Iron Chef Manila

This past weekend, I hauled myself over to the Palms Country Club at Alabang for their version of the "Iron Chef" competition. The contestants were all members, organized into groups of four--no credentials required. I was there to support bosom friends, two of the "usual suspects", Jun and wife, Abigail, who is, by far, one of the best cooks I know. She has an incredible palate; her taste is always spot-on and has never, ever failed. Plus, she is just one of those lucky people who cook by feel. Forget recipe books, her recipes come from her head and her heart. As far as I'm concerned, she was born to create fantastic dishes. The irony is, she is a top banker in one of the biggest International banks. Talk about left and right-brained. Yes, folks, some guys do get all the luck!

As though that weren't enough, she was teamed up with only best--Nicky Camcam, a Les Roches, Switzerland educated, Internationally-trained Chef, who has such a sophisticated and yet delicate palate. Deadly combination, if you ask me. Their group, christened "Crack Pots", was completed by Margot Garcia and Mike Garcia, who were invaluable in their culinary input.

There must have been about five or six teams, who all did their best. The energy was frenetic in some groups, but the most relaxed and the most fun to watch were the Crack Pots, whose members were dancing away as they went through their tasks. Chef Nicky manned a tight ship but always with his trademark jovial, wacky, countenance. His sous chefs, Gail, Margot, and Mike were always quick on the draw. Their menu was astounding. The contest's premise was that they had to use mandatory ingredients such as beef and salmon and condiments such as hoisin sauce, mayonnaise, and capers. They came up with a blow-me-away appetizer, which was pan fried salmon and prawn with a cilantro sauce. Their main course was the "piece de resistance". It was top blade of beef, sliced thinly, drizzled with a reduction of demi glace, hoisin and lemon grass, which was simmering for almost four hours. I tell you, I could bathe in that sauce! It was served with blanched asparagus drizzled with lemon-zest infused, whipped mayonnaise. Fantasmagoric!!! There are simply no words.

But wait. Here's the thing. They didn't win first place. They run away with first runner-up because of one measly point. Imagine that. One point. Oh well. Doesn't matter. I can't say much about the qualifications of the random judges. I know one was from the California Culinary Academy and he's good. The rest, I really can't say much because, well, there's nothing to say. To my mind and most definitely to my tummy, they were the champs, hands down!

Kudos to The Palms for a well-conceptualized, well-organized event!

A Gem of a Find

I attended the Iron Chef competition over at the Palms Country Club over the weekend, which I will elaborate on in a succeeding post. It was a highly successful and entertaining event but the evening's bonus was a discovery of Ybarra food products, which were showcased as one of the event's sponsors. Ybarra is a line of Spanish gourmet food offerings--mostly delicatessen types: bottled olive oil, olives, pasta, sauces, cheeses, etc.

I first sampled an olive and was simply wowed! It was heavenly. Haven't we all gotten used to the cardboard-tasting stuff offered in grocery stores at affordable prices? The decent-tasting ones normally cost so much more. And so, on occasion when we need the tasteful, plump, full-bodied olives, we go to Santis or Terry's for the Kalamatas. But the Ybarra bottled olives did not disappoint. They just might be the best tasting among others of its kind in the similar price range.

Adding to that, are the delicious sauces that I sampled one by one. My favorite is the gaucho sauce--a sort of tomato, cream sauce for dipping, marinades, or to put over pasta. They also have the Sicilian sauce, which is a chunky tomato, there also is the pesto or pisto in Spanish. The tuna dip is another offering that's to die for. The list is endless, so please go to the nearest grocery store and sample them. They are available in Rustan's, Shopwise, South, and Makati Supermarkets. You will fall in love; I promise! And oh, they make Christmas baskets and they do deliver. I have placed my orders this early.

If you have inquiries please call Malou Castro of Oriental Merchants, Inc. at 588-5777.

Freudian Slip

The conversation was about relationships. A cousin-in-law was recounting how his teenage daughter had started asking him about his past relationships, demanding specifics at certain points. “Just how much information do I give her?” he asked us, a group of middle-aged women.

“As little as possible!” we all rang out in a chorus.
His brother, who was well within earshot, swiveled his chair to face us and butted in, “Play safe, just follow the golden rule, bro, you know, the rule of three. Tell her you had three girlfriends—three relationships ranging from three months to three years. Don’t be the genius that you are and mention the three-day one.”

“Listen to your brother,” the women said, “He seems to know what he’s talking about.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “So I’ll just tell my daughter that I had three wholesome, monotonous relationships. No! MONOGAMOUS! I meant monogamous!”

He immediately realized the faux pas but his efforts to redeem himself the whole night were unsuccessful. All 18 dinner guests had rip-roaring fun at his expense.

