I have an announcement to make...

I've decided to shed enough pounds to be what others may consider thin and sexy. I struggled with this decision because I have spent my life refusing to judge my appearance, and by intimate extension, myself, by other people's standards. It hurts to have to pretty much take back everything I've ever written about in this blog, everything I ever said to anyone about accepting oneself and not attaching one's sense of worth and beauty to the container one is housed in. But, damn it, there must be some truth to what people have been telling me all my life: that I would, in fact, be prettier if I lost a bit or a lot of weight. I consider myself a fairly curious person, so in the interest of satisfying curiosities, at least, I've decided to really try to be thinner... and prettier. (I'm tired of being passably pretty and very smart!). I don't want to just exercise or make changes in my diet for health's sake. That seems to me now like such a cop out. Health Schmealth, right?

Starting tomorrow, April 2, I will be going on a pretty strict diet. Think only one cup of brown rice a day for carbs. I'm also joining a gym instead of just doing Hip Hop Abs at home or walking up and down several flights of stairs.

I hope that my family, friends, and any random stranger who happens upon this blog will understand this massive Kuhnian type paradigmatic shift of my mind and heart. From now on, this blog will be about food still--but only healthy food and healthy eating. Which means no more pasta recipes. I hope I can still find much meaning in eating salad greens and veggiemeat and be able to write about connections between protein and, say, peace and justice.

Here's to a new (read: thinner, prettier!) me and (fingers crossed) an even better blog about healthy bogchi. I can't wait!

By the way, what day is it today?

Presenting… BOCHOG’S ALL CARB DIET

Inspired by those LOSE/GAIN WEIGHT? sticker ads usually found on restroom doors and outdoor posts, Bochog’s All Carb Diet is designed to achieve the 2nd option that these sticker ads present: GAIN WEIGHT. Emboldened by the recognition that weight can be a matter of choice—that one can choose and wish to gain weight as much as another can choose to lose—the creator of this diet decided to crystallize the gastronomic principles she has lived by for 3 decades into an easy-to-follow diet that doesn’t skimp on taste. Bochog’s All Carb Diet is the first diet of its kind, a diet that can target weight gain as a goal but one that does not demand it. Bochog believes that there doesn’t have to be guilt or remorse should one follow the diet and still maintain one’s weight. After all, Bochog lives by the saying (which she made up herself)…

“There are no judgments here.”

Unlike other diets that advocate the reduction, even elimination, of carbohydrate intake, this diet advocates maximum intake of carbohydrates. The All Carb Diet, however, does not discriminate against other food groups, for instance, proteins such as meat, meat, and all meat. Instead, it advocates a balanced diet which consists of carbohydrates, some protein to make the carbs extra special to the palate and to ensure the continued employment of butchers and others who work in the meat procurement and processing sector, a few servings of veggies for those who have to contend with guilt (although, again, there are no judgments here), and the requisite chocolate caramel bar drink. Fruits may be substituted for some of the processed sweets. Beware, though. Studies have shown that those who eat more than one piece of fruit a day have a higher risk of having regular bowel movement and are, therefore, likelier to feel nature’s call at the most inopportune moments, like during a business meeting or right in the middle of an intimate moment with one’s partner or, like, whenever. (Sucks, right?).

The diet consists of a 3-day breakfast, lunch, merienda (afternoon snacks), and dinner menu. Meals are interchangeable. This allows the dieter latitude and freedom in creating his/her own diet plan while staying within the admittedly permeable boundaries set by the All Carb Diet. Dieters can create one-day menus using different combinations such as, for instance, Day 1 Breakfast, Day 2 Lunch and Merienda, and Day 3 Dinner.

This diet is contraindicated for those who want to lose weight as well as those in whom the very word carbohydrate triggers severe allergic reactions that may lead to anaphylactic shock. This diet is also recommended for those whose tongues are planted firmly in cheek.


