With a lot of assist

Today's meal, Sweet and Sour Meatballs, I owe to Chef Mike Tatung of the FB page Simpol and the YouTube video of Panlasang Pinoy with a lot of gut feel and assist. My little kitchen assistant is Kai who can chop and quarter carrots with aplomb and can now slice bell peppers and remove the seeds with ease. She also peels and pounds the cloves of garlic.

Taking the cue from Tats Ernesto V Enrique who advised that I shouldn't cook when I'm tired as the tendency was to end up with a salty dish, I just placed a pinch of salt in the ground beef round but lots of black pepper and liquid seasoning. In went the whole carrot I grated, minced onions and leeks. I formed balls out of the meat, then my daughter Kimi Fernandez placed them in her air fryer but not without first drizzling them in olive oil so they didn't dry out.

The sauce came with sauteed garlic and onions. I threw in the carrots, which Kai chopped into tiny quarters (I still have to teach her to make florettes out of them), and the bell peppers. In went a little soy, a little vinegar, water with flour dissolved in it, two teaspoons of brown sugar and finally, the pineapple chunks with a little of the juice in the can they came in.

Kai gave the dish a rating of 4.5 over 10 which is still not passing. But the adults ate con gusto, and we planned on repeating the making of the sauce, this time to pour over fried lapu-lapu.

Rolly's role in all this? He efficiently washed the dishes.

Photo by Kimi

Some things I miss

On this throwback Thursday, I look back to the year 2015 when my family and I took eating out for granted. I also took for granted that the natural curls on my grandchild's head would stay there for good, but we enjoyed them for less than a year. The minute she had a haircut, the curls refused to grow back.

That was also the year I wore my "Mrs. E sunglasses" all over the place until one day at the UP Infirmary in Diliman, while I was distracted, I placed the pair down a side table and forgot about it.

Wearing Mrs. E (as in Epistola) sunglasses with curly-haired Kai behind me

Al fresco dining at Chaya Baguio

Matcha ice cream with red mongo

Baguio used to be known as a restaurant hub until COVID-19 put a stop to our frequent dining out. Although we're glad to learn that CHAYA Baguio remains open for take-out and delivery, my daughter Kimi, the expert on the subject, says Japanese food isn't quite as good as when you eat it in situ with all the elegant ceramic ware. The food doesn't travel well, and we live outside city limits.

What I terribly miss is the free after-meal matcha ice cream that Chaya serves in a mini bowl with a sliver of red mongo beans. Don't even say the word "sukiyaki" or else I will weep copious tears.

Re-imagining Nutmeg

Kai cradling Nutmeg

I will proceed as if the disappointments and frustrations of yesterday never happened. I will carry on as some kind of knucklehead Nelly, the self-confessed cock-eyed optimist in the musical South Pacific.

Nothing pulls me out of my blue funk more than pictures of my grandchild romping with the family dog, in this case Nutmeg, a mixed breed who stayed with us for only a few months. So frisky was she that she bit Kai not once but twice. The first time was a shallow nip on the child's face, but it was enough to get us all worried and bring her to the doctor for an anti-rabies shot.

The second time Nutmeg bit Kai, this time on the leg, we knew we had to let the dog go. But how? The opportunity presented itself serendipitously when Kai's yaya bid goodbye to our family after serving for five years or just when the kid was about to enter Grade One. Kai needed to grow independently while Mackenzie had commitments to fulfill in Pangasinan, among them to marry her beau.

As Macky boarded the hired jeep that would take her back to her home province, my daughter Kimi pulled the leash tied on Nutmeg and told Macky, "Here, take her. She's yours. We cannot mind her anymore at the same time that we're taking care of Kai."

Kai was too numb from shock at the sudden parting--first, from Macky, then from Nutmeg.

But Macky and Nutmeg had always been best buddies. She followed her orders and kept still when she had to be bathed or her head of hair trimmed.

Sometimes at night, when I imagine that all hope had flown away, I wonder how Macky and Nutmeg are doing. Nutmeg likes the beach in La Union. I wonder if they ever visit the beach together or with Macky's new family.

