3 ways with 3 ingredients

glutinous rice, sugar and coconut: a trinity of ingredients that form the basis of many of the sweet confections in the philippines and the rest of asia. i can't even begin to cover them all as i discover them all.

i went to a party the other day and picked up a few of my favourite filipino sticky rice cakes:


kalamay

kalamay, made from whole rice, coconut milk and brown sugar, then topped with latik, the brown, rich nuggets made from cooked down coconut milk.


sapin-sapin

sapin-sapin, made from rice flour or rice that has been soaked overnight then crushed into a paste, sometimes yams or yam flour, coconut milk and sugar. each layered is tinted (the bottom one a deep ube-like purple, the middle a golden yolk yellow,the top one white), and steamed before the next layer is added. when i was a kid, sometimes you'd see the amazing multi-layered slabs that would go on for miles, but now it's just typically the three layers.


cuchinta

finally, cuchinta, which is my favourite of the three, but maybe for its oddity factor. although it is made in much the same way as most sticky rice flour desserts, it doesn't really taste nor look like most of them. the flavour is a rather fleeting brown sugar and watery coconut concoction, and as far as rice cakes go, while it is sticky, it is not overtly so, and it has almost a squeaky quality to it. it's a bit like a bouncy rubber ball that comes out of a vending machine--slightly oil and slightly sticky, bouncybouncy, and somewhat snot-like (there *is* actually a rice confection from baguio called kulangot which translates to "snot". it come in nifty single booger portions, too). these particular ones have been coloured with annatto, which is supposed to make them more appealing, but i have my doubts about that. the leavening agent is lye, which is made by burning a hardwood then dripping water through the ashes (a slightly complicated process, but not really; you can buy lye water these days, or check survivalist websites for recipes). the leavening and the fact that it is made with water, not coconut milk, probably accounts for why it's lighter and less chewy. freshly grated coconut on top literally grounds the rice cake with its meatiness and substance.

slow men at work

magical tea balls

i'd seen these mysterious bomby balls of tea in shops before, and knew they were special, but it took a post from food nerd to convince me that these were worth buying. food nerd does a much better job at describing them than i can, but basically, they are long green tea leaves tied together, formed and dried around a flower center that "blooms"--just put one at the bottom of a pot, then add hot water and enjoy the show.



the green tea leaves unfurl, and a lovely "tree" made from painstakingly tied jasmine flowers surrounded by orange leaves emerges.



here's a different ball, called dancing snowflakes.



here the leaves surround an orangey-yellow flower--chrysanthemum?--but as the ball opens up, little bits of jasmine petals are unleashed and swirl in the water like snowflakes.



or dandruff.



as you can imagine, these aren't cheap unless you buy them in china, where they are made, or in asia in general. i saw some here that were reasonably priced (fiddycents) but a bit measly, so i ended up buying these from harney and sons, and it worked out to just under a buck a ball. however, it provides mighty fine if genteel entertainment along with lovely flavour, so these would be great for a special occasion or tea party.

smokin' mangoes

this weekend i went out into the garden to take some photos of ginger plants, but they were looking a little weedy and not in bloom. as i've been gardening at night, i didn't realise that the mango tree is budding!

i know i shouldn't be so happy, but since the tree has previously only wielded one fruit, i am. yay, maybe we'll have a real crop someday soon. to help insure that, every night at dusk, we've been going out and building a little fire to "smoke" the tree, which will drive away the harmful bugs that may inhibit flowering. i shall be out there every night for at least a month, maybe i should find a nice pork shoulder that may benefit from the nightly smokeout.



see those little green bumpies? beeby-baby mangoes!



this is a mango shoot, which i believe is called putat in kapampangan, talbos in tagalog; edible, certainly, best as a salad. so i'm told.

mango flowers

bill granger's banana maple upside down cake

i know i have an overt reliance on the Big G, but i am a sucker for an upside down cake and when i found this recipe in bill's open kitchen i had to try it. bananas i wasn't so sure about, but i love his cakes, and the thought of it with just that bit of crunchy caramel that escapes from the bottom and crisps up at the top of the golden crumb, the gooey brown sugar fortified with maple melting into the fruit and cake was enough for me to not wait for our inevitable banana crop. i actually went out and bought bananas, although i bought the typical american type--large, honkin' large, a little too sweet and bland and pale, but that's the kind i think is called for in this recipe. i think the next time i make this cake i'll wait for our crop of manila bananas--small, yellowish fat fingers that are simultaneously sweet and tart, a bit like creamy, creamy apples. mm, yes, that would be the ticket.