A Freudian slip, or parapraxis, according to Wikipedia, is an error of speech, memory, or physical action, that is believed to be caused by the unconscious mind. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the famous Austrian physician who founded the psychoanalytical school of psychology, would have risen from his grave if he could that night, for yet another triumph over the accuracy of his theory on the subliminal mind—the deepest, darkest, most latent thoughts and desires of humans—and how it manifests itself subconsciously.

Freudian slips are what such involuntarily spoken words have come to be known because Freud believed that verbal slips come from repressed desires. These are very telling mistakes that compromise the speaker in different ways, sometimes costing him so much more than just earning clown status for a few hours.

Freud is best known for his theories on the unconscious mind and on the defense mechanism of repression. He is also known for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life. He believed that man’s psyche is saturated with only two types of thoughts: sex and death, and that its most intricate workings are fueled solely by these two concepts. As civilization advanced, boundaries of propriety were defined and the open expressions of these were pronounced taboo, so that man has had to bury them in the recesses of his mind. But from time to time, at man’s most unguarded moments, these potent thoughts surface. In more simple terms, Freudian slips are words that are consciously repressed but unconsciously released. Freud had described such thoughts, as being very faithful to a man’s frame of mind and emotions, as violently as he may disown them.

And so, going back to the previous conversation, did my cousin-in-law just reveal his most secret thoughts on how monogamous relationships are indeed monotonous? Absolutely!

I can say with confidence that those who have been in exclusive relationships for long periods of time agree with this, as bold a statement as might be. In fact, it takes hard work to sustain the excitement in any long-term union. A friend who likes to improvise and whose wife guards him like a hawk, prefers to call it "hard labor in a maximum security facility," and based on the same premise, refers to himself a “lifer.”

One of my favorite authors, Pulitzer-prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri, through one of her short stories said that, “When couples get married, the relationship disappears.” This may not be very far from the truth. The tedium of the everyday just about murders whatever magic there might be in any relationship be it subliminal or otherwise. Those who have partners who snore like dying cows; who pick their noses compulsively as though it were their sole purpose in life; who shower the world profusely with saliva every time they speak; who, not only refuse to open doors, but beat you to entering once you open it yourself; who think they look like Brad Pitt, when in fact, Will Ferrel in Blades of Glory or Seth Rogen in Knocked Up might be the more realistic look-alike; whose idea of a stimulating conversation is a quick exchange on how Manny Pacquiao should spend his millions; who give you dried-flower arrangements instead of fresh cut flowers for your birthday so they last forever and expect a pat on the back for practicality, know exactly what I’m talking about.

Cautionary tales have been disseminated time and again by the experienced, older generation to the young ones who contemplate marriage but has there ever been a concrete and concerted effort to truly catalogue what lies in store, several years down the road, when monotony, may in fact, describe the relationship more accurately than monogamy?

A wise female professor, who is now in her sixties, pointed out how truly incongruous the mentality of men and women are. “We are on completely different planes,” she said. She hadn’t reinvented the wheel with this statement but she went on to explain that this disparity between the sexes doesn’t get as clear as when couples reach the golden years. “When a man hits 6o years old, he looks forward to retiring, to slowing down, and to finally spending time at home with family. But the wife, who at around this age—well within the menopause years—is raring to go forth and conquer the world. You see,” she went on, “During menopause, a woman’s center of procreation is literally shut down, so all the energy for creation must be channeled somewhere else. This is why every menopausal woman suddenly busies herself with all sorts of projects. The last thing she wants is to stay home and be idle. That’s how incongruous it is.”

I had a moment of clarity after she said all that. Things suddenly became clear, a bit skewed and all—yes, but clear nonetheless. Taking these two arguments together, it may be reasonable to say that we get bored with our respective partners until we hit sixty, and then we finally have legitimate biological and chemical reasons to strike out on our own. Not funny; I know, but it was quite liberating to actually say so.

Back to monogamy and monotony. Have we finally come upon the real reason why men huddle together and migrate to one side of the room at parties and women on the other? That it’s because they find their relationships monotonous? Well, we’ll have them know that the reason women clump together as a formidable group at such occasions is to discuss them: how their very own loud snores rouse them into rude awakenings; how their feet stink so much that they make dead rats smell like a botanical garden; and how they break wind every time they crouch to put on their trousers because their tummies get squished in the process, releasing all the trapped air. So mean; yes, I know. But that’s what happens when women get bored. What about when men get bored, what do they do? Sometimes they simply talk; at others, they do! But let’s not go there.

So what must men and women do until they hit 60? Laugh at ourselves, at each other, and the world at large, I guess. And what of those who don’t have a sense of humor? Well, there’s not much choice but to grin and bear it!