Meanwhile, Kai found a new friend in the golden retriever named Satchi. All is not entirely lost.

A girl and her dog

This morning Satchi, our golden retriever, came bounding up the stairs. I called out her name, and she entered our bedroom instead of heading for the balcony which is where she stays most of the day after her walks.

She slobbered all over my husband Rolly's face as he was snoozing. She refused the treat that my daughter Kimi was trying to entice her with.

This seven-month old golden is, most of all, Kai's best pal. Apart from walks, they chase one another or Kai talks to her in a commanding voice to make the dog obey. The latter doesn't seem to work yet because it provokes Satchi to get more excited and jump all over my apo. They're a happy sight to behold.

Last Saturday, as Kai and her father took Satchi for her morning walk, she loosened herself from her lease and ran all over the village park, the little girl giving chase and breaking into tears, thinking the dog might get lost.

Satchi found her way home alone and waited for the gate to open. Kai cried more tears of relief.

All in a day. With Satchi, our lives are complete.

Photo by KIMI FERNANDEZ

Rain, food, books and work

Today's weather was not an improvement on yesterday's. We woke up to ceaseless wind, rain and fog. At least, I did wake up ahead of everyone else in our small household; Rolly, who is usually an early riser, got up reluctantly at 9:30 a.m.

Nobody was in the mood to cook although we were all famished and wished for hot soup, arroz caldo, fried rice and tuyo--you know, rainy weather fare. But who was gonna prepare them?

Not I, said this housewife who has never gotten the hang of running a house. I had too much writing and editing work, chief of which was a book manuscript, on my plate, and deadlines were a pitiless lot.

So I said, I'm treating everyone to lunch at HOY (short for House of Yolo Yogurt) on Marcos Highway, a few minutes drive away from our place. Rolly couldn't be parted from his bed and blanket so Kimi, Kai and I dressed warmly and each carried an umbrella to the car.

I told Kimi to drive carefully through the zero-visibility fog, fearing she might bump into a stray dog or a human. We reached HOY without incident. Hardly had we sat, then the place began to fill up despite it being way past the lunch hour. Then we realized today was a holiday--Eid Mubarak!

Hot choco for my grandchild Kai

Daing na bangus with red mountain rice and fried eggs

Booboo Babeth looking ghostly amid the thick fog. Photo by Kai

Kai back in the warmth of Rolly Fernandez's room/library. Photo by Babeth

I settled for my favorite daing na bangus with mountain rice and two well-done fried eggs. Kimi had the bulalo which was for sharing. Kai had a little of my viand and her mother's, paired with a cup of rice and another cup of hot choco.

While Kimi was driving home through the zigzag road, I told her to slow down because I had a very full tummy and didn't want to throw up.

We brought home takeaway food (sirloin tapa with rice and sunny side up eggs) for Rolly. In all, it was a blessed day, the weather notwithstanding.

That garden resto on a steep hill

Even if he drives an automatic car, my husband Rolly Fernandez prefers to park in his downtown office, then take a cab through winding Naguilian, Bokawkan and Ferguson Roads to get to Mother's Garden Baguio. But our daughter Kimi is the bolder driver so on the week of my birthday and her birth month, she took over the steering wheel while Rolly sat in the back seat, calling out instructions for her to drive carefully.

Carved signage

The place's patron chef Therese Jison chose a menu for us: very tender beef striploin and what I think is a new item, the Pork Souvlaki, paired with salads, mashed potatoes and vegetable sidings with a complimentary plate of palitaw and vanilla ice cream overload for the not so little one Kai.

It was the start of the garden resto's renovation season since the rainy days meant fewer customers. We were the only ones present--the only humans. In their cages were the resident rabbits, chickens, pig (the celebrated Michelle), an eagle healed from injury, quails and pigeons. The waiting and kitchen staff was attentive, and I pointed out to my kids that the veggies we were eating were freshly plucked from the garden. I don't know if it was my mother's tone, but they finished everything.

