Cooking Stuff and Other Things

COOKING is like music to me. Rhythm section is the basic/fundamentals, the improvisation comes with the guitars and sax and horns and stuff. It's always hit and miss. Right key, right blend.

FOOD is a mystery, but it's an endearing adventure to know and understand what people eat. I try all kinds of recipes that I read and encounter and then interface my own take (that somehow go in a book that I am writing--island cooking, herbs, sustainabilty, cultural interface). Cooking is intimacy. If we don't know how to feed the people we're with, then we need to explore more that relationship. Something's missing. I like cooking for the people I love and the friends that I hang out with--although I also cooked for typhoon victims in the Philippines and poor urban workers in India. Cooking is always hit and miss, that is why I continue knowing/learning.

ORGANIC food has become much more popular and mainstream in recent years, accounting for 3 to 4 percent of US food sales and climbing. In the UK, for example, 40 percent of baby food consumed is now organic. But I still don't trust it, especially when “organic food” is sold in relatively bigger stores—compared with my community grower whose produce I can see blossom from seed to harvest. Otherwise, who cares about “organic”? Check this out: Hershey's owns organic chocolate maker Dagoba; Pepsi bought Naked Juice; Coke and Odwalla report to the same boss; Nestle and Tribe Mediterranean Foods are the same. 
          More: Kellogg also owns Morningstar Farms, Kashi, Gardenburger and Bear Naked, and ConAgra/Lightlife. General Mills, Cargill, Kraft, Cadbury, M&M Mars and others also own a host of natural brands. The conglomerate Hain Celestial Group is a major player in the sector. Meantime, in Asheville, a Trader Joe's, which specializes on organic and vegetarian foods, competes with Greenlife Grocery on the same block on Merrimon Av. Trader Joe's also owns Aldi's, which sells foodstuff that an average joe and jane could afford but snobbed by “organic-only” patrons. What's scary about giant food companies? They mass-produce their products, and here's a sample of their production line: Farmed in Guangzhou, China; washed and cleaned in Madras, India; packaged in Cebu, Philippines; and repackaged in Matagalpa, Nicaragua; then shipped to Asheville, North Carolina. Can you trust that? I don't—but I don't want to lose sleep over it. I'd like to simplify my food and save my stress to the next NBA playoffs. I will buy food that I can afford, eat anything that looks good, served on a clean plate.

DANCE! Cook. Write poetry. Crack jokes. Do art. Don't explain yourself. Dance. Keep on dancing.

I'D love the challenge of cooking an awesome dinner for a mixed martial arts lady champion who has just been knocked out. And see what happens. Quite a job, I reckon.

IF we can't understand and accept a people's food we can never understand and accept them. It's like making love. Food is intimate like shared nakedness.

WHAT do I do when I am bored (when I am not writing). I roam the streets like a Blues Brother, I meditate by the sea, I pretend that I am Batman Junior Jr, I eat, I fight it with my Incredible Hulk hand. Or I just cook.

I AM a grandfather. I would love to walk my grandson to the open market and tell him stories about grandpa picking ripe guavas in the mountains as a kid. Or read my granddaughter "The Little Prince" and how a fox's ferocity can be tamed by patient friendship. Then cook them plantains on rice wraps and stuffed with jackfruits, chased down by a cold coconut juice right off a tree.

I AM happy that there's a steady stream of wonderful Facebook friends who “like” what I post on dizzying succession almost 15 hours a day, nonstop. Thank you, thank you! I wish I could invite y'all in a dinner party on a prairie and satisfy your wildest, most virulent culinary cravings—with all the awesome food that I could cook! Seriously.

I HAVE a simple philosophy or reflex/deduction in regards eating. I eat to live. Am I eating safe or unsafe food? Well, that is common sense. If I've been eating poison food in the last 50 years of my life, then I must have resurrected 50 times already? I am still breathing...