DAY 1

Breakfast

1 cup, or 3, white rice (steamed or fried in STAR margarine with ham, bacon, and chorizo bits, and green peas and carrots for 1/16 serving of veggies)
1 multi-grain bagel (plain or slathered with a butter and cream cheese pimiento)
1 glazed donut (or 2…amounts are entirely optional)
1 glass Bochog Shake (to make: combine 1 banana cut up into pieces, half an apple, juice of 1 orange, ½ cup milk, 1 tbsp honey, and 1 Snickers bar, in a blender. Blend until smooth. For added joy, again entirely optional, top with cut up pieces of Twix bar, peanut butter flavor)

Lunch

1 small (or big) plate of pasta with simple marinara sauce (or aligue sauce)
1 slice (or loaf) of whole wheat bread (plain or slathered with garlic herb butter. For a Southeast Asian take, substitute butter with ghee… and coconut milk)
1 simple salad, made of store bought mixed greens and your favorite dressing, on a bed of croutons, topped with grated cheese and bacon bits
1 glass diet root beer (with 2 scoops vanilla ice cream… there will be no judgments should you deem it necessary to add a 3rd scoop.)

Merienda

3 layers of sapin-sapin
1 platter palabok
3-4 pieces puto (with 1 bowl dinuguan)
1 tall glass sago gulaman (with extra arnibal)

Dinner

1 bowl asado mami
1 piece bola-bola siopao (with extra pao… or extra asado siopao)
1 cup white rice (can be substituted with 1 plate paella)
for dessert: 1 llanera leche flan (topped with slivers of sweet macapuno and a generous serving of caramel)


DAY 2

Breakfast

1 sausage platter (A sausage platter is just a large plate filled with at least 3 different kinds of sausages: ex. Chorizo de Bilbao, Hungarian, Italian, Bratwurst, Vigan Longganisa, Lucban Longganisa)
3-4 large pan de sal (with kesong puti)
1 cup brewed coffee (with lots of cream and sugar. Lots.)

Lunch

1 10-inch all meat pizza
1 big bowl Caesar salad
1 plate Carbonara (2nd plate optional)
1 liter diet soda (1.5 liter if 1 liter bottle is not available)

Dinner

½ to 1 slab bbq pork or beef ribs (according to preference)
1 pot chili
2-3 servings creamy mashed potatoes (to make: boil 10 potatoes, add 2 cups heavy cream, 2 sticks butter, salt and pepper to taste. Ham, bacon, or sausage bits are optional.)
for dessert: bread pudding (with caramel sauce)


DAY 3

Breakfast

3 large pancakes (topped with a blueberry or raspberry compote, whipped cream, and lots of maple syrup)
3-4 slices French toast (soaked in more maple syrup)
1-2 servings hash browns
3-10 pieces bacon
1 fruit platter (any fruit, fresh or candied, will do)
1-4 cups hot chocolate e

Lunch

1-2 plates Pinoy style spaghetti (for a recipe, ask your mom)
2-3 pieces fried chicken
1-2 slices toast (plain or buttered and topped with grated cheese)
1.5 liter bottle diet soda (regular soda if diet soda not available)

Merienda

10 pieces fish balls
10 pieces squid balls
10 pieces chicken balls
3-5 sticks isaw baboy
3-5 sticks isaw manok
3-5 sticks betamaks
2 liter bottle Sprite or 7 Up

Dinner

1 platter white sauce pasta (alfredo or carbonara)
2-3 servings beef stroganoff (with rice, or pasta again)
1 rack of lamb
1-2 servings assorted roasted veggies (like potatoes, carrots, eggplant, peppers)
for dessert: cake sampler (sample slices of the ff. cakes: tiramisu, caramel cake, sans rival, moist chocolate cake, cheesecake, chocolate mousse, carrot cake, etc.)

Shrimp Pasta for 2 People I Like

Day and I cooked shrimp pasta for her 25th birthday this past monday, Dec. 8. Below is the recipe, which I'm also dedicating (like a song!) to my friend with the alliterative name, Leah Lupisan Laxamana, whose birthday is Dec. 9 (yesterday here in Manila, today in California). Sorry, I can't cook it for you, Ley. Tutal, self-reliance is the way to go, so cook it yourself! :)

Shrimp Pasta

Ingredients:

750 g spaghetti
500 g tomato sauce
1 250 ml pack all-purpose cream
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp minced onion/shallots
2 pcs green chili, deseeded and chopped
5 medium tomatoes, chopped
400-500 g shrimps, peeled
salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, chili flakes, basil, and italian seasoning blend, all to taste
grated cheese

Procedure:

1. Saute onions then garlic in olive oil. Then add green chili.
2. After a couple of minutes, add the tomatoes. Season immediately with salt and pepper, then other spices.
3. Add shrimps (half-cooked).
4. When shrimps are pink, add tomato sauce.
5. When sauce is bubbling, add cream.
6. Check for taste. Add seasonings as needed.
7. Add cooked pasta to the sauce. Toss.
8. Place in baking dish. Add layer of grated Cheese.
9. (Optional) Bake until cheese melts.
10. Serve with buttered toast or garlic bread.
11. Enjoy.