Here are pictures of that family sanctuary in Quezon Hill, Baguio, taken by Rolly on one of our earlier visits.

Salad garden

Mamma Mia Cafe

Michelle the pig who will grow to a ripe old age and never be slaughtered for her meat

A harvest of carrots

Statue of St. Francis--the owner is a devotee

Sungkaan corner

Ribs and gravy

Palitaw

Peach melba

Kai captures Ili Ay Cordillera

Instead of bringing her seven-year-old kid Kai Mykonos straight home after school, my daughter Kimi Fernandez and I decided to bring her to the fair that is "Ili Ay Cordillera" (to mean "Cordillera village" in the Igorot language). This opened yesterday afternoon on the Camp John Hay grounds.

There was music from Karlo Marko Altomonte's Open Space Productions with his sons Aeneas and Leon on the guitars. There was scent of pinewood being burned in the middle of a dap-ayan, scent of burned pig flesh and more and more sights and sounds to fill the senses.

Earlier, as we entered The Manor at CJH, Kai got her hand tangled in my purse as she tried to fish out a digital camera. Yes, she was bent on documenting the event that will last many weekends while the dry season is still ongoing.

Ili Ay Cordillera features an Ifugao hut, the Smokehouse for upland cuisine like etag, pinikpikan and pinuneg (blood sausage), a farmers' market for the freshest stuff without pesticides, a carvers' shed, a weavers' hut, an artisans' corner.

There was a beautiful documentary by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, "Mountain Spirits: Textiles and Folk Art of the Cordilleras and Ilocos," which was shown on a big screen. One hoped that it would have repeated showings while the village is still up. It was the kind of docu that instilled pride in one's people and one's place in the world.

Enough writing and talking. Let Kai tell her story in pictures.

Manong at the carvers' shed

Cushions at the dap-ayan

Fill your timeline with them--flowers

Karlo Marko Altomonte (right)

Aeneas Altomonte

Ifugao hut the construction of which is "a feat of indigenous architectural, engineering and woodcarving skills," from the Ili Ay Cordillera brochure

Bags and weavings for sale below the hut

Horsewoman

Dried pine cone

Feathered friend

Another feathered friend

Pine stand

Succulents for sale

Heads of roast pigs

Dream catchers and other thingamajigs, including unicorn bonnets

Opening night party

The backs of dancers

4 besties and 3 cups of gelato

An embarrassment of creamy richness!

At first the idea of having an ice cream parlor or a gelato shop in Baguio seemed as silly as carrying coals to Newcastle. And opening in February when the temperature in the city hovers between 11 to 14 degrees C in the evening and at certain times in the morning while people are bundled up like it's spring or fall in another country?

Yet people are streaming in at the newly opened Monte Gelati inside the Albergo Hotel on Villamor Drive And not just because the tables at Amare la cucina are already full and the owner/s just had to open another room for the spillover crowd.

Each time our small family of four eats out, we consult the youngest member, Kai, who pipes up heartily, "Amare!" Like the restaurant's name, she loves its pesto pasta and pizza Margherita. When budget allows and appetites are not appeased, we have the fall-off-the-bones ribs, too. The mint gelato is always an order for one with a request for four teaspoons.

With a mural of a snow-covered part of..well, I'm guessing it's the Alpine region. The caricature of the mustachioed gentleman offering a cone of gelati of different flavor is that of the Amare and Monte Gelati owner

But when we saw that Monte Gelati was open, we decided on feasting our eyes on the colors of the frozen desserts first, accepting free tastings before choosing what we'd each have. Our daughter Kimi and her Kai shared a cup of cookie butter. I went for something safe like the mango. Rolly Fernandez had his fave rum raisin, the flavor he goes for when we're in Pasig and hanging out at Poco Deli.

According to the waiting staff who served us, Amare's adventurous owner is initially introducing 16 (!!!) flavors to include biscotti, Red Horse, mango, rum raisin, cookie butter, mint, Amarena, matcha, strawberry, chocolate, dark chocolate, nutella, guyabano, dragonfruit, pistachio and Cabernet, the last to mean Cabernet Sauvignon with strong hints of red wine?