IF I could, I just want to shut my mouth—stride to the kitchen, put on some Bee Gees or Led Zeppelin or Andres Segovia, and cook. I will cook till I drop and sleep... Uhh, before I'll sleep I'll post what I cooked first, click on a Netflix movie, and sleep in peace and quiet. I don't mind sliding into a dreamland kitchen, still cooking.

I WOULD love to own a house with an outdoor kitchen, wood stove, and stuff. Of course, it's not that easy in an urban setting with neighboring condominiums and apartments. Lots of issues... Nevertheless, I enjoy watching the fire, the raw smell of burning wood, embers fluttering by, burnt clay pots, veggies off the farm still smothered with muddy soil, fish set to be gutted and all, herbs all over the yard—the breeze or rain and birds chiming along as the dog and cat saunter by.

BACK home in the islands, or long time ago in America, we don't have an apt word for organic since most food are "organic." Meaning, straight from the farm, local, non-pesticide, non-stocked (in shelves) hence no chemical agents to give it longer shelf-life, non-packaged/ready to go as is, non-transported from other sources--and sold right in the open market by people who live in the same community. So when people say “organic” and then they head to a “healthy food” franchise grocery, and negate the local/community grower, I tend to rant. But I digress.

MANY days my life's pursuit of happiness is simply focused on hoping my home team, the Charlotte Hornets win a game. Or I don't argue over some silly, redundant item. Happiness is a sweet two hours goof-around with a child, a cool walk with a babedawg by the river's side—or I get to eat a really fresh and delicious seafood dinner.

I WANNA say, "Let me cook for you, my love. Stay in bed today, rest your back, play a Rising Appalachia CD. Relax like a fairy. Let me handle your sweet lips and warm hips in a bit." Those lines even rhyme, isn't it?

WHEN humanity is well fed and sheltered, and the world and society provide art and music for dancing in place of too much talk, scrutiny and judgment by way of our diversity and differences--then, there will be lesser arguments. There will be Harmony, Love and Peace.

COOK like a world music artist. Not just a cover band. Recipes are fundamentals, let's infuse our personal magic.

"BIZARRE Foods," the TV show, is interesting to me because food is the best way to harmoniously interface with other people's culture. A shortage or lack of understanding of cultural truths pave way for animosities and discrimination between countries. Sadly, we in the West, have become more choosy and picky with our food--sometimes judging others' culinary identity as strange and disgusting. Fact is, we waste a lot of food enough to feed more than half of starving the human race.

EATING is better than arguing. Dancing is better than fighting. Kissing is better than Breaded Pork Chops. Got problem with that?

WE lost the glory of simplicity because nothing seems simple anymore. Food is so complex. Is that GFO-free? as in genetically-fucked up? Ah, gimme safe food or I starve myself to death! Language is so complex. Political correctness needs to be a college degree,I guess—your main job is to correct people, politically. It is easier to junk a cellphone since before there's only 1 house phone to 101 houses, one TV to a barrio of 2,000... Food is what mom placed on the table, EAT! These days, younger people don't have an idea how to it was then so they tend to get depressed with seemingly "simple" things. What? There's no Wi-Fi in the woods? 

The Chinese Work Ethic

THE Chinese work ethic and business sense continually mystify me. They've been in the Philippines long before the Spaniards and Americans did. Although the old Astronesian natives have long traded business with China, the one Chinese dude that registered in Filipinos' psyche was a pirate named Lim Ah Hong. Probably Senor Espanol and Mr Smith thought it convenient to create a “pirate” image of the Chinese to sort of lessen competition? Not sure... But what's sure is, the Chinese have long upended the Spaniards and Americans in the Philippines even before Beijing entered WTO in early 90s, and evolved into the unparalleled manufaturing titan of global business.