Synchronicity

The opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing last night was simply sublime. It wasn't the flashy, ostentatious display of a super power's resources that never fails to elicit shock and awe from viewers but an honest to goodness show worth thousands of hours of hard work, synchronicity, and harmony among thousands of performers. That was what wove the magic--sheer man power--not technology, not science, not electronics, but down home, old fashioned practice and perfection.

The performers, 15,000 total, exhibited impeccable precision. One can just imagine the logistics and the discipline involved to mount a spectacle powered purely by humans. Out of the 2008 performers in any given number, there was no one out of beat, no one out of synch, nor out of line. Truly unbelievable!

But then a friend muttered under his breath, "What do you expect, imperfection? These people are followers, who are so used to being ordered around. Let's not forget here that they are still under an iron dictatorship, no matter what the West does to claim otherwise. They follow orders or it's their head on a plate." Touche!

Emotional Floodgates Open

As I previously mentioned, i have been in the thick of moving to another house these past two weeks. Lots of sorting out and packing are involved. It is remarkable how powerful emotions can be stirred up when one goes through personal effects. It's like a portal to the past, a sort of time machine that catapults one to days long gone. I had to sift through all the children's things. It was quick and almost painless for the younger ones but the entire exercise of going through Maverick's and Kitty's things was a test in restraint.

I fingered through their old picture albums, which held photos taken as far back as seconds after their birth and a million others that documented the important milestones in their life. And of course there were also the not-so-important, plus the down right silly ones of sticking the tongue out at the camera for no apparent reason. I poured through report cards, notebooks, test papers, letters, notes, sports paraphernalia, medicine, cosmetics, clothing, accessories, shoes, etc.

I was okay for the most part, able to hold everything together until I stumbled across Kitty's old Cornell University paraphernalia and her high school prom photos. There were Cornell pennants, shirts, IDs, reports. She had aced her first semester there but was very unhappy and so she left Ithaca for London. I felt my stomach lurch and the tears sort of pool into my eye sockets but I held it together until I stumbled upon her prom photos. She was all girly and all dressed up. She had flown to Cornell after the prom and her move to London, along with her decision to embrace an alternative lifestyle happened around the same period.

I slowly got up, locked her bedroom door and let the floodgates open. I had a moment there--a long moment to grieve over what seemed to me as the perfect girl getting into the perfect school living the perfect life and I was ecstatic! But that was just it. She wasn't happy; I was. It wasn't perfect for her; it was all skewed and troubled. I wanted Cornell for her because I probably would have never gotten in. I had pinned my pride on her personal achievements and nothing could have been more wounding. And so, after several minutes, I packed them away in a box that was for transport to the new house. Along with it I packed away my tears.

I have never seen her as happy as she is now, as true to herself, and as liberated. I am proud of her--so, so proud!

Moving House

I have been remiss about posting this past week because I have been busy/harassed/stressed out with moving to another house. What is worse than the actual manual labor involved in packing, lifting, loading, and then, unloading, unpacking, and putting away is the "unwiredness." We have yet to be connected to the Internet so I have to make special trips to the office just to retrieve email. So please forgive this delinquency, which I hope is a temporary situation. In the meanwhile I'm trying to research on who these people are at my ISP provider, who keep promising to send their guys, so that I can gangsta my way way through them if they don't deliver within the next few days. I'm thinking 3-6 in the slammer will be small change compared to the withdrawal symptoms that rack me every second of the day from being disconnected to the rest of the world. Heeeeeeeelp!

God Is In The Details

I had always believed that the male gaze was sweeping, that it scanned the view—any view—by doing a quick once-over, that it came up with what photographers call a situationer, and then zoomed in on one particular element that caught its fancy. The female gaze on the other hand, had always struck me as something microscopic and razor sharp, as something that can pick up even the tiniest, most negligible of points in any given visual field.

I didn’t think men paid much attention to the nitty-gritty like women do. They seemed to me, more concerned with the big picture than the puny pixels that make up a whole. To be more concrete, let’s say a couple goes to a restaurant for dinner, I would expect the man to notice the number of customers, whether it is full or not; the aircon temperature, whether he is comfortable; the prices on the menu, whether he can afford it; or the ambience, whether it is to his liking. The woman, on the other hand, will notice every article of clothing on the man and whether he is well put together; or whether his shoes are scruffy and his fingernails, clipped. Like a radar, she will pick up the slightest of non-verbal signs if the man finds the place pricey by observing his reaction as he peruses the menu. She will notice if the glassware on the table has watermarks, if the perfume of the lady at the next table has floral or citrus undertones, and if the waiter mispronounces a word.

