• By ebotpandayan
• Posted in Uncategorized
• On September 27, 2020
• 4 Comments.

Craving ginisang upo (gourd), veggie spring rolls, fried Goldbrasse (gold bream), potato chips, chilled Grüner Veltliner white, etc. while doing a 16-km brisk-walk

I reeked of cooking oil, sautéed garlic, and onions after cooking up a storm. I had to take another shower, although I had one before making my dinner of sautéed upo (gourd) and vegetable spring rolls, with boiled rice on the side. And I didn’t even use bagoong (fermented shrimp paste). I used patis (fish sauce), though. The smell is bearable when you use these condiments back home, indoors, but try them abroad, in an apartment, and you will need to wash your kitchen practically. I am lucky that my kitchen has a window that I can open. I wanted to fry fresh fish to go with my ginisang upo, but I changed my mind—too much food for one. Frying them would make the whole building complex smell, which someone in the neighborhood might call the police. And it won’t even be dangit (rabbitfish according to Wilki), “a staple ingredient of the local traditional Philippine kitchen in the form of dried fish.”

Fried veggie spring rolls with a glass of chilled white to wash them down. On the side is my garlic-vinegar-salt-pepper dip

Bad weather forced me to stay indoors today. The weather temperature in Vienna this morning was 8 °C, with stormy conditions. It started raining yesterday and didn’t let up until I woke up today at 8 a.m. The unpredictable weather in Vienna often disrupts my plans. Forget my morning brisk walking, I do it every other day along the banks of the Danube River. The strong winds might blow me away, dumping me into the river. It cleared up by 11 a.m., so I managed a 16-km round-trip walk. I craved fried vegetable spring rolls, fish, boiled rice, and sautéed upo while brisk-walking, although I had these goodies two days ago. It happens all the time, the hunger panic: after working out, running, or doing any strenuous exercise. I eat what I want, not depriving myself of what pleases me. Although running can quickly burn calories, brisk walking can do the same. My tummy is back again to what it was, flat, before I went back to the Philippines and stayed there for six months, doing practically nothing but eat, eat, and eat the things my hands can get hold of, all the local delicacies home has to offer, any time. I am eating a bar of dark chocolate and drinking white wine while writing this. Hello, Dr. Jimmy. Jimmy is a friend who was into IF (intermittent fasting – didn’t know there was such a thing until Jimmy), which can help you maintain your weight or lose some. That was before he came with us to Lake Como, in Italy, where you can only be a bona fide masochist should you be able to resist all the lovely foods the country has to offer.

My neighbor, Marylin, sent a Messenger message to our Chat Group to say she was at home and on a Vitamin C regimen to ward off a cold. I told her I was going out to get shrimps for my sautéed upo. She can join me for dinner, I said, if she feels like it. I didn’t get a reply until I came back. “Thank you, my dear,” she wrote, “katatapos lang namin eat ng trout. Gawa din ako ng veggie soup, to give me lakas.” She thanked me for the invite but said she (and her husband) had just had trout. She was about to make veggie soup to give her strength. Soup to give her strength? Forget it! Upo and boiled rice, lumpia, and Goldbrasse fish (gold bream?) can turn her into a female Samson; I meant to tell her. Instead, I advised her to wash it down with a glass of excellent white wine to make the trout easier to swallow. I was joking, of course. It was nastier, my message, but she must be in one of the mood swings that I didn’t hear from her again.

I did not bother to ask other friends to come over. COVID Angst; they are cautious, especially now that the second wave of the virus has begun in Vienna.
It was the first time I was cooking dinner at home after a long spell. I spend the days at Walter’s garden house, rain or shine, where a couple of friends come regularly, and when they come over, there’s an eternal flame burning in the proper kitchen where Walter does his cooking and baking, and I’m outside, at the dirty kitchen.

It was rare for the garden not to have a guest. It is no exaggeration to say that Walter’s garden house is the only house in the garden community that pulsates with life from Spring to Summer and Fall. A neighbor and her dog would come and join us whenever she saw something was going on when we were around. She and her dog have become familiar features at Walter’s. She would decline when offered food or a glass of something refreshing, like wine, but would repeat the offer and accept it. “If you insist,” she would say, but would ask for a fill-up each time. Talk of Austrian modesty!

I would treat myself to a lovely dinner this evening. I cleared the dining table of all the clutter that had accumulated over time. I set up the table the way I used to — alone or with guests. I lit a scented candle, switched on all the side table lamps and chandeliers, and opened a bottle of Grüner Veltliner, as always. I saw a bag of potato chips and filled a bowl with them. Eating potato chips was a bad habit I picked up not too long ago, especially when watching Netflix. My living/dining room glows with warm lights, the whole place suddenly pulsates with good vibrations, the way I remember it last.

Cooking up a storm is not worth it when you are alone, some people say. It may be accurate, but I beg to differ. I have lived abroad alone for 42 years, and I cook even when I am alone, especially in winter, when I stay home most of the time. It all began when I missed the comfort foods of home. I would even call my mom over the phone for cooking lessons. I have come a long way since then.

Cooking done, it suddenly occurred to me that something wasn’t right with my sautéed upo. It didn’t have the distinct taste, color, and aroma I remember it should have. The tomatoes! I missed sauteeing the tomatoes with the garlic and onion. It happened the other day when I cooked it in the garden. It should not matter, I told Abdul, a regular guest at Walter’s. It should matter, he said, and told me to sautee the tomatoes in oil and add them to the ginisang upo. It did make a difference, the tomatoes. It upsets me, though, that it would happen again. Out with the knife and chopping board, and the frying pan, washed and put away in the pantry a couple of minutes ago. The kitchen was a battlefield once more.

Sauteed upo. I forgot to saute the tomatoes but did it separately and added to the prepared upo dish after

Ready to eat, something was missing again. The rice, shit! I forgot to cook the rice! Cooking can take at least 20 minutes, and I could not wait that long. A piece of bread would do, but you’d have to be a pervert to eat ginisang upo with bread. There was one butter croissant left from breakfast. How do you eat ginisang upo with a butter croissant? I thought of my freezer. Let there be frozen rice in my freezer. I always keep leftover rice in the freezer, so please! And there was rice. God is good! I said it for the first time; I could feel goosebumps rise as I remembered what my friends-turned-overnight-saints would quote every time someone said a prayer.

Frozen rice

The only downside of cooking is the mess I create. My kitchen is like a battlefield when I cook, even for a simple meal. I hate my kitchen when this happens, and I often wish I were home, where there’s always someone to do the “aftercare.” Here, I have no other choice. I would clean up, take a shower, and change into fresh clothes before I sit down at the table, and this is the only way I can enjoy my meal. I don’t do this in the garden. Over there, I have my dirty kitchen in the open. I don’t reek of oil, sautéed garlic, fish sauce, and bagoong. I can even go naked, topless, I mean, like Walter, when the weather allows us to go bare.

And like my friend Cynthia, who cannot go to sleep unless her kitchen is back to its pristine condition after boiling a pot of tea, I have learned how to keep my kitchen tidy while cooking up a storm, and most of all, I have learned not to go to bed without freezing a bagful of rice. They are lifesavers.