Food Glorious Filipino Food

We interrupt our regular chronological trip report to talk about another favorite subject of mine....FOOD! For those of you who know me the revelation that I'm a certified foodie comes as no surprise. So I thought it only fitting to devote one of my posts to food, specifically the foods I ate and have come to love from the Philippines. And thanks to my travel mate Becky, aka Ma'am Bicky I have some lovely photos to accompany my ramblings. And so let the food descriptions begin.

A couple of less than positive things I will admit to about the food on my trip:

1. I did not try the balut. Linda loves this and I think looks forward to it every time she visits her second home. Balut is an Asian delicacy. Here is the description from Wikipedia: balut is a fertilized duck (or chicken) egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell.

2. After white rice at every meal, 3 times a day I really didn't want to see it let alone eat it any time soon after I returned from my trip.

3. While I wouldn't eat or even entertain on my plate shrimp with their heads still attached when I visited New Orleans years ago, I did eat them while in the Philippines. And I didn't die or have any heebie jeebies!

4. I tried jackfruit and it wasn't my favorite thing but that might have been because it was very warm when I ate it. I tend to prefer my fruits cold. And more importantly we learned Ma'am Becky is allergic to jackfruit among others.

And now on to the fabulous foods I did eat and learn to love in the Philippines. I think my favorite breakfast food had to be the eggplant! Yes, eggplant for breakfast. Pictured here, it is pretty simple to prepare although when I got home and tried to recreate it I nearly burnt the condo down. Lucky for Aaron he was away that weekend. The basics of the dish: maintain the stem on the eggplant and use fairly small japanese type variety. Roast it over an open flame. There Ester and Dehlia would use one of the fish shaped BBQ contraptions over their gas stove top. At home since I didn't have one of those I used two skewers so I could hold on to it over the flame but I kept lighting the darn thing on fire! After its cooked, remove the skin and it should be cooked enough to then take a fork and smash it. (again don't remove the stem) Then you dip it in beaten egg with seasonings of choice and fry in a frying pan. It was fabulous and I have since bought a fish shaped BBQ contration to try again.

I also fell in love with their fruits some of which were gotten right from their garden. In particular the baby bananas. And try as I may I'm having trouble getting them here at home to be anywhere near as good. Not only are they small and sweet but the color is a deeper yellow. And even when the outsides would turn pretty dark the insides didn't get mushy like ours often do. I have found some baby bananas at home but most are from other countries. My friend Arlene, who I've mentioned before, did get me some from the local Filipino market, but I could only salvage a couple before my co-workers "stole" some of them. And there were other delicious local fruits like mango and papaya.

Speaking of mangoes, run don't walk, to your nearest Filipino market or anywhere else they are sold and get some champagne mangoes. I did not have this variety while I was there but I have discovered their goodness since being home. If you are interested I'll let you do your own research on the differences but one notable one is the skin color, champagnes are golden outside vs. green.

I mentioned Ma'am Linda's joy in balut and mine in eggplant and there will be more postings and recipes later but what about Ma'am Bicky's passion? You must say it like a very lively chant: "mango cake, mango cake" !!

A couple pictures here to illustrate; Ma'am Bicky eating mango cake and the bakery where it was displayed and bought in all its glory.

And let me end by saying it's not like we visit and only enjoy their delicious delicacies we bring some for them to try and enjoy as well. Since we were there during Easter what better treat to bring them....PEEPS. But not only did the children love peeps, of course, but so did the adults as evidence here in the photo of several of the staff enjoying a peep or two!

The Experience Really Begins

I first want to apologize for not posting sooner. My plan was to put up a new post about the trip at least each weekend. Unfortunately when I got back from the trip in April, our 18 year old cat Sammy was not doing well. Given her advanced age I really thought that she had waited for me to return so that I could say goodbye and not to put Aaron through making any hard decisions. She wasn't doing great before I left and we had even discussed some possible scenarios if anything happened before I got back.

I am happy to report that in the week after my returning from the Philippines we took her to a Vet. and animal hospital that I will ever be grateful to. Dr. Mankowski of the Mt Laurel Animal Hospital diagnosed her as diabetic!! Which during his phone call he sounded excited about, I guess mostly because of how upset and tearful I had been when I brought her in. I figured that appointment might be a final farewell but no....we learned how to give insulin, changed her food and take her readings and I can now report it appears she has actually reversed her diabetes. Which the wise and compassionate Dr. Mankowski said could happen. He just didn't expect it to happen that quickly.

And now on to my next trip post!!

We were greeted on our first full day at God's Town by some early morning rain. And other than that day we had very little during our entire trip. Dragging our still sleepy minds and bodies out of the dormitory Becky and I were officially welcomed by 2 of the older boys, Sebio being one of them. They each ceremoniously placed beautiful handmade, personalized necklaces around our necks. (Linda had received hers earlier.) Here is a picture of all of us wearing them. The "flower" on there is actually from a coconut. The front said "Welcome Dawn God's Town Children's Home Philippines and on the back of mine was a small photo of Sebio riding a bike.

We really started our day by lots of unpacking. There were many hidden treasures among all of our luggage that we had to find a home for, including the infamous ax which was given to Dan who is the asst. director and great role model for the boys who live at God's Town. Another big hit were the ice cube trays Linda had brought. Purie didn't know you could buy them, she thought they only came with newly purchased refrigerators.

