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Friday, 07 October 2005

In a quick round of word association, black pepper, which happens to be the spice next to nutmeg on the shelf, brings sneeze to mind; sneeze, runny nose; runny nose, flu; flu, comfort food. (It has to be as quick as it is much too obvious.)

A favorite comfort food of mine is lugaw or arroz caldo or congee. For me it is the best of all comfort food – simple, straightforward, and very flexible; you can do virtually anything you want with it. Flavor it any which way you’d wish. Whatever floats your boat.

I used to have my lugaw in a way that seemed anything but comforting to most people. I’d take a bowl of the good old chicken arroz caldo, drizzle it with an absurd amount of soy sauce-vinegar mixture used as dressing for tokwa’t baboy, and season it until it was black and hot with specks of milled pepper, unmindful of the disaster this might bring to my nose.

A dead-starred swirl of brown-black and white, my juvenile world was momentarily contained in this galaxy of flavors.

Salt, acid, heat

My love affair with this trinity of flavors, of course, did not end there. At lunchtimes I’d fish for the finger chili in the steaming pot of sinigang, squish it in savory patis, and drop the concoction by the rough quarter teaspoon on each mouthful of boiled rice bathed in sinigang broth.

Bored and penniless in mid-afternoons, I would snack on Cornbits swimming in vinegar bleeding red chilies; scoop the soaked saltiness by the spoonful; fume after the tingle after the crunch; fight the urge to sip the sourness afterward. I could live with just these if I had to.

But, salt breaks down - in water, or humidity; acid turns too caustic; heat simmers down, in time.

Childhood care-freeness gives to anxieties of adulthood. Boldness gets plagued by insecurities, turns to hesitancy, to cowardice.

I stopped shuttling myself to my galaxy. I kept myself firmly grounded. I settled in. It's the worst thing anyone could ever decide to do. It never did any good for my self-esteem.

I'm not one to indulge in any form of self-pity publicly (though I think I just did; and if you say it's "self-pity" if done publicly, and "introspection," if privately, I think I'll agree with you), but that doesn't mean I can NOT post self-embarrassing bits. So.

Last weekend, I convinced my mom to dine in this curious little Chinese noodle restaurant. I had never eaten in said restaurant before, partly because I was not really a noodle fan, and largely because of the MSG prejudice I had against obscure Asian eateries. But in the end, I decided to eat here if only for the fresh noodles hand-pulled before my very eyes.

I ordered hot and sour noodle soup, and, before our waitress left our table, asked her if she could have it "toned down" for me. I wanted to thank her for not recommending the more wholesome braised beef instead. That would've been really rude if she did. I could take my mom's stifled snigger. Nothing more, nothing worse. The noodle soup came nice and steamy. And hot, but bearably so. Years ago I would've said this wasn't even remotely warm. But for now, this shall suit me.

posted by: giuli at 21:35 | link | comments (4) |

Comments:

#1 08 October 2005 - 19:22

"I'm not one to indulge in any form of self-pity publicly (though I think I just did; and if you say it's "self-pity" if done publicly, and "introspection," if privately, I think I'll agree with you), but that doesn't mean I can NOT post self-embarrassing bits. So."

---I especially like this, and so happy to see you post again.