          Historically, the Chinese work silently, yet effectively. They worked in railroad construction under the Vanderbilts, they sold silk and flip-flops in every little corner of any city in every little corner of the world, and they had pretty cool lo meins at Lim Ho Fook, as well, so says Warren Zevon, right? There was this barbershop banter in regards Chinese business camaraderie that always fascinated me. They say that when a diner goes to a Chinese restaurant and asks for a dish that happens to be missing in the menu folder, the waiter will say, “We have that, Sir!” and then he runs out by the backdoor and goes to another Chinese restaurant where the owner willingly gives him what the customer is asking. There! They collared a client, that's the bottomline... The Chinese don't compete with each other, they actually support each other. When they entered WTO and got factory deals from the West, the big boss Chinese dude gave out capital to smaller entrepreneurs in the provinces so they'd get all the job orders from the US and Europe and elsewhere.

          Yup, the Chinese work ethic and business sense are very mystifying—and effective.

Where Do You Buy Your Chips?

“NAH, I DON'T shop at Aldi. Yes, chips and stuff are inexpensive there but I don't support huge corporations that sell us junk. They are evil! I go to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. Sometimes Greenlife.” Good. My ramens budget is kinda limited too so I go to stores that sell them really low like 15 packs for 50 cents, with a $2 Slantshack Jerky coupon. Yeah. It's all economics to me. Health-wise, I let my weird logic take over. Inhalation of carbon dioxide and methane emissions a.k.a. carbon footprints a.k.a. greenhouse gas a.k.a. pollution—plus a dose too much of political campaign speeches—will kill me faster than two Cup-a-Noodles a week. But seriously, if we really want to improve or change consumer behavior with a goal of minimizing “poison” in our food, let's try to shake the source and support local growers and producers. That's a good start.

       But let me ramble first... Aldi and Trader Joe's, you see, are owned by the Albrecht brothers Karl and Theo of Germany. There are 10,000 Aldis in 18 countries and 457 Trader Joe's stores in the US, heaviest concentration in Southern California. Founded by a cool dude named Joe Coulombe in Monrovia CA, Trader Joe's—a market leader in organic and fresh food groceries in the US—has long been bought or acquired by Theo Albrecht. Damn goofy Theo, right? Meantime, Whole Foods Market Inc., a supermarket chain specializing in organic food, is a Fortune 500 company—the 30th largest retailer in the US. Some of its One Percenter investors are Vanguard Total Stock Mkt. Index and Harbor Capital Appreciation Instl. Think GMO, think Monsanto. Whole Foods is also the owner of Greenlife Grocery (located in my home city of Asheville).

       The boom in organic food has boosted sales over $32 billion annually and has led some of the nation’s biggest food companies—General Mills, Coca-Cola, Perdue, Kellogg—to acquire or take stakes in smaller organic outfits. To name a few: Hormel’s acquisition of Applegate Farms for $775 million; WhiteWave’s acquisition of So Delicious/Turtle Mountain for $195 million and Wallaby Yogurt for $125 million; General Mills’ acquisition of Annie’s Homegrown for $820 million; Pinnacle Foods’ acquisition of Boulder Brands (Earth Balance, Evol, Udi’s) for $975 million; Post’s acquisition of a number of cereal and egg brands (including MOM/Malt-O-Meal/Better Oats) for $1.15 billion; and JAB Holding’s acquisition of a number of coffee brands (Green Mountain Einstein Bros./Noah’s, Stumptown and Intelligentsia, Peet’s, and Caribou).

       That's just the way of the world, I guess. Remember those two kids who invented a Batman-laser instant-flash whatever you called it beamed on building walls to supposedly announce a “secret” Occupy convergence? Those kids are now under the employ of giant techno gods—collectively, these techno billionaires drop $5 billion a year for R&D budget alone, more than the annual national budget of my home country, the Philippines. Start-ups? Sell them to the big guys. Dig? I don't have any problems with that—I mean, I ain't gonna lose a good weekend's sex for that! Look, one day I will come up with 501 ramen recipes and maybe H.J. Heinz or Kraft Foods will be interested to buy me out, right? Then I will steal the title “Ramen King” from its inventor Momofuku Ando.

