the quest for jack's fruit

pls click here for my tagaytay adventure in december. if you care.)

sunday. two in the afternoon. january twenty seven. the sun was at its hottest. while a cold wind was blowing, i still removed my sweater because it was not enough to ease the sun's angry rays. elbowing with other shoppers, we made our way into the depths of the market place looking for jackfruit. one vendor told us that it was not in season, so it would be hard to find.
but we were undaunted. like seasoned shoppers, the harder to find the thing is, the more determined we are to get it.  the "it's not in season" is for the novice, the callow, the weak. we are the opposite. we are seasoned. we are ripe for picking the best, not for the picking.
there were mangoes, green, yellow, ripe. seductive. alluring. pineapples with their promise of sweet, juicy meat inside. but we ignored them.

yellow, tiny bananas abound. watermelons too, big as basketballs, even bigger. heralding the advent of summer.  hard and green on the outside, soft and red in the inside. watery. bit sandy on the mouth. a perfect thirst quencher.

but jackfruit?
(everywhere we went, vendors selling espasol, walis, tawilis, followed us. as if they were lost puppies looking for their mother. one vendor was so convincing in her marketing strategy of espasol -- (sir, it's usually three for one hundred pesos, but because you are my first customer, i'll give you seven. i haven't sold anything yet and i need the money to buy food for my children) -- i ended up buying even if don't like it that much. i gave it to the driver instead.)

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it was my first time to be in the tagaytay public market, or as fil had pointed out, the "mahogany darling". the place was crowded with shoppers that came as far as manille just like us, some with lv bags on their arms and hands, chanel sun glasses to protect their eyes from the sun as though we were in a high end hong kong shopping mall. chos.

while i hate cooking, i luv going to the mercado. i used to go with my mother when i was still in the elementary to buy fish, vegetables, fruits, flowers, recados (paminta, laurel) and the occasional meat (usually pork and beef on sundays and special occasions). i enjoyed watching and listening to her as she haggled with the vendors for a discount. she usually succeeded, to the exasperation of the vendors, most of them were already her friends. i especially liked how she would taste the still unwashed fruits (usually bananas) first before buying them, even without the permission from the vendor.

^^^^^^^

after a few minutes of walking, we finally saw the delicious yellow jackfruit being sold at a stall towards the end of the street where potted plants were also being sold, its pungent sweet smell attracting not just the shoppers but a lot of flies as well.
a friend once told me that the jackfruit is like homosexuality. you can hide it under the ground, wrap it in thick blankets and store it in an antique closet, but people will and can still smell it. haha. (lesson: cum out, cum out. no use in hiding. the whole world knows what you are. so?)

encouraged and elated after finding the elusive fruit of jack's hard labour at the farm, we ended up buying more - bananas (lakatan), vegetables, even a mosquito repelling citronella or west indian lemon grass that we mistook for the tanglad (a herb used to make the tinola tastier) because of its sharp, long leaves and its smell. we were right because the tanglad is from the same family as the citronella. or are they one and the same?

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before we found jack's fruit, we spent a few minutes roaming around tagaytay looking for the public market, near the mahogany hotel (thus it was also known as the mahogany). it's very filipino, naming a place after a famous landmark, no? triple chos.

we had our lunch at a packed stall (turo turo or literally point point.  you have to point at the cooked food inside the calderos) that offered the super tasty and steaming bulalo (beef marrow and shanks soup), a delicacy usually associated with tagaytay (good for the cold weather), fried and crispy dried tawilis (yum, especially when dipped in vinegar) and paksiw na tulingan (tuna cooked in vinegar with garlic and other spices) wrapped in banana leaves.

indeed, a visit to tagaytay is simply not complete without having the yummy bulalo, don't you think? it's like missing the forest for the animals (and trees, yes!). some say bulalo is an aphrodisiac. others claim that it can increase one's endurance for lovemaking (have to use this euphemism, some kids are reading. haha). or pampalakas ng tuhod, as they say in filipino.

the turo turo was so crowded that someone quipped: parang may binyagan ah. hahaha.
well, after seeing this sleeping baby on his dad's arms, he could be right.

after the sumptuous meal, i was so full i just wanted to sleep afterwards.
but no, there was simply no sleep for the wicked and especially the weak. we had a hectic schedule and there was simply no time for a brief rest. we headed to the public market just across the street to hunt for the elusive, slippery jackfruit. that was our main reason for being in tagaytay. our mission for the day.

