Naalala ko pa mula sa aking ina

Naalala ko pa mula sa aking ina

Naalala ko ang mga damit na yong tinahi

May isang gustong gusto kong isuot

Dilaw na damit sleeveless kung tawagin

Binurdahan mo ng dalawang aso

Kulay kape at mayroon pang nakakabit

Na laso.

Sa aking unang kommunyon

Ginatsilyong bonnet na kulay puti

Ang pinasuot mo sa akin.

Ang aking tanong, bakit ako walang belo

Tulad nang sinuot ng ate ko.

Hindi mo nakita nang ako’y

Nag-anghel sa prusisyon ng salubong

Sa Piyesta ng Pagkabuhay

Nasa bahay ka lang

Nagsilang  ng bagong anghel

Sa aming magkakapatid

At tuwangtuwang ibinalita ko

Ako ang kumuha ng belo.

Maliit pa ako ng tanungin kita

Bakit ka mahirap di tulad ng mga

Ibang kapatid mo

Ano ang kasagutan sa tanong ng

Isang musmos na hindi maunawaan

Bakit may mahirap at bakit may mayamang tao.

Natatandaan ko pa ang ‘yong mga kwento

Na narinig mo kay Lolo Linong mestiso

Tungkol sa mga spiritung gumagala

Sasabihin niya sa inyong magkapatid

Takpan ang inyong mga mata habang

Hindi nalalampasan ang malalaking puno

Habang  ang tatay ninyo’ y nagsasalita

Umalis kayo dyan

Eto’y mga bata.

Natatandaan ko pa din ang malimit mong

Ikwento sa aming magkakapatid

Sa lumang eskwelahan

Maraming dwende naglalaro sa oras ng aralan

Nililigawan ang inyong maestra, hindi naman

Niya nakikita ang dwendeng may gusto sa kaniya

Habang aliw na aliw kayong mga bata

Sa kahahabol sa mga dwendeng

tumutulay sa writing board at kisame.

Mga pamahiin, mga paniniwala

Mula sa yong mga bibig

Pinalaki mo sa amin

Huwag magtapon ng bigas o kanin

At baka magtampo ang spiritu nila

Di na bumalik sa bahay natin.

Pag ang bata ay biglang iiyak

Sasabihin mong ‘maykan, maykan’

Pababalikin ang natatakot at nawawalang

Spiritu ng bata

At kung kami naman’y may biglang sakit ng tiyan

ay dadalhin kami sa kilalang mangangaway

para tawasin at malaman kung sino ang

may kagagawan ng sakit at makahingi ng laway.

Miyembro ka ng Legion of Mary, Sacred Heart,

Catholic Women’s League, at naging katekista

At sa iyong kabataan ay artista pa sa lokal na sarsuela

Tindera, naging Blue Lady at kung ano-ano pa

Tinagurian  Mommy Tonie  

Tagapagdasal para sa mga kaluluwa.

Para sa ‘yo,  Mommy Tonie,

Maraming, maraming salamat

Di man kita napasalamatan lubos

Sa pagiging ina namin

Sa mga bagay na hindi natin pinagkaunawaan

Patawad  ang aking hiling

Alam mong mahal na mahal ka namin.

Mother's Day ...a prayer

Letters from Home with Recipes: Pandisal in Diaspora

 

 This recipe is more than two decades kept in my folder of cuttings or recipes and other rough drafts. It was sent to me by my sister upon my request together with other recipes because I wanted to learn how to cook. I thought I might need the talent to impress my in-laws and other German friends. Todate, my sister is still sending me recipes and some tips and I am still dreaming of being able to come out with real delicious stuffs. Over the years, I have been able to befriend nice Pin@ys who could really bake and cook and since then I have forgotten my ambition. I just have to be a nice, thoughtful friend to these talented Pin@ys. I was reminded of it when I ate pandisal (Filipino buns or rolls) in one of the salo-salo (eating together) of  the Filipino Community in Bonn after the novena to the Sacred Heart and the celebration of the Holy Mass. I was also reminded that I still have some frozen pieces brought to me by my brother as pasalubong from his recent visit to Manila. I took home some of the pandisals from the salo-salo to compare them with the taste of the ones brought by my brother from one of the famous pandisal shops in Manila.