       Thing is, let's take it easy. We know who are damn selling us the good food and the bad food. The same Wiley E. Coyote on Brooks Brothers suit! Win win for the dude. Oh well, I wish organic produce and non-GMO stuff are more affordable than the poison brands, just like when I was a kid in an island-galaxy so far away. Open market produce and other meats and fish etc are a lot inexpensive than manufactured shit in groceries. Yet we weren't really paying much attention on “healthy” or non-pesticide/no-antibiotics reminder—it was all about economics. I mean, many times when I hear people say, I don't go to Walmart or I don't support franchises, I can't help but wonder out loud—are you saying we both hate the One Percent or you just want your shit healthy or organic? If your answer is the former, then—let's go to the tailgate market this weekend and buy some homegrown cabbages and okra. Life is cool when it is simple. Feel me? 

Organic and Stuff

ORGANIC food has become much more popular and mainstream in recent years, accounting for 3 to 4 percent of US food sales and climbing. In the UK, for example, 40 percent of baby food consumed is now organic. But I still don't trust it, especially when “organic food” is sold in relatively bigger stores—compared with my community grower whose produce I can see blossom from seed to harvest. Otherwise, who cares about “organic”? Check this out: Hershey's owns organic chocolate maker Dagoba; Pepsi bought Naked Juice; Coke and Odwalla report to the same boss; Nestle and Tribe Mediterranean Foods are the same. More: Kellogg also owns Morningstar Farms, Kashi, Gardenburger and Bear Naked, and ConAgra/Lightlife. General Mills, Cargill, Kraft, Cadbury, M&M Mars and others also own a host of natural brands. The conglomerate Hain Celestial Group is a major player in the sector.

       Meantime, in Asheville, a Trader Joe's, which specializes on organic and vegetarian foods, competes with Greenlife Grocery on the same block on Merrimon Av. Trader Joe's also owns Aldi's, which sells foodstuff that an average joe and jane could afford but snobbed by “organic-only” patrons. What's scary about giant food companies? They mass-produce their products, and here's a sample of their production line: Farmed in Guangzhou, China; washed and cleaned in Madras, India; packaged in Cebu, Philippines; and repackaged in Matagalpa, Nicaragua; then shipped to Asheville, North Carolina. Can you trust that? I don't—but I don't want to lose sleep over it. I'd like to simplify my food and save my stress to the next NBA playoffs. I will buy food that I can afford, eat anything that looks good, served on a clean plate.

A Bit of Sarcasm. Food and Exercise

WE need those... Yet it is becoming clearer and clearer that the only way to stay healthy these days is to grow your own produce at your organically-designed (sic) backyard, and then raise your own hogs/poultry etc in an environment that is super pre-tested (++PremiumPlus) and subjected to huge-ass research for toxic agents and bizarre nitrogen contaminants—and then sealed in a giant, ecologically-cool glass globe (so no cancer-carrying sunburst and mercury-spiked raindrops could mess them up). (Okay, I am being sarcastic.)

       After your sumptuous dinner, you do need exercise, right yo? So biking is recommended. Purchase a helmet that is approved by a council of helmet experts from Yale and UC Berkeley, shoes that give you greater mobility, peace and pleasure (made of beta-carotene and prime California weed), shirt that doesn't make sweat stick (manufactured in Saturn where there is no pollution), e-shorts that offer spiritual orgasm as you pedal (because it comes with a cord that connects to a Vangelis dubstep remix scented with organic aphrodisiac) etcetera etcetera.

       Oh, a bike—it must be the kind that went through strict FDA/CDCP/EPA scrutiny and debated/deliberated on in the United Nations' security council, or better still, the kind that Lance Armstrong didn't use... But be aware that when you go out there and bike, you have limited space to roam, like a treadmill the size of Walmart and encased in another glass globe—because you may be hit by a hostile ray of the sun or a falling, malfunctioning drone if you bike outside without protection. You are not also allowed to engage other bikers to a chat because humans' pristine nature to spew negative vibes will send out virus to your computer-generated shorts (programmed by an Apple apps).