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then coffee and dessert at the cozy bag of beans after the mahogany adventure . it was only my second time there. the first was in december when my best friend mitch brought me there. but it was at night and the whole place was bathed in blinking christmas lights. there was also a children's choir serenading us with christmas songs. magical. a bit surreal.
as usual, the place was packed, but we were able to get a table at the garden. we had brewed coffee and blueberry cheesecake. i love the place. even in the late afternoon, sans the christmas lights and the moon and the choir of angels. it's so relaxing. the trees and the old wood furniture reminded me of our backyard at home.

fil bought loaves of the restaurant's famous raisin bread for pasalubong. that prompted me to buy one for me as well. what can i say? i had a moment of food envy. haha.

this (buying a loaf of raisin bread), after finishing most of the cheesecake because fil was still full from our heavy lunch.

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let's begin from the start.
on our way to tagaytay (we left manille at around ten in the morning and arrived there after an hour or so. there was no traffic), fil and i were already talking about having a foot spa at the car. the last one we had was on christmas day at the spa in eastwood. she suggested going to robinson's manila later, after tagaytay, but i said maybe we could have it in tagaytay. for a change.
while we were headed to the pink sisters to attend the sunday mass (our first itinerary for the day), we spotted a few spa places near the main highway. we liked one called touchpoint. we made mental notes about its location and promised to come back later.

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after satisfying our craving for the spiritual, we went to ilog maria to buy some stuff made of bees - soaps, lotions, massage oils, etc. i luv the place. it was my first time there but i luv it already. the attraction was even stronger than luv at first sight that i wanted to work and live there, helping them farm the bees, make those beautiful scented candles and soaps.

i had no intention of buying anything (i am saving what little money i have in case my search for that elusive job drags on), but i so luv the place that i ended up with this loot. triple chos. the massage oil proved useful for our massage session later on.

after shopping, we toured the place looking for the ilog (river) and maria. both were out of sight. instead we found this little cute and cuddly puppy, very quiet, very still that we thought he was not real. parang toy lang ang peg. fil called him bambino.

^^^^^^^^^

then the foot spa. did i mention it already?

it was a bliss (and affordable too - four hundred seventy five pesos for foot scrub, pedicure and thirty minute massage).
it was so good, the massage, than even horses are attracted to try it.  after the massage, i found this horse outside, munching grass, oblivious to the traffic, while waiting for his turn at the expert hands of the manangs inside.

the horse, handsome in his nakedness, was camera shy. he ignored my calls for him to pose and say "sex." maybe he is just conservative. or he learned a thing or two from the snobbish local artistas.

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we bought more pasalubongs at rowena's - buko pie (which we later ate because we were famished waiting for our dinner), cassava cakes, peanuts, leche flan.

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all in all, it was a fun day.
we headed back to manille at around six in the evening, just as the sun was about to say adieu. this time, it was dark, but there was a moon, a perfectly shaped round moon, proud of her fullness, that followed us on our trail.
fil kept on taking her pictures inside the car, but to no avail. we finally got a good shot of her at the parking lot of paseo alveo in laguna where we stood and stretched for a while after a light dinner at one of the generic restaurants there.
fil kept playing adel's someone like you and rolling in the deep as the car rolled down to manille.

before i forget, here is our fafable driver, bodyguard and sometimes photographer, already wearing his denim jacket because of the biting cold. biting daw oh!

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exhausted after a full day, i fell asleep right after taking a hot shower. for a while, i forgot that i had insomnia. the ghosts quieted down. even bad dreams failed to awaken me this time.
totally luvly!
that's all, ladies, pa-ladies, gentlemen, paminta, queens, queers, fairies, princesses and pretentious divas!