Lakwatsa with Gilda

It was the day after Peculiar People's Day which is celebrated on Jan. 10, according to illustrator-cartoonist Sandra Boynton. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the residual of that day than with friend and mentor Gilda Cordero Fernando, the woman writer who defies categorization because she's in a class of her own.

I knew that at this stage in her long life, she loved stepping out even if her legs were unwilling to bring her out of her house. Her will is too strong to acknowledge the weaknesses the flesh is heir to.

So we met in the dark of her boudoir where she was all dressed and made up while seated on her wheelchair. "Halika na," she said as I caught my breath upon arriving. She allowed me to inhale exhale for a few minutes as I told her about a harrowing time spent in the hospital for a thorough breast examination and shared the findings of my doctor regarding my arthritic knees.

"Di bale na," she waved her hand. "Maganda ka pa rin, Babeth!"

Three rings on the bell to summon Michelle, the tall, willowy caregiver who was to push Gilda's wheelchair and keep her steady while she boarded her car or stepped out of it when we reached Via Mare on Timog Ave, Quezon City, a few kilometers from her house.

Gilda Cordero Fernando with her preferred drink of distinction and a plateful of Oysters Rockefeller three-fourths of which she ravished

There she immediately zeroed in on what she wanted for appetizers. She pointed her forefinger and tapped it on the menu picture of Oysters Rockefeller. When the waitress said the order would take 20 minutes to prepare since the oysters still had to be baked, Gilda shook her head vigorously but said she'd wait.

Her order arrived at the same time as mine (arroz a la cubana). She said her household kitchen made a better version of it. I said I missed her cook Veni's cooking, but according to Michelle, her employer would rather eat out seven days a week. This meant dressing her up every day, applying makeup on her smooth face (to which she credits Pond's), putting on her accessories (she wore one of her many pairs of hoop earrings that afternoon) and her sneakers that matched her outfit. Is it any wonder that she has always been the Best-Dressed Writer in my book?

I asked her what she did the day before. She nudged Michelle who, along with the other caregiver Aiko, have become her memory bank. Michelle said Gilda went to visit her old friend, Inquirer founding publisher Eugenia D. Apostol, in the latter's house in Dasmarinas Village, Makati.

Prior appointment had been made so Tita Eggie looked forward to the visit, but when Gilda arrived, the former said, "Matalik kong kaibigan si Gilda. Hindi ikaw 'yon." To which Gilda replied, "Babatukan kita na dyan."

Tita Eggie repeated her remark, denying Gilda's presence before her. Again Gilda said, "Babatukan kita na talaga!"

After lunch, the car made a U-turn to drop me off Popular Bookstore where I bought a copy of Elmer A. Ordonez's Father's Doppelganger. Back in the car, Gilda took a cursory look at the book, then handed it back to me.

I asked her if she still enjoyed reading. She nodded, but said she couldn't remember anything anymore after she finished reading something, whether it's a newspaper or a book. She circled her hands round the sides of her head. "Magulo na," she said, seemingly aware of the ravages of time inside of her.

I asked what her friend and neurologist Joven Cuanang said about her condition. She smiled broadly, declaring, "Mahal na mahal niya ako!"

Gilda with the blogger, Xoce Luna Dalena and his grandma

Three generations almost but only two are blood relations (Xoce and Lola Julie)

She wasn't ready to go home. I said I wanted to visit Julie Lluch whose blood pressure had been elevated for the past two days and thus couldn't visit Gilda as originally planned. So off we went to Julie's house, but Gilda, being the generous soul that she is, remembered that we needed to stop over a place where we could buy pasalubong for the ailing sculptor.

We drove down Maginhawa Street until I spotted Friulli Trattoria where Michelle and I got off to order Margarita pizza and mozzarella sticks for takeout.

At Julie's who should be first to say hello to us but her grandson Xoce Luna Dalena and Aba Lluch Dalena who was on her way out on an errand? Aba stopped in her tracks to pull out her cell phone to take a photo ("proof of life," as Nash Tysmans would call it) of her Tita Gilda and herself.

We didn't go inside the house as there were steps that the older woman didn't want to negotiate so we spent the hour at the car port, with the electric fan turned to full blast. GCF continued to cuddle and admire chubby Xoce, son of Julie's daughter Kiri Dalena.

(NOTE: I can't believe I've gone this far and that particular afternoon isn't over yet. Trust Gilda to make the day long and memorable.)

When she rolled her head again, Julie and I took it as cue that she wanted to go to another place. Michelle recommended an ukay-ukay emporium (for that was what it was) on Aurora Blvd. near the corner of Anonas Road.

We bid Julie goodbye. The writer and the sculptor exchanged "I love you's" and tight hugs.

