Tita Es, Malu and I all hitched a ride with Boss Jun on the way to the BNP Paribas lunch presentation at Makati Shangri-La, and as I was sitting at the back, all I could think about is how weird it is that these days, one ends up sitting on a seat that's full of wires inside. It's almost like sitting on an electric chair except that the electricity goes to the TV, the speaker, and other push buttons one finds on a car seat.
Sam happened to be free yesterday afternoon, and since we haven't seen each other for weeks, we decided to meet in Mall of Asia. After eating dinner, we decided to walk at the Esplanade, also known as San Miguel by the Bay. This is where the night life that used to be along Roxas Boulevard migrated after Mayor Lim shut down the Manila Baywalk establishments.
Sam and I saw a henna tattoo stall and she decided to have one. She predictable chose a scorpion. I refused to get one myself and just waited for the artist to finish painting the henna tattoo on her arm.
When we've walked half of the Esplanade, we took a rest along the breakwater and I texted Jon to ask if he has nothing to do and if he would like to join us. He said yes, so we listened to a band while waiting for him to arrive.
When Jon arrived at around midnight, we walked the length of the Esplanade again.
We realized that the bars catering to groups of friends on a night out were located nearer to Roxas Boulevard, while the restaurants catering to families and parties of a more sedate kind were on the other side - which is also the area where the 'seaside dampa' restaurants are.
Dampa restaurants happen to specialize in seafood where the customers can shop and choose the ingredients then tell the cooks what dish they want to eat using said ingredients.
Around 12:30 this morning, Sam decided to head for home. Jon and I walked around a bit then I got thirsty. We stepped into Eskimo Bob, which is owned by the same group that run Icebergs, and ended up also ordering ice cream and some chicken and chips.
The balikbayan boxes Edith and Willy sent from California finally arrived this last weekend. I didn't mind that most of the stuff there were for Papa, Mama and Tessie ... as long as I get this huge block of Belgian black chocolate.
I love black chocolate, even more so when it's Belgian chocolate.
When I bought my newspaper this morning, the vendor lady told me there is a promo today. I then found it odd that the paper has some sort of red jacket.
Turning to the back of the jacket, I realized that it was a sheet of coupons.
Cool.
This our version of Calandracas ... that soup from the province of Cavite, which we prepare for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. There's nothing like a hot hearty soup to warm you up during the cold of midnight. Cavitenos traditionally eat Calandracas during New Year's Eve, but I like it so much that we've included Christmas Eve as an occasion to cook the said dish.
There was enough left over ingredients to cook another batch, so we had Calandracas again yesterday. Yum!
A good blogpost of the origins and the preparation of the said dish is by Ige Ramos at http://igeramos.multiply.com/journal/item/61/Calandracas
It is in Tagalog though, so if you don't understand the language, you'd need a translator.
Our preparation of Calandracas has some differences from Ige's recipe. Whenever it's hard to find pata de hamon in nearby wet markets or supermarkets, we use chorizo instead. We tend to use kinchay because it has more taste than the regular celery. We also do not use chicken liver, beef liver, pumpkin, macaroni or onions. I suspect we've kinda meshed together Calandracas and Caldo de Gallego in our version of the soup.
At lunch today, I rummaged through the ref and saw there's some more chorizo, a couple of eggs, and some kinchay in the crisper. I decided to make fried rice.