It seemed to me a perfect way to get tipsy after a hearty Eye-talian meal. Thank you, Amare, for giving us good reason to return.

Date night for two old fogies in a clean, well-lighted place

Photos by Kimi Fernandez

Nurturing the inner and real child

Family portrait by Mario's Christmas tree on the 23rd of December this year. From left: Babeth, Rolly, Kai, now seven, and Kimi Fernandez

Being a full-time granny nanny has become the greatest source of fulfillment in my life. It even beats writing, drawing and painting any day. I've suddenly become conscious of that cliche about passing on the torch to a new generation.

I have two daughters, but I was too busy with my job, whether as an employed journalist or as a freelancer, that in many ways they managed to thrive despite my benign neglect.

When, for five years, I became a full-time homemaker in Baguio, I was there to bring them to their piano or ballet lessons, fetch them afterwards, then go to a cafe with a pastry corner for a snack. I was there for the quarterly distribution of report cards and other milestones.

But I didn't deliberately pass on any skills to them the way I'm doing now with Kai Mykonos. Whatever my daughters are today, it is largely through their persistence in academic and extra-curricular work.

Kai's first Christmas in Baguio in 2011

Kai and I like to scour Pinterest.com for kawaii drawings which we copy and transfer to our respective diaries. She has acquired my knack for lying on the bed, belly down, while scribbling or doodling on the pages of her notebooks. That is also my preferred position for writing a la Odalisque!

Because friend Joseph Uy gave her a child's fountain pen on one of his trips to Baguio she has ignored the many ballpoint pens in the pencil mug in favor of something more sophisticated. She finds that the doodles tend to run more smoothly with the aid of a pen.

But we guard against her turning into a Mini Me. Her mother sees to that so she's allowed a few cartoons and YouTube videos a day under adult supervision. She's facile with using the Viber app of the family's iPad and shooting videos of herself to send to family members in the lowland. The goofy videos--that's all Kai, not me.

So on holy innocents' day, my wish is for everyone to find both the inner and real child in them and nurture it.

Consoling feedback after 'Yuletide without Mom'

My essay "Yuletide without Mom" came out in yesterday's Highblood section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I received feedback in my email and in text messages. Some friends who I haven't been in touch with in awhile were surprised to learn Mom had passed away. I also learned of recent deaths in their families.

First to respond was my kumpare (godfather to my youngest daughter Ida), the writer Amadis Ma. Guerrero. He texted early yesterday: "A moving tribute to Mommy Lolarga was we at Raya (our former office) called her. She was our Mommy, too!"

From painter-actor Ivi Avellana Cosio (daughter of National Artists Lamberto and Daisy Avellana) came a longer message that cried to be shared with those who are grieving: "My dearest Babeth, our deepest condolences on your Mom's passing. A special hug for you and your youngest sister with whom I truly empathize. My Mom passed way (also in May) of 2013 on Mother's Day, a few days before my birthday. In December, my older daughter insisted we celebrate the first Christmas without Mama in Beijing with her and her family. It was so different that it helped to get us through such a painful time. But back in Manila, same same. I still cry when I think of her, or my Papa who left us in 1991, or my favorite brother in 2011, or my grandparents who passed away when I was much much younger. Grief is really so personal and different for each one. And I truly believe no one has a right to tell you how, when, or how long to grieve. Also, no such thing as 'getting over it'. You don't, well-meaning friends notwithstanding. You just learn how to cope with it one day at a time. And there will be good days and bad days. That being said, I wish you and yours a better New Year in every way. Tama si Helen Mirren. Much love from us."

Smiling grandmother with grandchildren Ida and Kimi Fernandez and Carlo Trinidad (foreground) several Christmases ago

“Would you rather I clean the house or write a poem? A poem lasts.”—my Mom

“I want to write poems instead of notes, but each ending is a death,
and I cannot handle the finish of words.”—Renée E. D’Aoust in her essay “Gratitude is my Terrain: Maybe”

This time of the year last year, she had just been discharged after a prolonged hospital stay. There was no exact term for what was ailing her, but it was enough for my siblings and me to have her home for the holidays. She missed reunion parties with her amigas and favorite nephew. We thought she would rally and recover in the new year.