To the left are the pandisals from this famous bakery carried as  hand baggage from Manila. To the right are the pandisals I brought home after the devotion to the Sacred Heart. Notice the irregularity in their shapes as they are made out of love and devotion (according to Lourdes, the Pinay who bake them) but I know of the extra squeezing done to them as they were smuggled inside my handbag. I love eating them hot with crunchy peanut butter or with coco jam. Other Pinays said they taste great with canned sardines. I said better with Spanish or Portuguese sardines produced in Germany but never again with condensed milk. I had enough of that sweet memory of food eaten during childhood. Whatever.

 

 

My tip for the recipe is to have a Plan B, i.e. always have German Brötchen in your freezer as substitutes or install a Skype to get direct supervision from your sisters or brothers who could bake, and or maintain friendly relationship with other Pin@ys cooks living  in what they love to term now as Diaspora.

Tanz in den Mai, Dance, Drink and Demonstrate

 Every night on April 30, one is sure that every beer garden in Germany will be full unless it will be raining cats and dogs. It's the traditional Tanz in den Mai happening...dancing to the month of May.

Our "nice witches" group is the first to grace the dancing hall some minutes after ten in the evening. We are more than willing to work out the calories won eating pasta in the neighboring Italian restaurant.

Dance like nobody is watching you, so said Mark Twain. Yes, we are asking ourselves, where are the Tanz-in-den-Mai fanatics to
join us. Hallo Mr. DJ, could you please change your techno first and let us dance to our danceable beats?

 Then the dancing hall starts to get really full that one couldn't move anymore except raise one's hands, swaying the body to the techno music.

 There's enough space though to take photos. No chance for demonstrating our LA Walk!

   Everybody dance, huhuhuhuhu, clap your hands, clap your hands.  Where are the good old days' disco music? Aren't they playing them anymore?

While you might be forgetting yourself in your dance steps, don't forget that your cigarettes have no right to be smoked here.

The later the night, the younger the crowd gets, hehehe. They normally stay until 6 or 7 am the next morning on the 1st of May, Labour Day.

 My dinner for the evening before dancing...Linguine ai Fruitti di Mare

 The dance hall now getting so hot. Why don't they hold the dancing outside, in the garden?

The other dinner of one of the good witches...Spaghetti con le seppie...octopus or squid? 

Just a short info about Tanz in den Mai taken from wiki. 

In Germany, Walpurgisnacht, the night from 30 April to 1 May, is the night when witches are reputed to hold a large celebration on the Brocken  and await the arrival of spring.
Walpurgis Night (in German folklore) the night of 30 April (May Day's eve), when witches meet on the Brocken mountain and hold revels with their gods..."
Brocken is the highest of the Harz Mountains of north central Germany. It is noted for the phenomenon of the Brocken spectre and for witches' revels which reputedly took place there on Walpurgis night. The Brocken Spectre is a magnified shadow of an observer, typically surrounded by rainbow-like bands, thrown onto a bank of cloud in high mountain areas when the sun is low. The phenomenon was first reported on the Brocken.

Cooking Asparagus on My Own

 Feeling that my kilo asparagus is lighter than I bought, I wanted to see how much is lost after the paring done by the fruit shop.

 The peelings weigh about 200 gms. Next time I buy Asparagus, will add about 300gms just for the peelings to save on frustration or will peel them myself and include them to make asparagus soup.

I placed the asparagus in a big pot with water, a bit of sugar, slices of lemon and let it cook for more than 35minutes. The man vendor told me I only need 10 minutes to cook them. Hah! Potatoes were cooked with skin on to save on work and not to forget, the nutritious part is found in the skin. Asked hubby to check whether potatoes are done. I have rice cooker but no potato cooker so I need an authentic potato eater for the OK sign. That took about 25 minutes of boiling and hubby said another minute then it would just be fine, a technique he learned from his mother. The technique is that he always tell me one more minute no matter how long I cook the potatoes.