       Now, ready to live your life to the fullest? Swipe that damn AmEx...

[Art by Duane Lucas Pascua]

Island Cooking Demo and Herbalism Lecture at Mama Bird's Granola & Kitchen, June 12

ISLAND cooking and herbal alternatives share cultural commonalities that often get lost in a fray of contemporary Western culinary mindset. One of the most popular albeit “undiscovered” herbs-based dishes that emanate in the Pacific region is Mung Beans Soup, a recommended dinner fare especially during rainy and wintry seasons.

       Quite intriguingly, mung beans—the seed of Vigna radiata, native to the Indian subcontinent, and mainly cultivated in the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries—played a huge part in the survival of both American soldiers and Filipino guerrillas in the Pacific War in the 1940s. The ingredients are easily obtainable and cooked and prepared quickly, Mung Beans Soup (called, “ginisang munggo” by the natives) is an excellent source of protein, thiamin, niacin, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin C and K, manganese, among others.

       Hence, world war 2 fighters freely consumed hot servings of these to sustain energy while holed up in typhoon-battered jungles of the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Mung beans-based dishes are also largely consumed in hot and dry regions of Southern Europe and the Southern United States.

       On June 12, coincidentally the Philippines' Independence Day (from Japanese invasion), Mung Beans Soup with choice herbs is the highlight food in “MUNG BEANS HERBAL SUMMER (Pacific Island Cooking and Herbal Class, & Dinner)” at Mama Bird's Granola and Kitchen, located 909 E Broad St #400, Athens, GA 30601. Event time starts at 6:30 PM. Entry fee: $20 for one, $35 for two.

       Mama Bird's Granola and Kitchen, with Moonflower Botanicals and Loved by the Buffalo Publications, organized the event. “Mung Beans Herbal Summer” is the kick-off of a series of movable cooking and herbs collaborations between Pasckie Pascua, an author and cook, and Chris Wagoner, an herbalist.       
       

       Pascua is a veteran journalist/editor and publisher poet/writer—educated at the University of the Philippines's Institute of Mass Communication, with postgraduate studies at Tisch School of Arts, New York University. His cooking madness grew out of the quintessential grandma kitchen in the Philippines, long community work in tribal villages, as well as classes at LA Culinary School in Pasadena CA, and apprenticeship with cooks and chefs from Toulouse, France.     
       Pasckie edits the community paper, The Indie, based in Asheville NC (and will be distributed soon in Athens), and the founding executive director of the Traveling Bonfires, a non-profit organization that advocates family wisdom and community connectedness.

       Wagoner, who practices herbalism via her Moonflower Botanicals, trained under Patricia Kyritsi Howell of Botanologos School of Herbal Studies, based in Mountain City, GA, and CoreyPine Shane of Asheville. Howell teaches energetics of plants and illnesses from the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and from the perspective of Ancient Greek Medicine, which is the basis of Chris' current clinical practice.     
       Wagoner is the current Secretary of the Georgia Herbalists Guild, a chapter of the American Herbalists Guild based in Atlanta. She is also a wild crafter, and an organic farmer of her own herbal apothecary and various heirloom vegetables which are sold through Athens Locally Grown. 

       FOR more details about the venue, call Jennie Phillips-De la Vega or visit mamabirdsgranola.com. Infos about Pasckie Pascua, go to http://pasckiepascuawords.blogspot.com/ (or find him in Facebook). For bookings (of the same program), call Chris Wagoner at 706 207 7746, email lovedbythebuffalo.chris@gmail.com.

MUNG BEANS HERBAL SUMMER

Pacific Island Cooking and Herbal Class, & Dinner

With Pasckie Pascua (author and cook) & Chris Wagoner (herbalist)

June 12, 2014. Thursday. 6:30 PM

VENUE: Mama Bird's Granola and Kitchen, 909 E Broad St #400, Athens, GA 30601. (678) 997 9647. 

DETAILS: mamabirdsgranola.com