The art of improv

Yesterday was market day for Kimi as we were running low on supplies. Before she left, she brought down from the freezer a piece of chicken breast. I was to make chicken curry out of that one piece. And it wasn't even fat.

Midway as Kai and I prepared the ingredients, she quartering the potatoes, cutting the carrots and slicing the green and red bell peppers while I took care of the aromatics (garlic, onions, ginger and green chilies), I remembered my mother Gliceria D. Lolarga. When she was alive, she'd prepare a side dish of hard-boiled eggs to go with the curry.

It was the first time my husband Rolly heard of such. He surmised that it must be because Mom had to feed eight children so she needed extenders the way one put potatoes in an adobo dish.

I cut the chicken into several bite-size pieces. Kai timed the boiling of the eggs. I usually allow the eggs to boil for eight minutes to ensure the yolk isn't runny.

My grandchild was in a good mood--her mother and guardian was out, after all, and she could watch TV while having her lunch. Fishing for compliments, I asked her what the grade of our ulam was. From the living room she shouted: "Ten!"

I think the eggs did the magic.

Chicken potato salad time

Photo from the World Wide Web

It's that time of the year again when I put on an apron and transform overnight into the Lady of the Kitchen.

Friends and family know that I don't cook by choice. I don't keep house even if I'm a stay-at-home wife, mother and grandmother. I do everything (read, write, doodle, paint, daydream, arrange the bookshelves), except go to the grocery or market, check the pantry, cook, launder (with great reluctance), etc.

My housemates have come to accept this side of me. But during Christmastime, I announce to them that I take over the kitchen for the preparation of the special chicken potato salad that I learned from my mother and the longganisa spaghetti that I learned by ear.

The recipe is special because it isn't written down. I just learned it from watching Mommy and eating the salad every Yuletide season since I was this small.

Recently, friend Gou de Jesus asked me how to do it. Ok, let's start with a kilo of Baguio potatoes and cover them with salted water. Boil for 30 minutes until potatoes are tender. In a separate pan, boil two chicken breasts, again in salted water because that's all the salt you'll put in the salad.

After the potatoes have cooled, peel off the covers. Cube the potatoes. Set aside. Shred flesh of boiled chicken breasts. Do not include the skin--give it to Boots (our pet dog).

Meanwhile, chop celery stalks into tiny bits. The celery is needed for that added crunch.

After both chicken and potatoes have all cooled down, mix them with the celery pieces and add a jar-full of pickle relish. Mix in another jar of mayonaisse, then mix well with a spatula or one of those Baguio-made wooden spoons.

Best paired with fried dishes like pork chops, Canto ribs, homemade fried chicken (oy! hindi nako magluluto nun, ah!!!) or anything savory like Pablo Mariano Molina's beef rendang. As midnight snack, Mommy's chicken potato salad hits the spot. Ask Frank Cimatu, her best endorser. He also loves her morcon!

Season with joy, peace, prosperity.

Chill. Play a lot of Mozart while working on this work of love.

25 years gone but unforgotten

Yesterday was our Dad's 25th death anniversary. I stayed away from this space on that occasion, thinking that I might just get all weepy, senti and emo while recalling him. But at past 4 a.m. today while I write this, I am stone cold sober. Twenty and five years may have passed since he left for eternity, but I carry this man's image intact in my heart. These days whenever I find myself in a fix, the question I immediately ask myself is, "What would Dad (and now Mom who has joined him) do?" Lemme tell you, they combine forces to aid me in my struggle, no matter how minute or insignificant to the world. And when I'm sick, I call on Dad, too, and somehow I surmount the situation. So thanks, Dad. I know we will be together. In the meantime, I've still got a lotta livin' to do.

Staying hungry and foolish for life

The title of today's blog is inspired by a RebelleSociety.com article, written by Shavawn M. Berry, on taking a fool's leap into the world.

Leaps of faith have been what my late teacher Nieves B. Epistola called the "style markers" of my life. Especially as far as a checkered employment career is concerned. Especially as I am about to arrive at the big six zero that will give me certain privileges as a senior citizen, but I never know what will happen within the span of a day, no matter how well laid out my plans are.

It's really up to some divine source and my own determination to begin something (whether an article, a poem, a painting, volunteer work) and end it either with a flourish, a deafening slam of the door or a gentle tap of a computer key. This progressive learning of how to live from moment to moment lets me stay hungry (not entirely the physical pangs of hunger) and stay foolish. The fool is me, the one who even in almost late adulthood chooses to look at the world like a child.

One time a former editor told me how the longest service record she ever had in a publication was five years. Another former boss, also with a journalism background, said media life is one of musical chairs. But it was the tone with which they said what they said that grabbed me. There was no tinge of regret.

And so is the living of my life...on a wing and a prayer but with dignified desperation because I know that at the end of it, at the closing of a chapter, perhaps, perhaps and maybe I shall be rewarded with the face of He/She I call my God.

Meanwhile, let me close this latest outburst of kinder angst with some lines of a poem shared by a friend this morning. He said this Seamus Heaney poem was voted in Ireland as the best-loved poem written in the past 100 years, It's about a quiet moment when he and his mother peeled potatoes: "I remember her head bent towards my head, / Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives -- / Never closer the whole rest of our lives."

I am suddenly missing my lola who helped make my young happy Baguio memories possible, Dad whose silence was always "more than words", Mrs. Epistola who showed both her cerebral and emotional sides when there was just the two of us. They're gone from this world, but Mom is still around although I'm far away from her now. She has always been that pillar of strength made of the finest steel in our family. I wish her more years.

Self-portraits with enlarging shadows. Shot in Baguio, 2014.

My Twitter pal from Greece

If you look close enough, there's some kind of watermark on the upper left side that gives the name of the photographer. Anna Papadopoulou sent me this via Twitter last night after I thanked her for her tweets, mainly images like this one, that I find solace in after a day's work. Twitter, like many popular social media platforms, can be noisy and busy. Once in awhile, I happen upon something as soothing as a girl in pink.

And this served as my thank-you "note" to Anna P of Corfu, Greece. Someday we will meet, and I hope it'll be in a Grecian isle. These pink, orange and yellow flowers grow abundantly in what once was my Dad's garden, now tended by Mom and my bro Dennis. Photo by Babeth Lolarga