Then I prepared the scrambled eggs adding milk in it while beating. For sauce, I melted a whole bar of good (they always say here good) butter. Nothing is so frustrating for me than having so little sauce while eating asparagus with potatoes. I love them swimming either in Hollandaise sauce or plain melted butter with smoked ham. A glass of chilled white wine should not be forgotten when indulging in asparagus. 

"I stick to asparagus which still seems to inspire gentle thought." 

Charles Lamb

Market Criers in Action

 

Market Criers in Action

A especial attraction for this city one weekend in April when Marktschreier or market criers come to cry their goods from sausages, cheese, exotic plants to tropical fruits. See the video on this screaming sausage crier who teases his audience by throwing rolls of sausages, showering them with cuts of  smoked sausages while crying the prices for the bags of smoked meat from 10Euro to 20Euro. 

How Not to Cook Won-ton, Wun tun, Wan-Tun or Wan-Tan Soup

Frozen  wan-tan or won -ton

 A BFF (best friend forever), one of the chosen ones I have inspired me to make wanton soup. Hermie comes from Ilo-ilo which is home to the national  pride of Bachoy La Paz, a soup which I always thought of as a local version of wanton soup, and Hermie has always this soup ready when we visit her in NL. I thought of preparing my own wanton soup while shopping in an Asian supermarket in a local Chinatown in Rotterdam. I wanted only to inquire  if they have frozen wakame (seaweeds salad) but ended up buying wanton and pechay leaves instead. For the soup, one needs also chicken meat, pepper, salt, garlic and chives.

Left, boiled won-ton  and right, fried won-ton

 Heat oil, add garlic and stir-fry the chicken pieces. Then add water and cook chicken until tender. Normally, I add the frozen wontons in the boiling broth followed by pechay leaves and the spices. One can garnish it with fried garlic, chives, young garlic or chopped coriander leaves.
My other BFF, Jeh (and she is The Cooking friend I have) has tasted once my soup which I have been boasting to friends around. She commented that my wontons are over-cooked and suggested that I cooked them separately and just mix them in the soup when ready to serve. Did she say cook in oil or fry in oil? Anyway, I tried first frying the wonton pieces and to my frustration, they turned soon crispy. Did I get her instruction rightly? Jeh, help! Then I boiled the remaining pieces from the mother broth and set them aside for serving. They were all sticking to each other after awhile.

Fried won-ton parcels with chilli-garlic sauce

 So what to do? I was thinking either I have a merienda of fried wonton parcels with the potato salad or plunge them into the chicken broth. How will they taste crisply fried in hot soup? I returned the won-ton pieces back to the frying pan and fried them until they were all real crispy and ready to eat as starters and not as ingredient of the main course which is Chicken-Won-ton Soup. Found a bottle of banana sauce with an expiry date of November 1911 together with this bottle of chilli and garlic sauce. The chilli sauce has not yet expired luckily and it went fantastic with the crispy won-ton pieces. I sprinkled a bit of peanut oil to the other bowl of boiled wontons thinking it might keep them separated but it didn't help. They were all still clinging to each other in pairs or in groups. Tja. What to do?  I chose some isolated won-ton parcels, placed them in a bowl, add two pechay leaves but left out the chicken pieces as I have enough of the fried stuffs as starters. I garnished the soup with black peppers and squeezed a lemon in it. Added a bit of fish sauce (also not expired but the bottle is almost empty) and enjoyed it even without chopped coriander and chives, and hot, hot it was. I was searching for

frozen fruitsalad or ice cream in my host's freezer as first aid to my burnt tongue. This time, I won't even look for the expiry date.

A small joke about this soup. I can't help but remember this joke which I heard on the radio so many light years away. "How do you call it when someone vandalizes a Chinese restaurant?
Answer? Wanton destruction

Tulips

Tulips

By A.E. Stallings

The tulips make me want to paint,
Something about the way they drop
Their petals on the tabletop
And do not wilt so much as faint,

Something about their burnt-out hearts,
Something about their pallid stems
Wearing decay like diadems,
Parading finishes like starts,

Something about the way they twist
As if to catch the last applause,
And drink the moment through long straws,
And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.

