12 posts tagged “family”
I have a decent repertoire of entrées and side dishes that I can cook. I think most of them taste pretty good (to me.) I don't really pay too much attention to the food's presentation. My sister reinforced this point to me a few years ago.
We were slicing ingredients to make pancit (Filipino noodles) and she pointed out that I was chopping up one vegetable out too finely and another too coarsely. She wanted the ingredients more proportionate in size, which makes sense if you think about it. I just didn't think about it enough. My main concern was and usually still is that the proper ingredients are added correctly so that flavor is right. I didn't care too much what it looks like.
When I click through some of the food blogs that are out there, I think about posing some of the meals and dishes that I make. This week would have been a good week to show off some savory goodness that exited my kitchen (and entered my tummy.) Some of my dishes over the past 7 days include:
- dungeness crab feast
- pan fried steak
- scallops wrapped in bacon
- Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce
- baked chicken with KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce
- stewed apples*
- roasted pork shoulder
- crab cakes*
- fried shrimp chips
- soy sauce chicken
I suppose I could also add rice cereal* to the list since we introduced our 4 1/2 month old to solids this week. Savory goodness? Yes. Photogenic food? No. Too bad my food isn't pretty.
*a Kanto first
Show us the best creative artist or crafter that you know personally.
My cousin Cielo will have a few new pieces on display at the HANG ART annex in San Francisco this October. An image of one of her paintings is on the publicity postcard above which can be found at hotels and bars around San Francisco.
File this in the "this is why we married each other" file:
At a co-worker's birthday cookout last weekend, Joanna and I were sitting on barstools quietly observing as the 13-year-old niece of our host endured some good-natured family grilling about her boyfriend. They had been talking about the fact that she had a 7th grade boyfriend. Now that she was in the room, they could ask her directly:
"You have a boyfriend?" (Yes) "How old are you now?" (Thirteen) "How old is he?" (Thirteen) "Where did you meet him?" (At school) "What's his name?" (Jorell) "Where's he from?"
Before breaking into a fit of laughter, Joanna and I cut in on their interrogation and blurted out in unison, "Is he from Krypton?"
Who taught you how to cook?
Submitted by Donna.
When I was little, my older sister and I were home alone with Dad on a weekend afternoon. Mom was out somewhere. "You don't know how to make rice?" Dad questioned us with that accusational tone in his voice. We were little kids, elementary school. We didn't know how to make rice. "It's about time you learned."
He began instructing my sister, but we were both expected to follow along: count out cups of rice with the scoop, rinse it, and measure the right water level with your finger. We owned a rice cooker, but Dad taught her how to make rice on the stove. We had to watch for the water to boil, and keep watching so you can turn down the heat as the rice cooks and the water evaporates. If you do it wrong and let the rice at the bottom of the pot burn, the whole pot is ruined. No pressure. Under Dad's watchful eye, my sister's rice was cooked without incident.
Weeks(?), months(?), years(?) later when it was my turn to make rice with Dad, I think I burned my first pot. Oops. I've gotten better at cooking since then.
What are the things in life that you're truly passionate about?
Submitted by Jess.
I'm passionate about my family, even though I sometimes don't show it. Whether it's real-life blood family or just my inner circle who may as well be family, I've got your back.
I may have strong feelings about this or that. I may get on my soapbox about the peeve du jour. Whatever it is, it's not on the level of family.
How did you pick your Vox name? Does it mean something?
Submitted by LeendaDLL.
Initially, I used the the name KantoBoy on a private web-based chat page created by a friend (now my brother-in-law) back in 1995. That page, Inay's Kitchen, is long gone and so is the "Boy." I've used the login/ID Kanto on various online sites for several years.
Kanto boy is a tagalog slang term that I adopted from my mom. I'm sure that there are other definitions out there. Based on my mom's usage, a loose contextual definition of a kanto boy was someone who had nothing better to do than to hang out on a street corner (kanto) and make trouble.
What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
Submitted by Megan.
Ox Brains.
When I was 18, I visited the Philippines for the first time. I was there on tour as a performer but I was able to spend a little bit of time away from the group to hang out with family -blood relatives that I had never met before. One such relative was my cousin Emil. He's a few years younger than me, but he could get around Metro Manila fairly easily. Emil would meet up with me and our group from time to time at different locations.
One night a group of us went out to eat. Emil, TJ (another Filipino cousin, but a complete stranger to Emil), me, and Tony (one of my best friends in the group) ended up in some outdoor shack that Emil recommended. Emil went to the window to get us some food...and what did he bring back: Ox Brains.
After some coaxing from our host and not wanting to offend any more that we may have by our initial refusal, Tony and I tried a forkful. I don't really remember what the twisty, gelatinous gob of goo tasted like, but I can say that I tried it. TJ did not. He thought that Emil was nuts.