Among the things we had brought was believe it or not a big wheel. None of the children there had probably ever seen, let alone ridden one. There were only a couple of children small enough to ride this, even though some of the bigger ones did try. But as with most children's toys; some assembly was required. I had been dubbed the technical "wizard" from among my travel mates and that included putting the big wheel together. Now all it really needed was a screw but it 'was' a really long one, in a precarious location. I decided more specialized assistance might be needed for this job so, I went in search of Sebio. He was thrilled to help out and even figured out a more direct route to placing that precarious screw. It gave me a chance to work on our bonding.

Our first full day at God's Town also included: a pig roast (lechon) one of their very own they raised. I did see part of the processing of the pig but will not post any of that here. Becky and I since we have the same exact birthday: April 16th were presented with special coconuts with straws and treated to their rendition of happy birthday.

Later in the day there were games for all some we would be familiar with but with a Filipino spin. This included the climbing of a bamboo pole with pesos on the top for the winner. After many tries that honor went to Junald even though Junjie was soooo very close. They had a sack race that I think only the adults participated in and at the end after jumping you had to recite quite a tongue twister in their language. And finally a pinata but not like we think of a pinata, this was a clay pot hung up with candy inside and broken by swinging an aluminum baseball bat. It was all too funny to watch but everyone had fun. And much to his delight M-D (age 6) discovered, on his own, that his new found big wheel actually had a storage compartment in the seat and that made the perfect hiding spot for his pinata gained candy bootie.

A few lessons I learned as our first full day at God's Town started to come to it's end:

1. Regardless of how much (or little) they have here at the God's Town Children's Home they are happy people.


2. Unlike many children in the US, these kids share and share alike...this was noted while Becky and I watched M-D and Lovel play with the new big wheel. What we observed was there was no conversation, no fussing or fighting over it. One would ride around the building, come back and they would switch, no muss, no fuss, we were amazed.


3. I will never not appreciate running water again...you will hear more about this as the posts go on but think about going thru your daily routines with little or no consistent running water.

Their water problem can be solved with the installation of a water tower. This is now my quest, mission, goal to raise the funds needed so that the God's Town Children's Home can purchase and install a water tower. What might a water tower cost...in US dollars I hope to help raise about $5,000 so the tower, labor and some accompanying concrete work can be completed. If you want to help please contact me.

Next up: Sleeping with lizards and other things that went bump in the night, along with the older boys "big shopping" trip.

* FYI, clicking on pictures, in case you didn't already know, does blow them up bigger!

We Arrive & I Meet Sebio

After viewing the MacArthur Monument and stopping for a bite to eat we started our long ride to God’s Town. Linda and Becky commented that much of the road we were traveling on was not paved during their last trip. I had many observations during this part of my trip and much of what I was taking in was overwhelming to me.

The single lane roads were populated by small homes and I assumed a series of homes made up what we would think of as villages. People of all ages could be seen along the roadways. Their houses basically sat next to the road itself. Children played, people walked and could be seen transporting their water in large cans from a central source. Near dusk farmers were walking their carabao back from their day of laboring, usually in a rice field. There just appeared to be people walking everywhere. Even when our travel was in the dark of night you would just see people walking along the road. I kept wondering to myself “where are they going or coming from”; because for all intents and purposes, we were in the middle of nowhere.

What at times felt like an endless ride took us past some impressive sights including travelling over The San Juanicious Bridge. It is an arch-shaped truss bridge in the Philippines stretching from Samar to Leyte crossing the San Juanico Strait, part of the Pan-Philippine Highway. It's the longest bridge in the Philippines spanning a body of water with a length of 2.16 kilometers (1.34 mi).

After turning on to a bumpy dirt road I was informed we were getting close to God’s Town, and I was nearing my first meeting with Sebio. As we entered the enclosed compound of God’s Town, on the gate hung the welcoming banner pictured here.

As we started to carefully unfurl ourselves from the vehicle we had spent hours riding in and the children came pouring out from a variety of locations, suddenly there were fireworks!! Yes, they lit fireworks to mark and celebrate our arrival. This heightened my anxiety of whether I would recognize Sebio. And there from behind a group of other children I spotted him and as I had been fore-warned he was shy…so much so he attempted to hide, which basically failed because I just went up behind him and gave him a hug and said hello. He responded with a smile, albeit a nervous one and still looked a bit shelled-shocked, as I’m sure I did too because I couldn't believe I was actually there.

We said farewell to our skilled, friendly and informative driver (whose name now escapes me) and started meeting everyone. Oh my goodness how was I ever going to get everyone’s name straight; staff and children? We were then escorted into the dining hall and treated to some food and “entertainment”.This video is actually of a repeat performance of the same routine they did the night we arrived. I didn't have the wherewith all to get the video camera out the night we arrived.

We were shown to our rooms; Becky and I would share what is considered a storage room that was prepared with 2 little single beds nicely made up, looking comfortable and very inviting. Linda would be using a small building that was once an office. Purie’s original idea was to give that to me since it was my first time there but I think my deer in the headlights look informed Linda that my being alone would probably not be my preference and boy was she right.
I think after all of our travels that day even if our beds had been made of hard, razor sharp nails it wouldn’t have mattered because once our heads hit the pillows we were out for the count.

Next time: Our First Full Day at God’s Town