as it was, the cake was fine. it reminded me of an elaborate banana pancake with the maple syrup and the light yellow cake. hm. actually, if i had this for breakfast i'd probably love it and then drop dead of a heart attack. it's funny because when i was looking for a recipe link online, i found that julie from a finger in every pie hated it so much it was part of her IMBB #12 taboo/hated food post. ah well. i think i could change her mind about this cake if i could somehow send her some home-grown island 'nanas....

cinnamon brioche rolls, take 2

i need a good brioche recipes, does anyone have one? i'd attempted cinnamon brioche rolls before, and liked the taste, but wasn't thrilled with the texture or look of them. this time, i've got the colour down, the taste is pretty good, but i still don't like the way they look or the texture. they are fluffy and tender but i freakishly want something flakier and drier, more like puff pastry, without being crumbly. does that make sense? am i wrong to want that? anyway, i'm not sure what i'm look for in way of looks, but maybe i just need to roll it out more.

anyway, these were fine. brioche dough, rolled out, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, rolled it up...oh you know. i didn't put all that much cinnamon nor sugar, but i did run the mix through the food processor to make it finer before dusting the dough with it. result--soft but crunchy on the outside, lightly sweet, lightly spicy, lightly buttery and not oozy in any way.



top tip: i put the dough in a hyperbaric chamber to help it rise. no, i didn't, what the .... if i was michael jordan and had a hyperbaric chamber in my house and was contemplating eccentricity overload i might, but no. i put the dough in a container with marked measurements so it's easier for me to figure out when the dough has doubled during rising.

madagascar madness!

remember that honkin' large bottle of madagascar vanilla extract i bought a couple of months ago? well, king arthur flour has slashed the prices by half, and now the 32 oz. bottle is only $38. i know that sounds like a lot, but it really isn't, especially considering that a 4oz. bottle is $11. if you aren't experimenting with making your own extract like zarah and rachel, this is a deal worth a thousand (or more) cookies!

ps--sur la table is selling the 8oz. bottle for $39.95! see? madness i tell you, maaaadnessss!

fried tofu with miso sauce

slabby!

one of my favourite dishes at suehiro in los angeles is a tofu cutlet. it's just a giant slab of tofu dredged in panko crumbs and fried, then served with a sweet miso sauce. the sauce is sort of overwhelming after awhile--oh, actually, the whole thing is sort of overwhelming in its super-fried good cop/bad cop way, but hey! it sounds healthy. and it's good. really.

tofu dredging is not fun, but it is easy. use a slab of firm tofu and squeeze out as much excess water as you can by pressing the slab on cotton kitchen towels or paper towels. cut it into four equal pieces, dip each into a beaten egg, then coat with panko (you can season it with salt, pepper, herbs, chili flakes, whatever). if the crumbs don't stick, i suggest dipping the 'fu back into the egg, and then try again. i've tried coating it with flour and starch to help the egg stick, but it's just not the same, so stick with just egg. fry in hot oil until golden brown and drain on more paper towels.

miso sauce: miso, rice vinegar, salt, sugar, sesame oil. drizzle on top of warm tofu slabs and enjoy.

myoga

ah, so you know of my predilection for weeds as food, and apparently i've stumbled upon a pretty good one here: zingiber mioga roscoe, a wild japanese ginger. found in the woodlands in japan, it is cultivated in australia and new zealand for food, in the united states as a garden ornamental, and pretty much considered an invasive scourge everywhere else. myoga, as the young ginger shoots are called, are prized for their delicate ginger flavour and crisp texture. also, the new flowers can be eaten, but the older rhizomes and more mature parts of the plant are toxic. in fact, the whole plant is so toxic it's carcinogenic. so think twice about that myoga binge-out party you were just planning!



i first tasted myoga at hirozen, my favourite japanese restaurant in los angeles. it was in the middle of one of those extraordinary omakase meals, where chef starts rummaging around in the back of the refrigerator for something to plonk in front of me. i had no idea what it was, and the first bite was surprising, yet familiar. it has the delicate crunch of a fresh water chestnut or the heart of very young sugar cane, and the taste is very faintly but very recognizably ginger. it was served as sushi, and that is how i prefer it now, simply sliced on top of lightly vinegared rice. delicately sweet, delicately sour, and refreshing.

only 310 days 'til christmas!