The way they’re somehow getting clearer,
The tulips make me want to see—
The tulips make the other me
(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,

The one who can’t tell left from right),
Glance now over the wrong shoulder
To watch them get a little older
And give themselves up to the light.

Source: Poetry (June 2009).

Happy Easter!

"Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time."
Martin Luther

Wish upon Stars in April

                                                    (Source: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger)

Or would you like to swing on a star

Carry moonbeams home in a jar

and be better off than you are.

             Johnny Burke

The 6th Season Has Started - Asparagus Time

  What's this woman doing in this ad for asparagus, I asked the waiter. He said it is a beautiful thing to look at which can compare to that feeling while eating delicious asparagus. Imagine if that will be a photo of a muscular man posing in adoration of a huge asparagus. It won't surely drive that same effect. Or even George Clooney and asparagus...it does not fit somehow. Right?

Sunny days are here again! With it starts what I term the 6th season after winter, spring, summer, fall, Carnival and now Asparagus time from March to June.
We wanted just to have the normal German fav when we saw the offer of this village restaurant for the whole season:
"Spargelschlacht" for 4 Persons for 59.90Euro which includes non-stop eating Asparagus, plate of  potatoes, porkchops, ham, scrambled eggs, turkey steak and a bottle of white wine. Wow! Was tempted to get the especial menu even if we were only two.  We might still do it considering the length of the season of this white gold in German restaurants.

"I stick to asparagus which still seems to inspire gentle thought."  Charles Lamb

English Mass in a Filipino Community/Holy Week 2012 Observance

Come to Cologne City every last Sunday of the month if you wish to attend a Holy Mass. The Filipino Community of Cologne holds its monthly mass at the church of St. Michael in Bruesseler Platz every 5 pm with lively community music and entertaining homily.
I like the current prayers of the faithful with some lines like these:
"Inspire our elected officials to build a world of peace and goodness and show concern for the good of all. We pray: Father, listen to our prayers.
Make our love grow deeper every day, so that we may share with others their joys and sorrows.
We pray: Father, listen to our prayers."
For the observance of the Holy Week, the community is inviting faithfuls to join them in the activities below:

Pinoy Semana Santa Schedule 2012
April 1 (Palmsonntag), Mass of the Palm Sunday, 12:45 - St. Winfried Pfarrkiche, Bonn
(Choir-Shalom)

April 05 (Gründonnerstag)
Magdamagang Pabasa ng Pasyon and Opportunities for Confessions and Counselling
Elohim Center, Bonn-Bad Godesberg

April 06 (Karfreitag) Good Friday
Stations of the Cross - 13:00 Uhr in Apolinariskirche, Remagen
Celebration of the Lord's Passion 16:30 Uhr - in St. Winfried Pfarrkiche, Bonn
Siete Palabras (while Confessions are going on)
Veneration of the Cross and Communion (choir Loved Flock)

April 08 (Ostersonntag)
Mass of the Risen Lord
12:45Uhr - St. Winfried Pfarrkiche, Bonn
Special Features: Bridges Choir to sing Halleluia
Easter Fellowship at the Unterkiche after the Mass

Of Food, Women and other Topics

As our traditional gathering to celebrate IWD, International Women's Day, we planned to treat ourselves to a brunch which was changed later on to a dinner to make space for many working women friends. We found a Chinese restaurant specializing in Sichuan food as a venue for this special Meet and Eat on IWD. What we didn't expect was that the restaurant is also catering to Chinese groups of tourists. It will be easy for you to imagine the mood of the place with our circle of women with the equally noisy and hungry tourists but despite our noise and the confusion of the sole waiter, we were able to get our orders and shared the spicy food eventually. One Pinay was reminding the poor waiter named Sonny (whom we were calling with that song, "Sonny, yesterday my life was filled with rain") not to forget that she ordered not a spicy soup while another Pinay was complaining it was not hot enough so please more chilli sauce. The night ended up with another round of coffee and cake inside the main station and with another Eat and Meet (a birthday treat) planning for next Monday.
****************************************************************
Was reading today the local newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, and in the Panorama section, I found this column "Die Liste, Wie Kinder heißen," The List, How Children Are Named. The most loved names for children in Germany are Sophie/Sofie for girls and Maximilian for boys according to the "Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache" (Society for German Language).  The five most loved names are the following:

