20060514

back from where the green banana met the curry leaf princess.

curry leaf princess

back, back, back from the land of fabulous local dairy products, beautiful produce, disastrous haircuts and a brief encounter with a german biker, and lovely native lasses who bestowed me with a bouquet of curry leaves. yay, curry leaf princess! i've been looking for those.

concepcion fruit stand

(and all of these, too)

25 comments:

Ok, that last photo makes me cry - you lucky thing! The markets must be so much fun to walk around! What a great way to spend a couple of hours! :)

langka!!!!!! mangga!!!! indian mango!!!!! pakwan!!!!! i thought the indian mango was cainito, initially. lol

Welcome back! Those curry leaves look so much better than the sorry ones I bought last time. All that fruit looks amazing - can't wait to hear more about your trip!

oooooh i miss the philippines! the fruit stands were so wonderful.

hi ellie! i know it's almost completely impractical to go shopping at the markets when i'm usually there for only a few days, but they are so irresistible.

kayenne, i think that's durian, langka has smaller, greener spikey things. rather would have the mangoes anyway :D

hi cathy, unfortunately i had to freeze them to bring them back, so i don't know how nice they will be when i finally use them. i wish i had more to report regarding the trip, but i don't. although, at a couple places i went, there were women with cameras and tabletop tripods taking photos of food; one of my friends wanted me to ask what blogs they had :) heee. we're *everywhere*

hi reese! aren't they? really spoiled for choice--if i was there longer, i would've bought the lot.

hi chas, that's wonderful that you accompany your grandmother to the market. i'm sure she appreciates the company, and i'll bet you've got a wonderful selection of produce where you are.

I freeze them all the time because don't use them quickly enough. One of my cookbooks always calls for fresh or frozen curry leaves and always specifies a slightly larger number of frozen versus fresh leaves. I'm sure the flavor is diminished somewhat by freezing, but I can't tell.

that's good if you can't tell, right? i bought a couple of plants to grow at my mom's house in the province, so next time i'm out there, i'll see how they're faring.

Great blog, I lived in Japan for a year and now work at one of Bill Granger's restaurants so a lot of your food is deliciously familiar! I only lament the lack of good Mexican in Australia...

What pretty pictures. I will have to research those curry leaves. They sound very interesting.

hello carolyn, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. that's a shame that there isn't much decent mexican food in australia, it seems like it is such a food mecca right now, and so much is already represented. surely good mexican food can find a home there!

acornbud, i don't know much about curry leaves, but often see it as an ingredient in the indian cookbooks i've picked up recently. i'm eager to try them soon.

oh yeah..durian! eeeeewww... good thing i can't smell it from here. langka's stem isn't that big.

Santos,

Manila again? Sheesh. =)

oh my god i am seriously SICK from laughing about the haircut. your voice is so wonderful.

you know, when someone else is suffering a bad haircut, you think, oh it's just hair, it'll grow, not to worry. but i can remember coming home from a haircut i hated and BAWLING my eyes out. (as, like, an adult.)

at first i was wanting to see pix of the bad haircut. (becuz after all, isn't that something you'd like to post?) but then i realized you did it all with your writing...

i just want to travel with you. welcome back!

green bananas are everywhere on guam!

kayenne, it's funny how if you are away from something long enough, you might come to miss it. i certainly am not fond of the smell of durian, but i miss it when it's not mixed in with the other scents at the marketplace--it's one of those distinctly asian marketplace smells that you can't find in any other part of the world.

reid, manila again. (laughing) you gotta problem with that?

tg! i knew you'd *get* the whole hair thing. it was a lot more funny (and more offensive) than i was willing to write about--i'm always surprised at who finds these entries and then alerts the people in question--but you get the idea.

is it bad that i think that my hair looking like adrian grenier's is infinitely better than it looking like j.love's? it could be worse. it could look like p.dink's.

maria! i want to travel with you. let's go to that aquarium in san pedro with baby blogger!

anon, they are! although right now they are all yellow :)

Welcome back Santos!
DURIAN! I love fresh durian. I never know something that smelt so bad could taste to good.

hi bex! hahaaaaaa, that could sound like you're talking about something nasty, you know. although yes, durian's smell is totally evil. i meant the other kind of nasty.

S,

You're just so lucky to be able to get away so often...I'm jealous! Besides, I heard Manila has cleaned up a lot since I was last there in 1987. (Been too long!)

HELP!! does anyone know the tagalog or kapampangan word for curry leaves or does it even grow in the phlippines?

jinggay, i don't know the tagalog or kapampangan name, but i bought these at salcedo market. they sell just the leaves, and the plants as well. i bought two of the plants and they are doing well.

What do you cook with curry leaves? (Excuse my ignorance.) I do live in Manila, and we have 2 curry trees thriving in the garden -- and we never thought to cook with them before.

miles, i'm as ignorant, so no worries :) i've seen curry leaves called for as an ingredient in numerous indian and indonesian dishes (not just curries), but haven't tried any of them. yet :) i'm sure there's a filipino recipe out there that calls for it, i just have to find it.

do you use the plant for anything? medicinal purposes maybe?

Purely ornamental, to be honest. But since you asked, it got me curious & I did a bit of google-ing. Found some great resources: http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Murr_koe.html; http://kurma.net/essays/e8.html; http://www.asiafood.org/. All culinary and botanical, no medicinal so far. Thanks!

I like the green langka and mangga, the market photo
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