But just last week, a good friend of mine told me about what her husband had said as they were walking to a restaurant. She happened to be wearing her brand new pair of Jimmy Choo, t-strap, slip-ons with a kitten heel (to the men out there, that translates to an open-toed sandal with a one-inch heel that costs as much a set of mag wheels). She was walking a few paces ahead of him and, out of the blue, said, “Hey, those shoes are weird. Your pinky toes are sticking out of the sides and they’re actually scraping the ground. That’s pretty gross.” She was livid!

“But was it true?” I asked her.

“It was, but that’s not the point.”

“Oh, I think I know,” I added. “Your feelings were hurt either because he said you were gross or because the shoes cost so much and yet, they fell short of your expectations.”

“No to both,” she answered. “I got offended because you know him, he’s a man’s man. He doesn’t care how he looks; he thinks grooming is a bad word. He couldn’t care less if his shirt were inside-out or if Valentino had finally retired but he had the gall to call my attention to the way my toe scraped the ground!”

This got me thinking that there are men out there, who may appear oblivious to everything beyond the tip of their noses but are actually very well attuned to the minutiae of womanhood. I had long concluded that if a lady had a pleasing face or extended front and rear bumpers, her unshaven legs, chipped nails, unplucked eyebrows, or unflattering lipstick color would go unnoticed.

Heck, was I wrong! I did some research and found out how far off the mark I was. I asked an interior designer if indeed men noticed these small things and he replied, “Oh, you’d be surprised! We see everything. And a matter as seemingly small and inconsequential as a lopsided smile can really turn some men off.

“Are you serious?” I couldn’t believe what I heard. “I thought you guys were clueless about these little grooming slip-ups or those idiosyncrasies that we, women, sometimes have,” I added.

“Well, you thought wrong,” he answered. He then gave me this whole lecture about the proverb: God is in the details, which was initially attributed to Gustave Flaubert (1812-1880), one of the greatest French writers, who was often quoted as saying, “Le bon Die est dans le detail (God is in the details). It means that the most important things are in the details or that the essence of anything can be found in the details. But in the twentieth century it became generally attributed to the world-famous, German-born architect, Ludwig Mies van deer Rohe (1886-1969), who repeatedly used it to describe his work and his artistic process.

This interior designer friend went on to say that women should be extremely guarded with visual artists, be they painters, sculptors, architects, interior designers, or engineers. “These men have the gift of seeing what the rest of the male species are blind to,” he said. “We have the eye for detail, we can spot the tiniest flaw, but by the same token, we can find the smallest asset in an otherwise aesthetically unsound specimen, and let that attribute outshine everything else.”

He gave a pretty profound speech but I wasn’t quite sold on it so I asked my go-to men: my brothers. “Do you notice little things in women like their pinky toe?”

One brother’s answer was, “Hell, yeah! That’s why I used to take my dates to the beach because I needed an excuse to see if they had nice toes. Even if the face were rocking, if the toes were like ginger roots, it was a big no.”

“Yeah,” I said to him, “And you’re Brad Pitt, right?”

“No,” he scoffed, “But I have nice feet!”

I couldn’t argue with that. That really got his goat, I thought. I never thought a woman’s toes could make a man emotional. I asked my other brother the same thing and his answer was, “Not so much the toes; I’m not a foot man, but the hands and nails. You know, how some women have these yellowish fingernails—aaargh, just aaargh. That’s all.” I immediately got the picture.

And so since last week, I have been keeping one eye open for these things and was surprised at how widespread this phenomenon is. I was at a birthday party and two men on my table, total strangers, were talking about a girl at the buffet line-up. They were scoping her out. I made like I wasn’t interested but my right ear was glued fast to their conversation. One guy was telling the other how hot he thought the girl was. The other answered, “Hmmm, maybe…but her eyes…they’re kind of like too far apart and drooping down like this.” He put both his palms on the sides of his face and stretched them down, making himself look like a hound dog with droopy eyes.

I looked at the girl to see if he was right. It wasn’t that bad. Sure, her eyes were a little wide-set, kind of Jackie O-ish, but otherwise she was hot. But because that one guy had exaggerated, his friend got turned off. End of story.

Just yesterday, I was queuing up for the cashier at a bookstore and three men were discussing some girl. Two of them were all praises for this certain girl, an officemate, and were selling the idea of taking her out to the third man. The third man agreed to all the points they had raised: she had gorgeous, straight hair; tall, something like 5’6”; really long legs; and a face like Salma Hayek’s. The third man said, “Sure, she’s all that, but don’t you ever notice how she has this fine down on her lip, this sort of very thin moustache? It’s not very noticeable but I see it.” The other two said, “Yeah, that could be a problem.”

I couldn’t contain myself, so I tapped the third man on the back and asked him, “Sorry, But I just have to find out what you do for a living. I know, odd question, but I hope you don’t mind.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’m a graphic designer.”

Bingo!