from the march 2005 edition of livingetc, which is like, a grown-up girl's holiday wishbook. look! there's a dedicated jar slot for cardamom! it's a little fussy, but i'm still plotzing.

prawn and herb salad on steamed rice cakes

jonny angel's sunday dinner of banh beo tom chay looked so delicious, i was tempted to make it, but if there's one thing food blogs have taught me, it's that i am not a hardcore foodie. i like food--probably even love it--but if i have to spend more time to prepare a meal than eat it, most likely i won't do it.

this is my faux banh beo: prawns, shallots, green onions, cress, mint, cilantro, chili pepper roughly chopped and mixed with a little salt, a little sugar and nam pla or fish sauce, then dumped on top of steamed rice cakes (dried, store bought variety). pretty, and pretty delish; all the flavours i was looking for, but done within 10 minutes from start to finish.

coconut curry rice with prawns

i had a fantastic curry prawn risotto from firefly bistro, but i lack the patience for the stirstirstir, so i came up with this similar dish for the lazy or harried home version. short grain white rice is cooked in coconut milk with a few tablespoonfuls of curry powder (in a rice cooker), then a handful of toasted dessicated coconut thrown in after cooking. add a few grilled prawns, some sliced sweet cherry tomatoes and green onions. top with cashews fried in garlic and you have a lovely composed dinner; mix it all up and you have a great rice salad for lunch. if you want to do a vegetarian version, smoked tofu goes very well with this or any sort of steamed dark green veggie, like spinach or even okra....

a valentine's day soundtrack

i've been tagged for music in my kitchen by adam, mcauliflower, miss j, and galinusa, but pieman was the first to reach me, so i gave it up to him--you can find my response here. but thank you lovely women and funny dude for the backsies--if i could do it again, i would! and i'd have completely different answers the next time around.

on this valentine's day i've been listening to some of my favourite albums ever, including the go-betweens' 16 lovers lane, style council's café bleu, everything but the girl's eden, and the quiet now series.

although i would love to give everyone a big cookie for valentine's, i don't think they'll be in particularly good shape by the time they get to you; instead, i'll send a valentine's day soundtrack to you on cd, if you are one of the next few to comment below!

chocolate+roses

chocolate scented black tea with rosebud petals. sweet and scenty, and weirdly overcaffeinated. leaves you wide-eyed and sniffy.

cardamom spiced apricots

damn. cardamom is fun to photograph.

i found some apricots on the wrong side of ripe in the fridge bin, cut 'em in half and stoned them; made a simple syrup of white sugar and water, added a bunch of crushed cardamom pods as it was simmering, then tossed in the 'cots for 10 minutes. don't know what i'll do with them yet--have them warm with a wine sauce? cool in a compote? with ice? with cream? with ice cream?!

ah, the possibilities.

when logic (board) fails.

ah, remember my iBook from a few posts back? that particular model seems to be prone to logic board failure, and so, being the perfect little apple, myBook decided to follow its brethren into the apple repair center somewhere south of the island of misfit toys and um, bakersfield. i'm lookin' at a 6 to 16 week wait while it grows a new brain or somethin', so in the meantime, it's time to break into the vacation funds and buy a new laptop.

i am loyal to the mac daddy mac, so there's no question the next book shall not have an orange on it. i'm toying with the idea of getting a mac mini, but the demand is so great that there is a three week wait, and i prefer the portability of a notebook. so, a question to other mac users out there: what book should i buy next?

another bloody cupcake

literally.



same cupcake recipe, only without the vanilla and a heaping teaspoonful of chinese five spice in its place. topped with a blood orange juice and sugar glaze. sweet, citrusy and coffee-cakey at first, and then boomboomboom--kick of pepper, hint of anisette, wee backlash of bitter rind. if you don't have blood oranges, try it with grapefruit instead.

happy new year

gong xi fa cai to all celebrating--may your new year be prosperous and preposterous, auspicious and audacious!

spring onion bread

i am too full to blog. recipe here. chinese in origin, but awesomely tasty with indian-spiced food or on their own.

crepes and curd

happy fat tuesday y'all! it's mardi gras, a time for unrepentant indulgence just before the start of the lenten season. and apparently a time for pancakes. today's first offering: crepes with passionfruit curd, bananas and freshly grated coconut.



