UPWARD MOBILITY AND ANGELO'S VERSION OF THE UPLAND DRESSING

I was once told that, "It's just a job."

I heard this line after one TV show I was writing for had stopped airing. I am a newbie at TV writing and I left my corporate life so I could write...

...about food like  kalabaw lugaw (porridge with water buffalo meat) sold  from the lowly karinderia (street food stall) and the expensive Wagyu Beef cooked on volcanic rocks served in upscale restaurants.

I just want to write.

About kids with learning disabilities and how the world treats them like they will never be able to contribute to society.

I just want to write. 

About all the crazy shit stuck inside my head, from the crazy tikbalang afraid to make friends to the two menopausing women conversing about abortion on their way to Quiapo to the sub-atomic sized letters that make up a world brought alive by the continued narrative told by these letters when they are linked. 

I really, really just want to write.

My days of upward mobility are gone. Job titles don't appeal to me anymore. Doing a good job and contentment in what I do are what's important to me now. This is something I tried to share with my younger brother, Angelo, when we were discussing his career path in the culinary and hospitality industries. He couldn't quite picture what I meant when I said job titles shouldn't matter. But I guess that's him being a product of the era of labels, the time of technology.

Good thing that he has his own passions. Cooking being one of them, I tried to explain my new work philosophy to him using the cooking analogy.

One of the lowest positions in the modern kitchen is that of the garde manger or pantry chef who is in charge of the cold foods including the pates, cold appetizers and salads. But when a meal starts with the salad, it becomes the garde manger's job to make sure that the meal becomes a success right from the start. A badly dressed salad can make a meal the epic fail that you don't want it to be.  

Whatever your station is in life or the kitchen line, it's always important to do the best work, one that you can be proud of.

So after sharing that analogy, we went on to make a dressing based on Cafe by the Ruins' upland dressing. My brother made some adjustments to suit his taste. So, here it is.

UPLAND DRESSING
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons patis (fish sauce)
2 tbsp honey (or brown sugar)
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
2 tsps finely pressed garlic (or finely minced garlic)
1/2 cup corn oil (the aroma of any other kind of oil does not go well with this patis flavored dressing)

 Toast the sesame seeds. Mix in the lemon juice, patis, honey and garlic. Incorporate corn oil by pouring it as you whisk the liquid briskly. (If you want to do it faster, pour all the liquids in an airtight bottle, and shake vigorously). Add the sesame seeds just before serving.

 Serve with lettuce, arugula, halved seedless grapes, tomatoes and cucumber. I find that this goes well with salads that don't have any meat in it.

When Makati Was My Version Of Hell

This is a previouly posted blog. I used to work in Makati but gave up a lucrative corporate job because I couldn't take the daily commute anymore. Believe me, I've tried all kinds of transportation. Heck, I even learned how to drive. It just didn't work for me. 

Whilst working in there,  I discovered Apartment 1B, a cozy resto with good food and a charming doorman/guard named Aga who was a one-time champion whistler in one of Eat Bulaga's crazy music contests. So these days, when I do find myself in Makati's Salcedo Village area, I try to drop by and have a cuppa and a cake. The last one I had was the White Toblerone Cheesecake. 

Here's a an edited version of one of my worst nights getting stuck in Makati. The coffee shop mentioned is not Apartment 1B because they do serve alcohol. Dig in!

☂☁⚡

Makati. Bright lights. Bleak city.

I’m sure many of you will disagree, but for me a rainy pay day Friday night in Makati just about appropriates hell. And Satan, in a plush red velvet chair high up in a penthouse office is directing the traffic. His minions, disguised as taxi drivers, tirelessly circle the concrete jungle, stopping to splash bystanders with murky rainwater before speeding away, with their undecipherable hand signals that could very well mean, “I’m stuck here in hell, fucker, so you should be too!”

I used to work in Malabon, the land of patis, pancit Malabon and relentless flooding. Many of my friends felt I got a first class upgrade when my office transferred to the country’s business capital.  I had my misgivings.

Being a truant Makati girl, I refuse to own a car and drive, despite my company’s standing offer to get a company car. A friend recently described me as a corporate hippie. Someone who refuses to look like and live like she works in this urban haven called Makati. Though I do not report for work in my tsinelas (It’s against company policy as our recently released Employee Handbook declares), I do go to work in jeans and jersey shirts.

But I digress.

On Fridays, our office closes at 5:00 PM. It’s four and a half hours later and here I still am in the coffee shop in our building, ranting silently on my computer. After years of working here, I have had the wisdom to realize that cursing, screaming and thrashing on the wet pavement will not get me home to Quezon City. And fanning this flame of hatred I have towards this place is the fact that this coffee shop, the only place I can get to without being soaked by the torrential rain, does not serve anything with alcohol in it. Not even Java mocha blend with a splash of Green Cross rubbing alcohol.

I feel like flipping everyone here in the coffee shop.

There’s that table of plain janes gossiping about the office beeyotch whose i-pod nearly broke when she dropped it while showing product sample pictures and way too much cleavage to their married expat boss.

The couple seating across me have opened their laptop and are uploading monthsary pictures on their shared Friendster site. Remind me to puke on them later before I leave.

Three salesmen, oblivious to everyone around them, are sharing the sexploits of a colleague who snagged a pretty young thing while on his recent provincial assignment. They all hope he gets STD.

In my head, I am Honey Bunny in the opening scene of Pulp Fiction. I stand on my chair and brandish a wicked looking gun and shout “Each one of you Motherfuckers enjoy your last night in hell! I’m now gonna shoot every fucking last one of you!” With madness in my eyes, I blow the brains out of everyone in the coffee shop, sparing the kindly waiters who look at me with pity. I run amok and have my own weekend party strafing down all the taxis that cross my path.

But I don’t have a gun on me now. Neither do I have the strength to shout as six hours of watching people be happy has drained me of all the fight I have left tonight.

It is nearly 11 PM and the coffee shop is closing. I leave a tip and take a last sip of the now lukewarm cappuccino I ordered three hours ago.

Makati wins tonight.

I drag my peep-toed cold feet on the pavement wishing that I wouldn't have to be here  on the next rainy pay day Friday.