I'm a CIA

Not only am I a Cebuana In America, I’m also a Cuisine- nera In America .

Cooking is my passion, therefore, I live to eat. But I’m very picky at what I eat.

1) No blood. My husband always orders his steak, rare, and the blood that comes out when he slices it, cringes me. I like steaks that are dry aged which simply means that fresh meat is left hanging to dry in specially controlled environment as against those that are newly cut then packed and sold in the supermarkets. My lamb chops should also be perfectly seared on the outside and pink on the inside, no meaty red flesh, please. The only blood I eat is when it’s cook and made into blutwurst, boudin noir or morcilla. I am even picky when I eat our own dinuguan or blood stew. I have to know what’s in it, and who made it. Innards and entrails in dinuguan are not for me.

2) The smell of what I eat should synchronize with the taste I‘m expecting. I know that durian tastes like heaven but smells like hell or that blue cheese stinks like old socks but is divine to the palate. Normally when it smells rotten and tastes spoiled, then it probably is. Unless I know the food’s characteristics and how it should taste, I refrain from indulging myself.

3) Anything that moves is a no-no for me. We used to have a fisherman vendor come to our house to sell his morning catch. There would be slimy eels or jumping shrimps, and my husband would take the smallest of the shrimps, smother it with ‘pinakurat’ vinegar and eat it. I flinch at the site of maggots in cheese which Italians call Casu Marzu and I don’t care how expensive they are, I‘m not eating them that way. I just don’t want sucking the life of living creatures. Don’t get me wrong, I like raw food, like sashimi, seviche, kinilaw or even carpacio which is raw meat pounded paper thin. But they have to lay still.

I love food, anything I don’t like I don’t swallow. I love those tiny little eels which the Spaniards call angulas. I cook it with evoo and lots of garlic for a sumptuous appetizer. Or I fry then bake pieces of bone marrow, scoop out the buttery center and spread it on a slice of toast. The taste is just divine.

I don’t have to travel many miles around the world to taste different kinds of food, but I'd love to if my pockets permit. Here in America I join food shows, exhibits and festivals where the world congregate and show off what they have back in their home country.

I still have to try Kopi Luwak which is considered the most expensive coffee in the world. They come from excrements (sh*t) of a civet feline found in Indonesia, and in the Philippines it is sometimes called Coffee Alamid. I’ve ordered some and can’t wait to try it. I still have to try the ‘almas’caviar or the roe (eggs) of the Beluga sturgeon, a kind of fish only found in the Caspian sea. This is not the black caviar as commonly known but is lighter in shade due to the age of the fish. Can’t wait to try that as well.

In totality, my taste is simple. I just like the best.