*wow*. sometimes you don't realize how monochromatic your food is until you photograph it.

the passionfruit curd was absurdly easy. place a bowl over a pot of simmering water (makeshift double boiler), add 1/4 cup sugar to the pulp of 2 or 3 passionfruits to the bowl. mix in two slightly beaten eggs and continue stirring until the mixture has thickened into a sort of custard. take off the heat and add 60g of softened, unsalted butter. continue stirring until butter has completely melted and is completely incorporated. let sit to cool.

suburban coconut harvesting tips

we only have one tree, but sometimes one is enough. we have a LOT of coconuts hanging overhead, so today damian came over to help get a few down.



just how do you get coconuts down? outside of calling for help from monkey, you thank your folks for living in a two-story house, go on the top floor or roof, tie a hand-honed scythe onto a discarded broom handle then aim and reap away. (and tell everyone below to stand clear or duck, please)



you need a machete or a big cleaver to cut open a coconut. the first thing you do is cut the bottom end through the husk until you just get to the meat; poke a hole through and drain the coconut. then cut the coconut in half to get to the meat.



the very first coconut damian split open was a macapuno, charmingly and roughly translated as "mutant coconut". although they are now cultivating a tree that yields mostly macapuno, and there are people who can just tell when they see one, generally speaking, you never know where the mutant is, until you cut it open. there is little or no liquid in the cavity, and the meat is thicker, more gelatinous, and very rich yet bland tasting. a highly prized nut.



here's a little tip for any future "survivor" contestants: the easiest way to scrape out young coconut meat is to use a piece the husk. a spoon works too :-) save the meat in its water, to preserve the flavour and texture. refrigerate or freeze this as soon as possible as it is highly perishable.

you always want to use green, fat, smooth coconuts for harvesting the meat or water. so what do you do with the old, shrivelly ones?



first, you find a lovely boonie dog/askal/poi dog/mutt, like paquita here. then give her a coconut.



look--instant toy! not only is it good for her teeth, the shredded bits are perfect for adding to your orchids or planting beds for better drainage.



after you are done with all that work, don't forget to enjoy a glass of coconut water so fresh the coconut milk rises right to the top....

vanilla cupcakes, redone.

so i did try the vanilla cupcake recipe attributed to bill granger on the bbc food website, and here it is, covered in pink icing and a lovely little strawberry on top. the different between this recipe and the one in the book is more a matter of texture than taste--it's slightly lighter, with a much lighter crust, and with a more tender crumb. and yes, it looked more like the one in the book.
i can't say i like this one better, but i think it would be the better choice for a dairy-based frosting. maybe even the white chocolate sour cream frosting suggested in the recipe. hmmmm. cupcakes, anyone?

vanilla cupcakes with espresso icing

vanilla cupcakes with espresso icing, and a rococo chocolate coffee bean as deco. another Big G recipe, but the recipe i have in the book is not the same recipe on the web. i followed the one in the book, and >gasp!< for the first time, the end product didn't look like the ones in the book! so maybe the web recipe is the correct one? i'll just have to try it to find out. the ones in the book are pretty good, though--vanilla-ey, fine crumbed and light,with just enough heft to give it body, but not enough for you to mistake it for a muffin. the icing was simply made with a couple tablespoonfuls of hot espresso mixed with a helluvalotta powdered sugar until smooth, then liberally drizzled on.

someone recently remarked that i don't care about my cupcakes, and while i wholly agree with that as an analogy regarding my attitude towards food and cooking in general, in fact, cupcakes are pretty much the only thing i bake that i do care about. i am on the quest to create unequalled cupcakes. i don't know why. i think it's partially because they are manageable to eat, so therefore must be manageable in perfection*. and i think it's because i want to be the next amy sedaris of the cupcake set. i know i have a long, long way to go, but i guess it's better than wanting to be jerri blank.



*which is to say, perfection for *me*, which is not very perfect at all.

tarako spaghetti

a simple pasta dish: tarako spaghetti. tarako is salted cod roe, and is sold fresh at my local japanese deli. antoi and lilly turned me on to this delish fish egg, and this is my favourite way to prepare it.

break open two roe sacs and carefully scrape out the eggs. discard the casing. melt a couple of tablespoonfuls of butter in a pan, add the roe and cook for a minute. stir in about a quarter cup of heavy cream, heat through, then toss into hot spaghetti. if the sauce becomes clumpy, add some of the hot pasta water to "loosen" it. top with nori(seaweed), radish sprouts, crushed red pepper (if you want it spicy), and a little dollop of tarako. serve with lemon wedges on the side.

cod roe and cup cakes.

that's what i had for dinner tonight.

