of homemade yogurt are many: it’s cheaper, preservative-free, and better-tasting. Personally, I like that I can control how thick and sour I want my yogurt to be, as well as choose what kind of milk to use. Making my own yogurt has opened my eyes to how good yogurt can be, and what I’ve been missing all these years. Thick and pleasingly sour, it’s refreshingly nutritious and perfect for my beat-the-heat fruit smoothies.

Spaghetti Pie, Roasted Tomato & 3-Cheese Quiche, Browned Butter Macadamia Pie, and Salted Chocolate-Caramel Pie. Drooling, yet?

My editor’s task for me is simple: make four pies inspired by the movie, “Waitress.” (And if you, food lover you, haven’t watched that movie yet then get to it). Frankly, I could’ve made more than four. Pie inspires after all. There are also precious few activities I find, that are as reliably pleasurable as making things with my hands. And how I love to bake, truly I do.

I love the way the fleur de sel salt crystals glisten atop my Salted Chocolate-Caramel Pie

So on one still-cool day when morning slips into noon, FOOD magazine’s editor-in-chief Micky Fenix, its creative director Pie (yes, that’s his name, really) David, and I hold the shoot at my house with my pies. Of course we’ve got Pat Mateo there, one of my absolute favorite photographers to work with. I’m a great fan of his no-nonsense, minimalist approach to taking food shots and his killer sense of humor.

Spaghetti Pie, something for kids but which we adults demolished

Roasted Tomato & 3-Cheese Quiche. In the magazine, there’s a drool-worthy picture of a slice of this.

Micky throws me for a loop however when she tells me that I’m going to be IN the photos. Ack! I’m barefaced save for a swipe of lipstick but I gamely give in, I do quite like hamming it up. So for the next half hour or so, I’m an obedient model to the directions given by Micky, Pat and Pie:
“Turn this way, Lori … oops, not too much!”
“Hold the pie with the mitts and then turn to Micky…”
“Okay, smile! Er, not that big a smile…” (I get this a lot. Seems my smile is almost always too big).

Of course the best part of the shoot is when we sit down to a pie lunch accompanied with the white wine that Micky brings for us. Ahhh, pies and wine and terrific conversation. See my piece on pies, incidentally, also the title of my article and the recipes in the March issue of FOOD magazine which is all about pies and pastry.

~~
Another pie post:
Why I love pie plus my dulce de leche pecan pie recipe .

If only my sleep could be as sweet as the desserts I eat…

Life is something that happens when you can’t get to sleep. ~ Fran Lebowitz, American author/social commentator

I envy people who can sleep anywhere, in any position. Unlike them, I’m completely wide-eyed during those 13-hour transatlantic flights, to say nothing of jetlag upon reaching my destination. Willing sleep to come is exasperating and it winds me up so much that shut-eye is nigh impossible. To make matters worse, I’m also a very light sleeper; any noise will rouse me from slumber and often, I’m unable to return to sleep’s sweet embrace.

I’m far from being an insomniac or relying on artificial means of getting to sleep. Sometimes I suffer from a full mind and an empty stomach or an excess of coffee consumed too late in the day. Sometimes I’m overly anxious or excited about something. The week before I get married, I survived on four hours of sleep a night. My eyebags were monstrous on the big day but thank goodness for mousse foundation. But being unable to sleep just because sleep eludes me is the worst. When my night begins to practically guarantee hours of tossing and turning, and when reading any one or two of the three or four books by my bedside doesn’t help, more aggressive measures are called for.

The world is very different when I’m trying to sleep. Silence is amplified and time stands still. Counting sheep (or sweets) is silly and staring at ceilings is counterproductive. Listening to music is irreverent even when piped down low, and I don’t like watching TV. So I sometimes peep through my curtains into the windows of my neighbor, a famous artist, who prefers to paint during the witching hours. But even that gets tiresome after like, two minutes. So I look over at my Bin and check on Boo, both blissfully in slumber. My Bin’s snores are “cataclysmic,” and Boo sometimes giggles in her sleep which is cute to watch. Once, in a fit of mischief brought on by sleep deprivation, I grab my Bin’s nostrils with my thumb and index finger and shut them tight. With one explosive intake of air, his eyelids fly open and he smacks away my offending fingers. “What the f***, Lor?!!” He cries in outrage. I grin naughtily.

cinnamon rolls baked in fluted pans

Most of the time however, I find myself alone in my library with my 350++ cookbooks keeping me company. It’s no substitute for a warm body, but hey. Soon, something calls out to be baked: once, coffeecake, another night, scones. Earlier this morning, I make waffles and cinnamon rolls.

I’d like to share the recipe for the waffles aptly named Amazing Overnight Waffles. I first chance upon it in the book, The 150 Best American Recipes, and one of the BEST it truly is. I like it so much that I make it four times in a month and I may never try another waffle recipe again.