But as actor Helen Mirren put it succinctly in summarizing the year 2016, “I think we can all agree that 2016 has been a big pile of sh*t.” It was the year when Mom’s worst fears about the betrayal of her body came true. We, along with hired caregivers, took turns cleaning her up after a “lapse.” Never could I erase from memory the helpless, pained look on Mom’s face every time this happened. I could sense that to her it was the ultimate humbling, and her look carried an apology with it.

Even if I tried to humor her when I tidied her up, the smile that used to light up our house was gone. That smile was the most eulogized part of her on the last day of her wake. Writer Efren Yambot told of how he was welcomed to the small feasts Mom prepared for her Manila Bankers Life colleagues by her smile. It encouraged him to return to similar occasions she hosted even if it meant covering miles to get to the office. When my Singapore-based daughter Ida would come home, it was Mom’s smile that greeted her first.

This Christmas my husband ordered chicken galantina from two sources to replace the irreplaceable—Mom’s yearly supply of morcon. He once had a meal at a restaurant in San Fernando, Pampanga, that boasted of the best morcon. He even had a beef roulade wrapped to take home. But his verdict was it was close to the taste of dog food and couldn’t approximate Mom’s morcon.

His assistant then, a recipient of Mom’s largesse, used to say that even only the sauce of the morcon sufficed for a meal. That was how good it was: We would ladle leftover sauce on a steaming mound of white rice when the meat roll was gone. Nothing was wasted.

A sister and some cousins were able to observe Mom in the act of preparing morcon, but even if it is ever replicated, the matriarch-cook who ruled over the kitchen and the rest of our house isn’t there to pronounce judgment on another’s take on her dish.

Mom with her five daughters

It isn’t just her dishes that we miss. Nightly the youngest of my four sisters weeps from the pain of the loss. Recently, she suffered chest constrictions and had to take herself to the hospital emergency room because of the stress of prolonged grieving (Mom died last May). Despite our assurances to her that Mom is at peace, she still isn’t prepared to go to the next level of the stages of grief and loss according to Elizabeth Kubler Ross (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). Grief counseling has been advised, but it is up to her if she will take it.

To sort of pierce through the cloud of sorrow hovering over the house, I right away volunteered to host Christmas carolers from my Grade 11 class. The sound of young voices, the guitar strummed by a fellow teacher, makeshift maracas and drums brought the tidings of comfort and joy straight to our hearts.

Although my sisters and I didn’t prepare anything homemade from our kitchen (we cannot hold a candle to our mother, cooking-wise), the store-bought pancit, roast chicken and mini siopao were wiped out by bottomless adolescent appetites. I truly felt Mom’s spirit approving.

To those having a hard time coping with the holiday frenzy because of mourning that cannot be kept at bay, keep saying “This, too, shall pass” and leave some space for the occasional joy to surprise you.

A daughter who colors

"It takes a good while to color one of these things in completely—a few hours, I’d say—and there’s something very satisfying about watching the color slowly spread across the page, about seeing your thought and effort create a tangible, pretty thing at a reasonable, predictable pace. This rarely happens in life." - Julie Beck in "The Zen of Adult Coloring Books," www.atlantic.com

The daughter who turns child again when faced with adult coloring books is out of the house, out of town and won't be back until the weekend. That is when she resumes her coloring pace, her months-old hobby that took off at about the same time when these books became the hottest things in bookstores and online auctions.

I guiltily riffled through her collection of coloring materials (pencils, crayons, markers) and books to take some shots because I admire how she chooses her colors and puts them together to create jewels for the eyes. Hmmm...written like a proud mama. My favorite of the lot is how she "solved" the coloring scheme for the outline of Sherlock Holmes.