dulce de leche and white chocolate cheesecake

dulce de leche and white chocolate cheesecake, on a base of crushed chocolate covered digestive biscuits.

white chocolate cheesecake--modified from a recipe by the Big G, once again--with the addition of dulce de leche, a sweet, thick, caramelized milk and sugar confection? spread? dessert filling? fattener?

whatever. here's the basic recipe*, but add 1/2 to 1 cup of the magic caramel. chocolate biccy base courtesy of spaceblog, i mean, spiceblog.

this was amazing. it's like the zaftig older sister of condensed milk. it's sticky, but also impossibly smooth. it's sweet, but not as much as you would think. it's as heavy as a brick, but the cheesecake filling melts on your tongue in a flash, and disappears down your throat like a magic elixir. no, really, it's really weird. it liquefies on contact then immediately into a...gaseous state--ahaaaaahaaaaaa, oh, poor lactose intolerant ones, ain't that the truth! oh, just trust me on this one.



*update: apparently the link to the recipe no longer works, so here it is:


dulce de leche cheesecake

1 packet chocolate-covered digestive biscuits crushed finely
mixed with
50g (1.75 oz) butter, melted

press biscuit-butter mixture firmly into bottom of 8-inch (20cm)
springform tin, refrigerate until you need it.

250g (9 oz) cream cheese
250g (9 oz) mascarpone cheese
500g (1lb 2oz) white chocolate melted
1/2 to 1 cup of dulce de leche
about 1/4-1/2 c heavy cream to thin the mix for a smoother consistency

use electric beaters to mix cheeses, dulce de leche and heavy cream
together. whisk until smooth (i heated all the ingredients to make it
easier). pour mixture onto the biscuit base, then put in refrigerator
for at least 3 hours or overnight.

alternately you can mix the cheese and cream together, then drizzle the dulce de leche on top of the cake.

show me your music and i'll show you who you are(...and possibly what you eat)*

photo inspired by man that cooks composition--thanks!

*real title: music in my kitchen**, but i don't listen to music in the kitchen; regards to steven "sunny ann" schayer who used to demand this on a regular basis


What is the total amount of music files on your computer?

i have a dozen on iTunes--but they're about 105mb each--downloaded from my favourite mp3 blog, pop 77.

The CD you last bought?

the fiery furnaces ep on iTunes.

What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?

"northern sky" by nick drake--i never felt magic crazy as this/i never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea/i never held emotion in the palm of my hand/or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree.... damn, skippy. that nick drake was the business. and now i'm watching "american idol". the pain. oh, the exquisitely painful pain.

Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.

[i suspect, that like pieman, my music stories are not fit for public consumption, so this is the food reference edition....because i know most of you haven't heard any of these, you can download them here, unless otherwise indicated (files are clean of viruses)]

“appetite” by prefab sprout. one of my favourite songs, on one of my favourite albums, “steve mcqueen”, named after one of my favourite actors. quite possibly the song that spawned the blog, as it's about all sorts of hunger and appetites. the music swirls around paddy mcaloon singing unabashedly of loving and longing, yearning yet learning--the stuff that teenaged girls (and women who call themselves girls) swoon over. paddy is positively femme-y as he sings his slightly obtuse but true lyrics; outside of this song, i would say he was a pussy, but here and on this album he is me, in odd moments, in odd years. it reminds me of buying pastel cassettes in tokyo on a rainy day, picking raspberries off canes in the summer heat of upstate new york, of driving on pacific coast highway to malibu on a foggy day.


"falling and laughing" by orange juice. how can i possibly describe how i feel when i hear the opening riff of this song...? it’s like looking towards a darkened doorway, and seeing the silhouette of someone who moves like a sexy beast; as he or she moves to the light, you are faced with the most beautiful person you have ever seen, but then you belatedly realize this person is your best friend that you’ve known your entire life and he or she is smiling at you. and is suddenly scottish.
for whatever reason, my love of this band has led me to some of my greatest adventures, has brought me some of my greatest opportunities and friendships in the most improbable of ways. without it, i don’t think i would have ever known how ginormous the urinals are in the men’s room at the olympia theatre in dublin, that peter gabriel is kind to spiders, or how to pronounce the word “gyro” properly. it doesn't really remind me of food, but of great nights out with faraway friends in faraway places.