I don't have a picture documentation of Gilda among the racks of ukay-ukay where she almost lost one of her earrings which got caught in a blouse. She found one to her liking--a black top with tiny floral accents. I found a white eyelet dress perfect for lowland summer for P150 and a pair of khaki pants for the same price, all in tiptop condition.

Gilda shouted from her seat her observation of the people who patronized the place, "Very democratic!" And I did notice that all the customers who finished paying up at the counter left the Janco Fashion Trading with a big smile.

I went home also with a smile in my heart for I had spent a full afternoon that stretched to evening with a literary and style icon whom we are lucky to have very much around us still.

Iconic Via Mare

Michaela Fenix. Via Mare: 40 Years of Iconic Events Through Menus, Recipes, and Memories. Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing, Inc. 2016. 176 pp.

Via Mare and restaurateur Glenda Rosales Barretto are synonymous in having, in Felice Prudente Sta. Maria’s words in her foreword, moved “Philippine cuisine upwards onto a new and higher plane of creativity, innovation and artistry over decades.”

This book, with full-color photos by Pat Mateo, is part social history, even gossip, part legacy with the sumptuous recipes shared some of which had been served to heads of state, including Popes John Paul II and Francis.

Accounting for the restaurant’s success is, according to Barretto, its ability to “execute other kinds of cooking: Western, European and Asian. We learn from food festivals here and abroad. We exchange ideas with local and foreign chefs. We acquire knowledge from readings. And, of course, we endeavor to dine at the best restaurants to learn from them as well.”

But there is a true-life anecdote that also accounts for Via Mare’s emphasis on giving Filipino cuisine a lift. When then First Lady Imelda R. Marcos returned from the Cancun Summit in Mexico in 1981, she told Barretto what she had witnessed: how Mexican, not Western, food was served to the world’s leaders and guests. From then on, “Mrs. Marcos decided that state dinners would showcase Filipino food, but elegantly and with refined flavors,” the book stated.

Glenda Rosales Barretto, Via Mare’s moving force

To enter the catering business was not in Via Mare’s plans until it had to do the job for the silver wedding anniversary of Vicente Lim Jr. and his wife Nita Fernandez. Mrs. Marcos was present in that party. Right away she expressed her desire to have the restaurant cater a state dinner for then US President Gerald Ford. Barretto’s concern was not Via Mare’s capability but that her restaurant did not have enough silver, glassware and plates. Mrs. Marcos solved the problem, ordering her home stylist Ronnie Laing to buy what Via Mare needed.

The other international guests served through the years included Princesses Margaret and Anne of Great Britain, Prince Faisal Bin Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji of China, President Kim Dae Jung of Korea, economic leaders of the ASEAN Summit, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC, among a lengthy list.

At one time, Via Mare was contracted by Hennessy, the cognac company, for an anniversary dinner to celebrate its 250th anniversary in 2015. In the book’s narration, “the dinner menu was crafted in France, the recipes sent to the restaurant” for execution as modern haute cuisine. The menu included mussels cream soup infused with saffron, smoked salmon topped with cocoa, crab soufflé with zesty lemon, foie gras on jellied consommé, grilled wagyu with cognac and celeriac.”

The dessert was “a sorbet encased in a petal-like structure made of chocolate which opened up when hot chocolate was poured on it.” The recipe for this last masterpiece is included.

Restaurant habitués included Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo and wife Beth Day Romulo. Barretto kept his gracious thank-you letters that praised her for mastering “the art of Filipino cuisine because each item revealed your gentle touch and your keen knowledge.”

In another handwritten letter, Romulo expressed appreciation for her attention to detail, her “time and effort to help us make our parties the success that they were…It is personal interest that transcends the limits of complying with a duty to a customer.”

That attention to detail extended to “the fabled Czech amber crystals used at Via Mare’s very first catering.” The aesthete in Romulo got so impressed that “he requested that henceforth those crystals be used only for his functions.”

Barretto is convinced that more than the accolades and the national and world recognition, the backbone of Via Mare, a Latin phrase to mean “the way of the sea,” are the people. An eighth of the book is devoted to the employees. Some have been there since the restaurant’s founding in 1975. Notable is Marquez “Mother” Reyes for his “keen eye for design, observing and meticulously noting the preferences of clients and how hotels and other restaurants do their settings.”

Another is Dalia Zamora who made Via Mare’s pride—bibingka and puto bumbong. Manang Dal was said not to have used any equipment to measure the quantity of her ingredients but just relied on the lines of the palm of her hand. From there she could intuit the best variety of rice for her rice cakes.

Via Mare: 40 Years of Iconic Events Through Menus, Recipes, and Memoriesought to be in the libraries of colleges and universities that boast of hotel and restaurant management programs. But more than these, it should have pride of place in every Pinoy home.--Elizabeth Lolarga

Via Mare’s famous pairing of pancit luglug and puto bumbong

This article first appeared in the Jan. 5, 2017, issue of www.verafiles.org.