The recipe’s uniqueness lies in its use of yeast and requires a cold and slow overnight rise in the refrigerator. In the morning, it’s bubbly and thick with that familiar beer-like aroma. Poured onto the white-hot grids of my waiting waffle iron, the batter cooks up crispy and extra chewy. Have at it! And I wish you all the sweet dreams that escape me.

Recent dental work has left me feeling like a toothless old woman.

Here’s something you don’t know about me: I’ve never had a cavity. Ever. And I’m already 35. Unfortunately, such a dubious honor leaves me vulnerable to a whole host of other oral diseases, one of which is the reason my dentist had to go “digging.” At the end of my open-mouthed ordeal, I’m left with a cement patch on the left side of my mouth. It’s a feeling unlike any I’ve known before.

“See me next week so that I can remove that patch,” my dentist tells me, “and make sure you stick to a soft diet.” Eh. Baby food. Graveyard gook. Victuals for the invalid. My stomach growls.

So I’m limited to food that I can either suck through a straw – preferably those thick pearl shake straws – and “spoon-able” food. Having a mouth incapacitated by dental work gives me a profound appreciation for the food I used to be able to eat: hard, crunchy foods that detonate into bits on first bite, and stringy foods like beef brisket glazed in honey-mustard. And oh god, using only one side of my mouth to chew makes me realize how the act of mastication requires – nay, demands (!) – full participation of all teeth involved.

It’s enough to make a grown woman cry.

So I do the next best thing. Eat congee. For me, Luk Yuen has the best congee in Manila. With other congees, I have to pour in spoonfuls of soy sauce and calamansi (native lime) to induce flavor; it is gruel after all, just water and rice. On the other hand, Luk Yuen’s congee is tasty, even before the requisite condiments are added. I like their halo-halo congee that’s got a little bit of everything from pork strips to meatballs to slices of century egg, and the golden glory of a raw egg glimmering in the middle. It’s hot and satisfying like nothing else.

This morning, I make myself some butterscotch pudding, something I usually make when I need sweet solace. (Yes, I do have dessert for breakfast. Don’t you?) The recipe I use today produces a pudding that borders on (crème) brulee. Instead of being stirred over the stovetop like most puddings, this one requires caramelizing sugar and water before being baked in a water bath for about 30 minutes. Quick and easy like most puddings it is not. But the extra step of caramelizing the sugar imbues a deep butterscotch flavor that borders on burnished, and the long, slow bake blesses this pudding-brulee with its jiggly, silken texture. Its salty-sweetness revivifies.

But my ultimate soft food, the one thing that I have an unabashed love for are eggs. It’s what I eat when I feel myself sinking into a cesspool of disgust and self-pity. I’ve printed paeans to this humble food here on this website, my lustful imaginings of them cooked in every way proving every bit as divine as the real thing. Eggs are a soft food-salve, a reminder that I’m not a toothless hag.

At least not yet.

Related Posts:
Sensually Soft-Boiled
Luck Duck
A good recipe for butterscotch pudding

It’s in Ji-Pan where I first come across kouign amann (KWEEN-ah-man; KOO-ine ah-MAHN).

I’ve encountered it many times in my cookbooks but never “live.” Looking remarkably like a Danish save for its cobbled sugary top, it reminds me of a tough otap, that crackly puff pastry from Cebu that makes marvelous “messes.”

Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s discovered the sticky wonder. On my Facebook page, a foodie friend who’s especially enamored with the pastry posts a picture which results in a flurry of enthusiastic unanimity on the kouign’s deliciousness.

Kouign amann (also kouing-aman, both pronounced the same) is a French pastry from Breton’s Douarnenez region. Literally, “bread and butter”, it was invented in 1860 by a baker who experimented by adding sugar to his laminated dough. It’s what’s used to make croissants, strudels, and other pastries whose layers are vividly seen and can be pulled apart. It’s a terribly time-consuming exercise to make such doughs, but oh, how quick and easy they are to eat!

So just why I decide to make kouign amann is beyond me. Baking is hostage to my mercurial moods: when I decide to make something, I want to eat it now, never mind that it’s three in the morning. I do need that occasional baking challenge, however. Concentrating on just cookies and cakes can be mind-numbing.

blown open by puff. Oy!

The actual hands-on work for this pastry is short. It’s the chilling time between “folding” and “turning” the dough that’s lengthy. I’m using the recipe from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook and everything’s going swimmingly. But it’s the pinwheel-shaping technique that does me in. Suffice it to say that my “pinwheels” blow open and I’m forced to shape another batch into simple rounds. Cursing Martha for her blasted shaping technique, I flip through my cookbooks and realize that I could’ve saved myself the agony.  Several kouign amanns are baked in cake rounds.  Ay!