1. Sophie/Sofie  -  Maximilian
2. Marie - Alexander
3. Maria - Paul
4. Mia - Leon
5. Sophia/Sofia - Ben

(Source: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger 10./11.März.2012)

Celebrating International Women's Day

Turkish dinner to celebrate International Women's Day. G gave each one of us to read this piece:

Women's Cry: Not free Even in a Name

When we examine the names given to us,
it makes feel down-hearted and degraded.

We call ourselves females,
look closely the males are there.

Know as we women,
but the word men is annexed.

We pride ourselves as being ladies,
look the word begins with lad.

Be on your grand against being called madam,
because it carries the word Adam.

What about being a human,
a bitter pill again, man is still there.

Chairperson is a feminist coinage,
sadly it ends in son.

Even in simple title like Mrs.,
why should it be derived from Mr.

Look at the word mothers,
is made of others,
who are these others, if not men again.

(Author Unknown)

A Journal of a Party-thrower

"Hospitality, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging."Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911 

6:30       morning call

7:30       Prepared first Sauce for the Koftas which I prepared the 
              night before.

8.20       2^nd Sauce with Thai spicy parcels

9.20       Cleaned Guest WC using a miracle stain remover which sent me
              crying out to the terrace to get fresh air. Went out to fetch TP.
10.25     Someone called up but cp was  low-bat. It turned off and I 
              couldn’t find my pin code. Continuation of Domestic Goddess role.
14.30     Went out for the second time to buy drinks, chips and ice cubes.   

15.46     Washed hair, took shower.
16:00     Start of preparing finger goodies, deep frying Thai spicy parcels,
              heating koftas cutting veggies and preparing dips with my hair 
              wrapped in towel. I don’t want to smell like a walking egg roll.
18:10     Arrival of first three guests: two blondes, one black hair;
              followed by another one. More telephone calls for the direction 
               of the nest. One guest called up as she was controlled by the
               police, and she had to return back home to fetch car documents.
               A surprise visit from a guest who told us she became
               grandma that day. More reasons to celebrate, it’s a girl!. 
               Dinner: drinking, eating, entertaining, inter-active cooking with 
               Je, our dear friend from Thailand. More jokes and wine. 
               One friend asked me if I informed my eighbors about the 
               party. No, I said. We are well-behaving anyway. Singing of
               birthday songs in three languages. Cutting of the (ikea) cake by 
               the three birthday celebrants of the OTAP, 
               (Organization of Truly Attractive Pinays!). 

  

Vicky, Marilou and ML

01:10   Last guest to leave. One BFF stayed overnight to catch 
            an early train to NL. We shared a  round of Dao,
            Portuguese red wine. Too strong, BFFsaid, we needed 
            steak for the drinks.
07.30   Woke up to ensure BFF gets up to catch the early train to
             NL. Went back to sleep.
09:45    Found a beanie cap left by one BFF. Poor her, 
             it was freezing cold in NL. 

11:05   Called up the owner of the beanie cap. Started clearing stuffs away.

11:45    Finished hovering and hearing crunchy sound of dropped 
             nuts and chips. Collected pink feathers of a polyester flamingo.
12:05    Time to enjoy Fado and started to relax a bit.

12:35     Reheated “Tiramisu” of “iPad” Thai noodle for lunch. 
              Washed wine glasses, More cleaning up. Returned boxes of glasses
              and party pan to cellar.

14:20     Siesta finally! Journal closed. Until the next party to throw.