BIKES, BEEF SOUP, AND THE BALINGKINITAN RATIO: Ho Chi Minh and the Concept of Scale

The Vietnamese idea of scale and proportion is small. It’s not a bad kind of small. It may be similar to our idea of “tingi” and the sari-sari store, which is all about just enough, nothing in excess. I stayed for 3 days in Ho Chi Minh 2 months ago and the main thing I brought home from that trip, aside from the coffee and coconut candies, is the realization that big is not a natural imperative. In Vietnam, balingkinitan seems to be the norm. In that place, where the buildings weren’t too tall, the streets were just wide enough to accommodate more bicycles than cars, and the people were no bigger than I was… in 2nd grade… there seemed to be no need to go large scale.

The people, the streets, the buildings all share one thing—they take up the least amount of space possible. Balingkinitan. Little and willowy. There really is no other word to describe them. The main highways are half the size of EDSA. The streets of Ho Chi Minh feature clusters of narrow buildings that look like concrete reeds of varying height but never reaching the kind of heights that buildings here do. And they don’t have malls and shopping complexes a la Megamall or Trinoma. Think Star Mall. Much of our shopping was done in the stores along the side streets of the city, which sold different goodies at half the price the same products were being sold for in Ben Thanh market, the central market that was supposedly the place to go for good buys. Supposedly. My friend, Claire, bought a pair of shades at Ben Thanh for the equivalent of 300 pesos. Naturally, we would later spot a side street store selling shades for as low as the equivalent of 100 pesos. I reckon it sucked to be her, at that point.

The people in Vietnam are all smaller than me. I never saw one Vietnamese larger or even at least as large. There was this one Vietnamese salesgirl who was probably already their idea of “fat”, and she looked like she was the same size I was in fifth grade. The strange thing is, though, when it came to food, they served pretty big portions. Claire and I had dinner in this eatery that serves only beef soup. We each ordered one. The owner put a huge bowl in front of me filled with soup, vermicelli, and about twenty thin slices of beef, with a plate of assorted vegetables on the side. I couldn’t finish all of it. You’d think I’d be able to finish a big bowl of beef soup. But, I guess, where Vietnamese beef vermicelli soup is concerned I’m a figurative lightweight.



I wonder where they put all that beef. Or the pork. They’re fond of pork too. We had lunch at a place that served shredded pork as a side dish to… pork. So, I actually had a pork-on-pork meal. I know where all the food I eat goes. I actually look like I like to eat. They look like freaky health fanatics who consume only 10 calories a day. Times like these I find myself asking fundamental life questions, like, “What the hell?”

But I couldn’t bring myself to resent the Vietnamese. They seemed so sweet and innocent, never mind the Viet Cong and their wily ways that led to the defeat of the US Army. Which brings me to another point, you know those underground tunnels that the Viet Cong built to aid them in their guerilla warfare against the American imperialists? I like that word. Imperialist. Reminds me of Mark Twain and his anti-imperialist essays. And of that French guy in the Highlander series who said, “Imperialist! I spit on the ground you walk on.” Who in turn reminds me of John Cleese’s French Guard character in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the one who kept mocking King Arthur and said, “I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”

I love the French, especially when they’re all… stereotypical… But I digress…

As I was saying, those underground tunnels were really tiny too. And narrow. Bawal ang malaki, to rephrase that Clusivol commercial. You won’t fit inside the hole if you’re as big as G.I. Joe. In fact, the tour guide said that the Viet Congs’ small frame helped them evade the American soldiers, some of whom would actually try and stick their massive bodies into these small holes, to no avail, obviously. (This reminds me of the late American comedian, Chris Farley, who got laughs stuffing his huge body into David Spade’s coat, and singing, “Fat guy in a little coat…”).