The beauty of the kouign amann is its sugary top fusing with the butter in the pastry to create caramel, or a caramel lacquer. When my pastries come out of the oven, beauty queens they’re not. But ah, their taste! their crackle! the clamor created when a concordance of layers is crushed by teeth, exploding into echoes of buttery-ness.

As a plus, my house is now deeply redolent of butter and sugar. I’m only half-surprised when I turn around and see my Bin and Boo holding out their breakfast plates to me.

~~
Kouign Amann
P60 at all Ji-Pan outlets

Note: The following post is written from the viewpoint of my 6-year old daughter, Boo, who was with me when I chanced upon some butternut squash at a local supermarket.  Point of view notwithstanding, I thought it would be noteworthy to illustrate to you how my family witnesses my truly food-obsessed moments.

Mom and I are walking through the first floor of SM Makati near the produce section, when suddenly, she says, “Boo, run!” Alarmed and gripping Mom’s hand, I run, as fast as my little legs can carry me. She gets there ahead of me and I catch up with her near the pumpkins, where Mom is – oh gosh, is she actually cooing? – at some tan thing she has in her hand. I suppose it’s a vegetable and I suppose it’s part of the pumpkin family since it’s bunched up with the other pumpkins, but I’m not sure. It looks like an avocado gone very wrong. Mom, who’s been talking to the attendant, turns to me, as if she suddenly remembers I’m with her. “Boo, look,” Mom utters reverentially, her eyes large and shining with glee, “this is a butternut squash.”

Butter what? I don’t care. I’m getting hungry and Papa’s waiting for us at Ace hardware.

“… see its distinctive tan color, its cylindrical neck, and sloping curves?” Mom is saying. Frankly, I get lost after the word “tan.” I prefer the color yellow, like the cooked and buttered corn that’s being sold over there in little cups. Mom is very rational but she goes crazy-wild over food and ingredients. I guess I’m used to it. She’s been taking me to supermarkets and talking to me about food since I was born, which is why she tells me that I started talking before I was a year old.

I hear the attendant say that the butternut squash is P100 per kilo, so Mom flits between this and that squash, holding each one and touching their stems. “I think I’ll get three,” Mom muses as she cradles each squash in her arms. I think she’d get them all if we weren’t already carrying so much. “Thanks for waiting hon,” Mom tells me with a big smile, reaching out to stroke my hair. Thank goodness for headbands.

When we meet up with Papa and sit down at the restaurant (food! finally!), mom shows him the squash, her eyes shining as radiantly as they did with me. Papa and I don’t like squash – we fish them out in the pinakbet that Mom cooks, but since Papa loves Mom so much, he smiles benevolently at her, his eyes full of wonder at his crazy wife.

When we get home, I walk past Mom’s library, her office, and I’m surprised to see one butternut squash sitting on top of Mom’s desk! It’s sitting on top of one of the many cookbooks that usually litter Mom’s workplace. I’m even more surprised to see Mom on the floor clutching her camera, contorting her body in the most unnatural of positions. Click, click, click. I leave her and get to my computer. I can’t wait to watch Ashley Tisdale’s new video on YouTube.

When I get home from school the next day, Mom’s in the kitchen surrounded with those butternut squashes (again!), her camera, and that cute tripod she uses that has flexible legs. I think I heard her call it a “gorilla” once but it looks more like an octopus to me. When Mom sees me, we do our customary “running hug.” We’re very affectionate with each other but not in front of my friends. Because I’m craving for instant noodles, I give Mom my doe-eyed look and ask if I can have it today for merienda. She’s a sucker for my “cutesy looks” (most of the time) and today (yay!) it works. I don’t understand why Mom only lets me have instant noodles twice a week. I love it as much as Mom loves dessert, which she has everyday.

With my bowl of instant noodles in front of me, the salty aroma tickling my nose, I sit and slurp, watching Mom work. I notice that she’s using her cloth napkins that have a million squash, all different kinds, decorated on it. It’s her favorite. She also has a glass chopping board with a huge squash on it. Did I tell you that Mom’s crazy for squash?

“Never did I think (click!) that I’d see the day when butternut (click!) squash would be locally available, Boo, (click!)” Mom murmurs, her voice interspersed by the noisy shutter of her camera. Unlike my Tita Tricia who takes pictures of her kids, Mom only takes pictures of food. Sometimes if I’m not too hungry, I let her take pictures of my food at the restaurant. Mom can take pictures really fast because she hates cold food.

Mom finally splits open the butternut squash. Its flesh is a beautiful, vibrant orange, as orange as the AstroBoy cheese rings that I love to eat. The squash has one small hollow from which Mom scoops out the seeds. She’s going to roast the squash after she “anoints” them with olive oil. She even adds some leaves to them, although why Mom is so fond of leaves in food is anybody’s guess. And they have fussy names too like “sage” and “rosemary”.