"the kitchen” by downy mildew (realplayer audio available here--mouseover click on "the kitchen"). downy mildew is a plant disease and was a band in los angeles. they were the first band signed to the label spawned from the little indie record shop where i worked. la at the time was an amazing place to be; some of the best and most innovative music was coming from local bands and so many great ones from elsewhere were coming to town on a regular basis. i also worked at the university radio station and at a record label, so music was constant. all my friends were musicians or deejays, so they were the soundtrack to my life. downy mildew was, to me, the epitome of the west coast sound: shoegazey but beautiful to behold, breezy yet bold, sweetly sad and sometimes bitterly bright. and i am a sucker for a girl with a cello. and songs about kitchens.


"choco latte" by parokya ni edgar. i find it a bit annoying that the older i get, the less filipino--tagalog and kapampangan--i remember, especially since i'm trying to make more of a connection to my culture. cultures. actually, the culture of the one-and-a-halfth generation--somewhere between east and west, now and then, first and third. those that are in it know the conundrum. i'm hoping that listening to more OPM (original pinoy music) will help me connect. in some ways it doesn't because, as i said, the language is escaping me, including the strange colloquialisms that are more there than here, while i'm more here than there. however, the funny thing about music in the philippines is that they've got the same penchant for britpop that i've got, esp. stuff from the eighties, and you can hear it in a lot of the bands coming out today. anyway, it's comforting to know i'm not the only one.
"choco latte", as far as i can discern, is about this guy's girlfriend who claims to not like melted chocolate ("it's like poo") but he discovers a car trunk full of chocolate from another guy, and then he gets to make some neat little similes and metaphors like how trust is harder to reshape than a box of melted chocolates. i'm sure there's someone who can correct me if i'm wrong :-) it is, however, a bouncy boppable little tune that i bouncily bop around to in my car. which does not have any chocolates innit, melted or otherwise.


"island style" by john cruz. "island style" was written by cruz when he was living in new york and feeling homesick for hawaii. i can imagine him alone in an apartment, during a cold winter's night in a noisy city, remembering the gentle breezes and easy way of islands.
this song, to me, is hawaii. when the plane begins its descent into the honolulu airport, it sweeps over the leeward side of the island, and when the plane taxis, you can see honolulu and diamond head in the distance. this song always pops into my head: "from the mountain to the ocean from the windward to the leeward side". i spent many a day in my aunt and uncle's house near honolulu; i learned to drive in the parking lot of pearlridge shopping center, went to my first gig at the wave (icicle works!), spent weekends on the north shore watching surfers and eating shave ice from matsumoto's.
too recently, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer. towards the end, he began visiting all his friends and family around the west coast, guam and the philippines to say his goodbyes. when he was here, he would sit on my lanai, looking out into the "winter" ocean--darker, grayer, more turbulent than usual--for hours on end. i would sit with him, not speaking, and think of the things he would never get to do for the first time, like go to alaska, see the children his daughter would have, or have that dog he always wanted. i think, perhaps, what he was going through was a kind of homesickness i hope to never experience--thinking not of the things he would never get to do, but of the things he would never get to do again: tinker with things around the house, embrace his wife and children, sit on his lanai in his little wooden house in pearl city, underneath the mango tree, feeding the birds in the morning, and 'talk story', while eating poke and drinking whisky with his buddies late into the night. when i think of him now, that's how i choose to remember him, with this song on the radio in the background, while my auntie prepares the evening meal. and just maybe that dog by his side.
*
there are three food references in the song, and even though these are staples in hawaii, they embody the three different things i hope my food blog portrays: beef stew, a universal food everyone knows; lomi salmon, something you might know if you have visited the island; and poi "real sour", which is something only a local would really know about. i started the blog so that i could give a taste of comfort to the homesick islanders, a smile of reminiscence to those who have visited, and maybe even offer something that can be related to by everyone.


Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

reid because about 9 months ago i was reading his blog and i thought, huh, if there can be a honolulu food blog, heck, there can be a guam food blog....and because he likes the cocteau twins.

special combo because she is a guamish girl, and we don't get to talk that much anymore, so we communicate through the web now. we have similar tastes in music, but i know she'll have completely different answers. and i once spent a very entertaining evening watching her write and rant at some poor girl on the web about...the cocteau twins.

chika because i don't really know anything about her, and i don't even know if she listens to music. and i hope this worries her that i picked her. haaaaaaaaaaaaaa ;-)

**pieman honoured me by picking me to answer these questions, because he thought i'd tell him what's groovy on guam. which i didn't. but there was a 6.1 6.4 earthquake today, and it was raining rain and ash from a nearby volcano all day, so as you can see, we don't do groovy here, just scary :-D