Keep on coloring, Kimi, as a way out of stress and humdrum routine and into something relaxing and enriching to your inner life.

I would've killed to own art materials like these in my youth.

It's also nice to leave an area uncolored (see baby owl at bottom) for contrast.

Mr. Holmes at his address on Baker Street Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Transfigured by music

I'm writing this on the last day of July, the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola for whom this prayer was composed:

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve You as You deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do Your will.

St. Ignatius of Loyola,
pray for us.

Front, back and front of the Maestro with some MSO members Photos by Kimi L. Fernandez

You can say today's blog is an offering to the ones who keep the music alive. They help us rest from our labors so we can be energized again to do the Lord's will.

If you grew up on what to others is the "fairy tale" of the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph the Worker and Jesus Christ, the poem "Verklärte Nacht" or "Transfigured Night" by German writer Richard Dehmel makes you think of the Holy Family in a big and bigger way. I don't claim knowledge of the context in which the poet wrote it.

Thano Adamopoulos, the visiting Belgian-Greek conductor who led the Manila Symphony Orchestra, particularly its string section in Arnold Schoenberg's "Verklarte Nacht," first turned around to explain to the audience the sounds we were expected to hear to express the emotions going through the protagonists in the poem.

This is a case where a poem inspired the music. My eldest child Kimi, who's into contemporary and pop music, accompanied me to this concert. She was overwhelmed (okay, impressed) by Schoenberg's music despite its initially alien sound. She said of Maestro Adamopoulos's handling of the MSO--"hindi siya pa-sundot-sundot lang". What she meant was that after we heard a mini lecture followed by the performance, by George, we got it! The music wasn't that strange anymore. It was profoundly moving and yes, as the maestro said, cinematic or almost like a film score.

And it was to me the story of Joseph, Mary and the Son of Man in her womb. The two persons in "Transfigured Night" weren't plain sweethearts. I could imagine the expression on Joseph's face as Mary revealed she was with child, and it wasn't his. He is stunned before he accepts and tells her he will raise and embrace the baby as his own. Makes the few remaining hair on my arms go up.

Transfigured Night

Two people walk through a bare, cold grove;
The moon races along with them, they look into it.
The moon races over tall oaks,
No cloud obscures the light from the sky,
Into which the black points of the boughs reach.
A woman’s voice speaks:

I’m carrying a child, and not yours,
I walk in sin beside you.
I have committed a great offense against myself.
I no longer believed I could be happy
And yet I had a strong yearning
For something to fill my life, for the joys of
Motherhood
And for duty; so I committed an effrontery,
So, shuddering, I allowed my sex
To be embraced by a strange man,
And, on top of that, I blessed myself for it.
Now life has taken its revenge:
Now I have met you, oh, you.

She walks with a clumsy gait,
She looks up; the moon is racing along.
Her dark gaze is drowned in light.
A man’s voice speaks:

May the child you conceived
Be no burden to your soul;
Just see how brightly the universe is gleaming!
There’s a glow around everything;
You are floating with me on a cold ocean,
But a special warmth flickers
From you into me, from me into you.
It will transfigure the strange man’s child.
You will bear the child for me, as if it were mine;
You have brought the glow into me,
You have made me like a child myself.

He grasps her around her ample hips.
Their breath kisses in the breeze.
Two people walk through the lofty, bright night.

Saraza both at work and at play

The second part of the concert "Heart, Strings" featured violinist Diomedes Saraza Jr. as soloist in Bizet's "Carmen," Louie Ocampo's "Kahit Isang Saglit" and Willy Cruz's "Sana'y Wala Nang Wakas." MSO Executive Director Jeffrey Solares revealed that the former prodigy was just "Babes" to the MSO when he was a kid. Radio man Bert Robledo calls him "Junjun."

By whatever name he's called the whiz kid from Juilliard School of Music treated the audience to kilig to the bones music meant for drama-ramas or teleserye. Ayos ang gabi! What a good night the 15th of July was.

Souvenir with Maestro and my friend Joseph Uy who's my private music tutor