Roads and streets in Ho Chi Minh are all relatively narrower. Certainly, they don’t have a main thoroughfare like EDSA. Not that they really need one. People don’t drive much in Vietnam. They ride motorbikes instead. To get an idea of how many bikes traverse the streets at any one time, imagine the number of cars along EDSA vis a vis the number of motorcycles. Then, imagine the reverse. That’s how it’s like in Ho Chi Minh’s roads. It can be crazy-making trying to dodge all those bikes zipping past you. It’s like a thousand mechanical lemmings coming at you. One of them makes eye contact just before that moment when you’re sure you’re about to get hit by a bike in Vietnam. And then, in a split second, the biker tilts her hips to the left, or to the right, slanting away from you with only a tiny increment of space between you and her. It’s all quite cozy and intimate, these brushes with death. What do the French call it? Le petit morte? The little death. Of course, they were talking about something else altogether, but that same phrase applies here. It’s very suave the way the Vietnamese avoid collisions. They wouldn’t be able to do that, avoid hitting someone with only an inch of space in between, if they were big-boned, muscle-toned, fat-framed types.

In Vietnam, being balingkinitan makes a lot of sense. It helps you evade the enemy and eventually defeat them. It also helps you cheat death several times on the way to work.

The Meaning Of Mechado

Wednesday. 29th of October. One minute after One. PM. I am in the middle of finishing a lunch that consists of pork mechado and brown rice. The pork mechado is left over from yesterday's dinner. Our kasambahay, Daya, has left for her annual vacation to her hometown in Bacolod and she cooked enough mechado and adobo to last us several days.

So sometime before One, I decided... make that MY MIND... my mind decided to heat it up and eat it for lunch. Not a mind-boggling, spectacular decision. Except my mind is making up this whole big deal about what I know to be just a regular meal. I'm not explaining it well. It's...

My mind's racing. It's been racing for close to 20 minutes now. You know that feeling, that you're on the verge of an important discovery, or you're about to have some kind of life changing epiphany? That feeling of anticipation, on the verge of a Eureka moment... and yet, you know, you know, there's no meaning to be had, to be found, to be created... in mechado!

There are no epiphanies in brown rice! Heating up a meal made of left overs is NOT up there with undertaking your life's most important research study! It won't get you the ultimate brilliant idea for a script that will win the country's first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay!

Your body moves in the same slow, lethargic manner you usually have, but your mind--at least the part that does not contain, imprison, YOU--says and feels otherwise. You're all jumpy and nervous and excited inside a sluggishly moving body. You're waiting for that Zen moment--which you know will never happen because moments of Zen don't come to those who expect.

Expectation is the antithesis of Zen.

You know this, yet your mind is telling your body to behave otherwise, to act like you're on the verge of a profound realization. But your body just can't get with your mind's current programme.

You feel incongruent. Discordant. Unreal.

You just have to wait this out, this excruciating moment of feeling like something's going to happen while knowing, being entirely convinced, that something never will.

Mechado sucks.

Nakainom Ako Ng Melamine!!!

Thanks to last night's news, I found out that we've been consuming milk laced with melamine these past few months. See, we switched over from Milk Magic low fat milk to Jolly Cow Slender low fat milk because the latter was, ahem, cheaper. And since we mistakenly assumed that it is always a wise decision to go cheaper if you can, especially during these times, we started buying Jolly Cow low fat milk. It didn't taste any different and, prior to last night's announcement, we've consumed probably around 4 cartons of it over a period of several months. We used it mostly for oatmeal, of which mama ate the most. When news about melamine in milk went around, we stopped drinking it just to be on the safe side, but when BFAD announced that Jolly Cow regular milk was found negative of melamine, I guess we figured it's probably the same results for the low fat kind since these were the same brand, from the same company, anyway.

Lo and behold (is it a mark of melanine poisoning to be using old fashioned, hokey phrases such as "lo and behold"?), we tuned in to last night's news only to find a health official holding up a carton of the same brand of milk we'd been consuming, yes, Jolly Cow Slender, at a press conference, announcing that said brand has been found to contain melamine.

I think my jaw dropped a hundred storeys.

A quick internet search reveals the following effects of melamine poisoning (sourced from WHO): irritability, blood in urine, little or no urine, signs of kidney infection, and high blood pressure. I think I'm safe from every one of those save the first. I get easily irritated but I think that's more of a personality quirk than an effect of a chemical in my bloodstream.

In any case, it seems pointless to agonize, as my sister says, about what are really small amounts of milk we ingested in the past. And as yet, we experience nothing of the supposed effects of melamine poisoning. Maybe the chemical has been washed out of our system already. But I'm not taking any chances. No milk for me anytime soon.

Thank God for non-dairy creamer.

Wait, non-dairy creamer doesn't have milk in it. Ergo, it can't possibly have melamine, right?

