Fruits from our farm

After a 2008 hiatus, our small fruit farm in Ormoc City has a bumper crop of tropical fruits -- Bangkok santol, mangosteen and lanzones (see photos above). It is a joy considering the extreme weather events of early rain and wind that have ran havoc to the fruits in Davao this year. And my sisters flew in from San Francisco this morning for a visit but primarily to pick lanzones. This lanzones picking has been two years in the making. First, my sister wanted to come over in 2007 when she learned about our fruits. I told her that it will be a case of delayed gratification because the trees only bear these fruits every other year. I'm so thrilled our fruit trees did not disappoint this year

On the phone, my sister said she will only eat fruits in Ormoc. I dangled other irresistible goodies -- lechon, Queen pineapple, langka, dried danggit. I have also arranged trips to our hometown, Carigara, to visit the market on market day, eat kinilaw, dilis fritters, bibingka, lupak na saging & balanghoy, rattan fruit, mala-igang, palawan and saba bananas. Such luxuries can only be found in one's hometown.

Dining in Hangzhou

On June 30 -July 4, I was in Hangzhou to conduct training in Jinhua. Hangzhou food is superb, never the greasy food laden with MSG that is often associated with Chinese cooking. The pictures above are just some of the dishes served at dinner I had with friends in Zhejiang University.

The first picture is a fish dish which is reminiscent of the Thai fried fish with soya bean paste, ginger and chilli. The next one is an eggplant dish sauteed in soybean paste and it is so delicious.

Irresistible Thai desserts

I was again in Bangkok in January and April for a workshop and I had time to sneak to the Chatuchak market. In January, the climate was quite pleasant but when I was there last week, the heat was rather extreme and I would describe it as "biting the skin". As I walked around thirsty and hot, I stumbled on a Thai dessert roadside stall which was just too hard to resist. Reminiscent of the halo-halo in the Philippines, this Thai dessert is also called ruan mitr or tab tim grob (red rubies), depending on the mix of goodies inside. I always like ruan mitr which I often order after a meal at MK restaurants.




































At a field visit in Nakon Nayok province, we were served this sticky rice with coconut milk and banana and taro filling wrapped in banana leaves. The sticky rice part tastes like the Philippine suman but it is the filling that sets it apart. The piece de resistance was the ripe sweet tamarind (see photo below):



Last week, when I was in Bangkok, I had memorable meals, even those cooked in the countryside where we had our focus groups with farmers. Will post some photos in my next post.