US Girls - Cheska Garcia

This was last March when Reggie and I watched THE RAMP fashion show in Glorietta . Raya Mananquil is one of the known models who ramped during that night. The event was hosted by none other than Cheska Garcia. This picture was taken by Reggie at the backstage of the event.

Raya Mananquil in gray.

After the fashion show there were some pica-picas inside THE RAMP boutique located at the former Tower Records area.

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April 16

I enjoy breaking bread with Travel + Leisure’s Clark Mitchell for many reasons. Quite apart from his winning smile, blue eyes and amusing observations about German linguistics, he has a keen yet egalitarian palate. He relishes what he calls “trashy food” (you might recall his periodic need for the queso dip at Lobo in Park Slope), but he also can make quite an excellent goose confit, and when I first met him he was enjoying a brief fascination with aspic.
This evening, as we had dinner at Icon at the W Court hotel, he explained how people from different corners of the German-speaking world pronounce “Gstaad” while also marveling at chef Michael Wurster’s version of Buffalo wings.
The “chicken lollipos” were wings (or possibly drummettes, I have forgotten) turned inside-out and crusted with a blend of Rice Krispies and panko bread crumbs. They were deep-fried and dressed with Maytag blue cheese. Fine celery shavings garnished them.

What else we ate:

Nantucket Bay scallop ceviche with Meyer lemon, pineapple, licorice root and nasturtium, encased in yuba (tofu skin) and garnished with golden char roe
jumbo lump crab with grapefruit gel, avocado, espelette, hearts of palm and yuzu “caviar”
line-caught turbot with mussel pistou, sea urchin panna cotta, spring vegetables and roasted Parmesan emulsion
rack of milk-fed veal with yellow corn polenta and fava beans
blood orange sorbet with candied lemons and limes and fromage blanc
“Snickers” — frozen nougat with peanut butter sauce and powder with chocolate ice cream

PONGAL

Ingredients:

Rice ............. 1 cup

Moong dal ...... 1 cup

Cashewnuts ... a handful (slit into half)

Cumin seeds ....1tbsp.

Whole black pepper ... 1 tbsp.

Dry red chillies ........... 2-3 (broken)

Asafoetida .................... 1/4 tsp.

Curry leaves ............... a sprig

Ghee ............................. 2 tbsp.

Salt to taste

Method:
1.Soak 1 cup rice and 1 cup moong dal together for half an hour.
2.Transfer rice and dal into a pressure cooker. Add 6 cups of water, salt and let it cook.
3.When rice and dal are half done, cover and cook until 3 to 4 whistles.
4.Open it, mix and simmer. Add water if required. (The rice and dal should become of porridge consistency).
5.In a pan, heat 1 tbsp ghee and fry a handful of cashewnuts till pink. Add these to the rice along with the ghee.
6.Heat 1 tbsp ghee again. Add 1 tsp cumin seeds. When they crackle, add 8 to 10 whole black pepper, asafoetida, 2 to 3 whole red chillies, a sprig of curry leaves. Add this tempering to the rice.
Serve with coconut chutney.

Hunter Valley

My Sydney Painting Series #1

This is series one of the four series paintings I did when I was in Sydney last November. I painted this using gold poster paint on red vellum. I used a white square frame which I bought from my favorite store IKEA. The four series paintings is now under the custody of my Australia-based cousin Gary Lejarde and his wife Yonni.

Time for a change...

Discovering new foodstuffs is a constant source of delight for me. I remember the first time I tasted Manchego cheese, the salty, almost fudge like quality of it balanced by a tiny square of quince jelly. My introduction to the soft, fluffy cumulo nimbus like qualities of sweetbreads, sweetly caramelised on the outside proved to be equally enlightening and I remember the slight frisson of trepidation the first time I sucked a brackish oyster past my lips and straight down my throat, the hefty shake of Tabasco sauce catching the inside of my lips and the sharpness of the fresh lemon juice heightening the whole experience with a raw, but expected, sourness. Incidentally, I still think that this is the best way to eat oysters, a supreme combination that offers a surge of heat, the salty hit of the oyster itself and the finishing notes of sharp citrus which leaves the eater with a delicious mixture of flavours and sensations rolling around the palate and lips. There is certainly an excitement about tasting things for the very first time.

Equally satisfying though is the realisation that one’s tastes have changed and a flavour that once provoked face-pulling and potentially even feelings of nausea ensuring animated and enthusiastic raptures of derision for the coming years has become not just palatable but pleasurable. Whilst tasting new and exotic items of food for the first time might provoke slight fear, being offered something that you know you do not like is entirely different. At least with unknown quantities there is a chance that it may taste good but with tastes one has experienced already this chance is removed. Which merely serves to heighten the pleasure on learning that it now tastes good.

I vividly remember the first time I tasted coffee. We had come to the end of a family holiday in a converted barn in northern France and were invited to enjoy a final drink with the aging proprietors who remain etched in my memory as the most French people I have ever met. I think the male half of the couple may have even worn a beret without displaying even the merest speck of irony. A small outhouse on the sprawling and mismatched property contained little more than a minimally fitted out kitchen and a mottled oak table large enough to comfortably seat 12. We sat there, talking in pigeon French and English about how much we had enjoyed the fortnight and nodded promises that we would return the following year, whilst the unmistakable aroma of freshly brewed coffee began to dominate the air. I accepted the offer of a steaming cup of mirrored black liquid and waited for the steam to subside before raising it to my lips and taking a tentative sip. I was astounded that anyone in a semi-sensible state of mind could actively enjoy the harsh acridity of such a drink but tried my best to make encouraging noises and not let my distaste register on my young face. Taking leaf from the others sat round the table, I reached for the two ceramic containers in front of me, thankful that I had only been given half a cup full and could fill the remaining space with a mixture of white sugar and rich, creamy milk. It turned the drink from something utterly unpalatable to one that I could taste without pulling my lips in and breathing in sharply with shock. But things change and since then I’ve graduated onto pungent ristretto style espresso, an intense coffee hit with a taste that lingers in the mouth long after the drink has been drained. Having said that, I am something of a coffee purist and I cannot abide the synthetic taste of instant coffee. There are some tastes that will never change.

I’ve had similar experiences with tomato juice and cheese. Though not together. Far from being the over-powering flavour I remember from my youth, tomato juice, liberally sluiced with Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco, a squeeze of lime, topped off with a generous grind from the pepper mill and perhaps even a splash of vodka is a great way to start the day, especially if is a Sunday. And despite my love of all things cheese-related, it is only recently that I have graduated from the milder varieties and been able to see the delicious appeal of those tasty examples studded throughout with a delectable and salty mould. Tastes change. Palates develop and the experience of eating is much more pleasurable because of it.

www.justcookit.blogspot.com