Right before Mom puts the squash in the oven, I bend my head over one squash half and inhale deeply. It smells like … orange, almost like sweet potatoes, another thing Mom loves. It smells nice.

The squash is done in about 25 minutes. I know because 25 is the number Mom punches out on her kitchen timer. I watch as Mom uses the tip of a knife to pierce the skin of the squash. The knife goes right through. “It’s ready!” Mom exclaims. She’s excited, I can tell. I’m not sure why she slathers one squash half with honey – “… the one with truffle slices in it, Boo,” – she’s saying. Truffled honey, hmm. I wonder if Winnie the Pooh would like that? Then Mom dabs a bit of cold butter into the hollow of the butternut squash. I watch, fascinated by how the butter dissolves almost on impact. It shines in the light.

As I get some bread to spread some of that butter on, Mom is sitting down at the table eating her roasted squash. She’s eating slowly, a funny look on her face, somewhere between rapture and thoughtfulness. It’s the same look I got when I tried Jack ‘n Jill Nova in Garlic Parmesan flavor. I prefer the Cheddar but Garlic was good too.

As for Mom, I know she’s loving her butternut squash. She might even use it to make her squash risotto (above), a squash pie or the orange pandesal she bakes sometimes. She might even make her yummy squash soup, the only way Papa and I will eat squash.

~~

Butternut squash
Available at 1/F SM Makati.
P100/kilo
Grown and packed by Sweet Bee Farms, Bukidnon for Global Fresh Products, Inc.

Related Post:
My Pumpkin, My Squash

I’m thinking that I may have a serious pancake addiction.

The original Walker Bros. baked apple pancake

When I tried the Walker Bros. apple pancake three years ago, it sparked an epiphany – but I didn’t know it then. After all, I had just one bite of that pancake and I don’t recall any bells or whistles or the sounds of angels playing harps on high. It was just a pancake, for crying out loud; and it wasn’t even my dish.

this may be the thinnest pancake I’ve ever eaten

Fast forward to the present, and I find myself thinking more and more about that baked pancake. I can’t pinpoint what sets it off, but my incessant pancake reveries load the gun, and an onslaught of baked pancake recipes pulls the trigger. I make one baked pancake in 2007, two in 2008, and NINE in 2009, and this year’s only half over!

This isn’t just your average, Pancake House, stack o’ flapjacks pancakes that I’m talking about here, but baked pancakes. Also known as Dutch babies, Dutch Bunny, German Apple Pancake, or oven pancake, this doughy disc is a spectacular result of the lifting power of eggs and heat. The batter is simple: milk, flour, butter, salt and two to three eggs. Mixed in a blender for better aeration, it’s then poured over a shallow pan (usually 10-inches wide) in which some fruit (usually apples) has been caramelized with brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. It’s baked quickly in the oven at high heat and it comes out like the diva that it is; dramatic sloped sides, a golden exterior pocked with burnished bits of molten sugar, and the now-translucent slices of fruit scintillating in juice, heady with the scent of melted butter.

Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.

Because an oven pancake has no leavening (baking powder, baking soda), its texture is a cross between crepe, popover, and pancake. It’s quite dense, definitely not your typical fluffy buttermilk pancake. But it makes for a stunning breakfast or brunch centerpiece. It’s also impossible to stop eating. Most people blanch at its size, managing only a quarter portion, at most, half.  I, on the other hand, can polish off the whole thing by myself.

My goal in making all these pancakes is to recreate the baked pancake that I had at Walker Bros. in Chicago three years ago. Though a return trip there would be ideal, it’s not possible at present, so I make do tweaking and trimming, refining and revising in order to achieve that slightly cakey, sticky-sweet Walker Bros. wonder that is my Holy Grail of Pancakes.

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Recipe here. (Just one of the many I’ve tried).
Pancake making in Rotterdam

It looks quite the unappetizing dish, I know.

I eat lunch alone every day, save for those times when I’m meeting up with friends or am off to a noontime photo shoot. My Bin is at work and I don’t share Boo’s penchant for red hotdogs and other (in)edibles that delight independent-minded 6 year olds. So I use these mid-day breaks to cook meals that no one else in the family likes: i.e. meats and dried fruit, anything durian-based, or like today, my attempt at falafel, similar to the one I eat in Paris.

A dish of Middle Eastern origin, falafel is (usually) a deep-fried croquette made of highly-spiced, mashed chickpeas. Wonderful stuffed into pitas or tortillas and smothered in garlic yogurt, it’s a nutritious meal especially when paired with shredded Brussels sprouts and tomatoes, as seen here. The recipe I use today is from the April 2009 issue of Foodie magazine. These falafels are baked instead of fried which gives them a crunchy exterior. Paired with a glass of sweet wine, I cherish my quiet, solitary lunches.