Is paranoia an effect of melamine poisoning?

"Methinks it is, lassie!" says the voice in my head.

ARGGHHH!!!

On Food, Violence, and Power

A quick google using the key words “vegetarian dictator” reveals links to the sorely contested idea that Adolf Hitler, mass murderer and all around asshole, was a vegetarian. Some historians have argued that Der Fuhrer did not eat meat, that the man who got it into his head to attempt to exterminate a whole race in a sincerely, insanely, misguided effort at purification, only nibbled on plants and cared not for carnivorous pleasures such as steak, foie gras, ham, bologna, salami, sausages, fried chicken, roast turkey, grilled fish, and other cooked permutations of formerly living, breathing, walking, and swimming members of kingdom Animalia.

I can imagine how vegetarians, especially those who don’t eat meat for moral reasons, would be gagging about this. Since vegetarianism is often associated with a pacifistic philosophy and lifestyle that seeks to respect all forms of life even, say, bacteria, it of course won’t do for one’s moral code to be associated with a man who had zero respect for any life other than his.

I myself am skeptical of the idea that Hitler only consumed plants because… well… A vegetarian dictator? Somehow, it’s hard to imagine such a creature ever existing.

A dictator is one who superimposes his will onto that of the weak. He doesn’t ask for anything, he just takes it, grabs it, keeps it then spews it out whenever, wherever, at whomever he wants to. A dictator doesn’t wish, he wills. His is power that renders others’ moot. Equality and respect are anathema to him. Superiority and dominion are his raison d’etre.

It’s difficult to imagine that someone like this would have a diet that reflects a “live and let live” philosophy.

To my mind, dictators don’t just consume, they devour. They don’t just nibble, they take huge, jaw-breaking bites. They don’t pick their food; they spear it, stab it, and tear the flesh off it.

After all, at a most basic, primitive level, eating is an exercise in power. To eat is to reinforce the hierarchy to which all living organisms belong. Science calls it the food chain and humans are taught early on about our place, occupying the top position, in it. Science and pedagogy collude to instill in us the idea of our inherent superiority to all other species.

Hamlet’s soliloquy might as well have been, “To eat, or not to eat…and make a pet out of.”

The food chain represents the vast gastronomic options we as a species have before us. We exercise our power through the choices we make, the answers we come up with to the question of what to eat and not to eat.

The choice is made expedient by the act of naming and personifying. You cannot eat that which you have named. It is atavistic will, simple and without logic. All other unnamed species, all those you have not made pets out of… have at it.

Even after you have made the choice of what to eat, you come up against another question: how to procure the food. Procurement of food is almost always an act of violence. You hunt, you capture, you slaughter and let the blood flow, then you make a fire and burn it. It’s making sure whatever it is is truly dead. Some people can stand this knowledge more than others. These people don't mind actively involving themselves in this procurement process. We call them "hunters", "butchers", "cooks". The others we call consumers, passive receivers of food already deadened and prepared. Or more quaintly so, we call them "foodies".

After this, the question: how to eat it. The answer to this question often flows from answers to the previous questions. Say you, like most folks, have decided to eat lower animal forms. It is very likely that you are at least aware that your food is procured in a fairly violent fashion. At least, we hope none of us are so deluded as to think that the cows, pigs, chickens, and fish we eat have all died convenient, natural deaths. Because these animals have flesh, which is tough and often unpalatable in its raw state, you would have to subject your animal of choice to all manner of beating (which you would call “tenderizing”), destroying (which you would call “processing”) and burning (which you would call “cooking”).

Euphemisms abound where violence resides.

So, how to eat it? You can, like members of polite society, saw it with a knife and stick a fork in it. Or you can pretend less and just use your hands and your teeth to pull a chunk off it.

Or you can be a vegetarian.

You can choose to limit your eating to living things that can’t walk or run away from you, hopelessly unable to evade your capture, living things that are stuck to the earth and are virtual sitting ducks, ready for you to pick them. Then you can yank your food from the ground, by its stems, to reveal its naked roots, chop off its leaves and shred them. And you could call this shredding “to julienne”.

Euphemisms abound where violence resides.

So, how to eat your plants? You can poke at them with a fork and slice the larger pieces with a knife. Or again, you can pretend less—and be truer to your no less violent nature—and just use your hands to pick your little, refined slices of death and put them in your mouth.

To nibble.

On second thought… maybe it’s not so impossible that Hitler was a vegetarian.