the adobo chronicle

the first time i cooked the favourite filipino dish -- pork adobo -- it was a disaster worse than the explosion of the chernobyl.
some of the pork cubes were burned beyond recognition, others were pale, some were wrinkly and disheveled. it did not look pretty and appetizing at all. worse, it did not taste like the adobo of my mother or the one that we ordered in restaurants; but nevertheless, my guests,  famished teen-age boys who just finished playing basketball at a court a few minutes away from my flat, lapped it up as though it was the best tasting viand ever.


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it was a rainy sunday afternoon and some streets in manille were flooded.  i was watching a movie on dvd -- the age of innocence -- lazily tucked in the comfort of my two-year-old sofa with a blanket covering half of my body. it was the nth time that i watched the movie, but i didn't mind. the rains always bring out the romantic in me, triggering a craving for passionate movies like the age of innocence, the english patient, before sunrise, shakespeare in love, and pretty in pink.
just to give you a sense of time, the president then was former actor joseph estrada, popular among the so-called masa, but who would eventually be thrown out of office halfway through his six-year term as chief executive by a popular revolt masterminded by the country's middle to upper class citizens on allegations that he received bribes from gambling operators, among other sins.

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halfway through the film, when the brooding daniel day lewis was about to leave his wife, innocent winona ryder, for her cousin, the enigmatic michelle pfeiffer, my small, handy (the thing could fit into the palm of my hand) sony ericsson mobile phone rang. it was my nephew, then a high school senior at one of the country's most exclusive schools. he told me that he and his friends just finished playing basketball and would i please be kind enough to let them stay in my flat because they couldn't go home yet because of the flood. i said, but of course. then he added, do you have something to eat?
that was when the problem started.

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i called up the fast food restaurant where i used to order chicken joy, burger, fries, spaghetti, but the woman who answered the phone said because of the floods and the bad weather, they could not deliver food. i tried others, but i got the same answers. ah, i thought, what happened to customer service? why can't you rent  a plane or a helicopter to deliver food? it was as if there was an apocalypse!
certainly, i told one of them, if there is a way, there is a will. cliche, yes, but that's the only language that some of them understand. but to no avail.

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so i looked at the fridge.
luckily, i still had frozen pork cubes (two kilos, if i remember well), a left over from my mother's visit a few weeks ago. she always makes sure she cooks food for me every time she is around. she doesn't want me to "throw away my hard-earned cash in expensive restaurants where the food is not even good."

that's my practical, stingy mother talking, a child of the second world war and a survivor of the japanese occupation in manila, where the city was bombed beyond recognition and scores were killed from the atrocities of the imperial army, from hunger and from diseases.

(one time i brought mother to have coffee at starbucks over at greenbelt after hearing mass, she was so mad when she learned that a cup of her favourite brewed coffee cost like a hundred pesos. she was so mad at me that she practically did not talk to me for almost an hour. chos!)

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but what can i do with the raw meat? what sort of miracle can i perform to turn it into edible food?
then i remember that mother, somehow, taught me how to cook pork adobo, considered by many as a comfort food and a national dish since almost every filipino, male and female, loves it and knows how to cook it. this was years ago, her teaching me how to cook adobo, when i was about to go to college and stay in a dormitory. she said adobo is the simplest and easiest dish to cook and prepare. she said knowing how to cook it would ensure that i won't go hungry in the dormitory. i agreed since adobo is my favourite dish. especially her adobo.

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(confession: through out my four year stay at the university, and even when i was already renting my own flat, i never cooked. not even rice. though i always stayed in flats with really nice kitchen, complete with a state-of-the-art electric stove. ah the irony!)

i put the frozen pork cubes in the water to melt the ice. then i started preparing the ingredients: vinegar, soy sauce, black pepper and garlic. after defrosting and washing the pork, i put the cubes inside the pressure cooker, poured vinegar and soy sauce, threw the pepper and garlic, added water. then i left it for about an hour.

(while doing this, my nephew and his four friends, all sweaty, hungry and tired, arrived. i asked my nephew to cook rice using the rice cooker. he and his friends were just too happy to oblige, especially after i told them that i was cooking pork adobo for them.)

since i was a bit paranoid (a trait acquired from being a journalist), i called up my sister just to make sure that i was cooking it right. i told her what i did, the ingredients that i used. then she said, did you also put laurel? i said what laurel? she said, "rajo laurel" (a famous philippine fashion designer, a scion of the politically powerful laurel clan) then laughed. i said this is not the time for jokes, i am desperate. your son and his friends are in the house, starving and about to devour my sofa.

"it's bay laurel, you idiot." i still didn't know what that is, i answered. never mind, she said. anyway those kids won't know the difference. if they are salivating over your sofa, then they can eat anything.
her words turned out to be prophetic. ah, mother knows best, indeed.

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after an hour, my nephew and his friends checked out the "adobo". it was pale, my nephew said, so unlike lola's adobo. then another one said, some were burned. but since they were hungry, they started eating the horrible looking dish. i did not even dare taste it.
how does it taste? i asked them while they were happily munching over it.
like tinola, one said.
bar-b-cue, came another.
like lechon paksiw, said another.
they kept on mentioning names of other famous filipino dishes, but nobody said adobo.
a few minutes later, everything was gone. even my sofa.
thank you uncle, the gourmet wannabes said in chorus, satisfied. it was the best ever "adobo" that we have ever tasted. i was almost tempted to treat them to a nearby pizza place after that. i was so touched and so encouraged that the next day, i almost enrolled at nora daza's cooking school. but did not.

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indeed, to a hungry stomach, everything tastes sumptuous, even a dish that does not even look, taste and smell like adobo.

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fast forward to two thousand and thirteen. joseph estrada is now the mayor of manila (after spending a few months in jail and a few years in house arrest at his luxurious mansion and then being pardoned by his successor and jailer, gloria macapagal arroyo, who, by a strange twist of faith, is now in hospital arrest pending judgment on several corruption cases filed against her by her successor, president benigno "noynoy" aquino jr., the only son of edsa hero and slained senator  benigno "ninoy" aquino and first filipino woman president cory aquino).
my nephew is now married with two kids. i have not seen any of his high school friends after that. maybe they were so traumatized by my adobo that they avoided my nephew like a plague. haha.
i tried cooking pork adobo again. partly because i am looking for something productive to do while hunting for jobs in a country that now has the highest economic growth rate in asia. but alas, like the man of my dreams, the job is so elusive. i am now thinking of another career, being a celebrity chef. chos.
this time, a bit wiser, more practical, and less of a dramah queen,  i finally learned how to cook adobo properly, making sure that rajo laurel (bay laurel) is always added into the mix.

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last month..
just to make sure that i cooked the dish right, i let my best friend, a london-based journalist who owns the flat i am currently staying, taste it. she gave me a thumbs up (maybe she was just being polite. after all, she was my guest in her own flat. hahaha) and said it was one of the best tasting adobos (there are so many versions of this dish just as there are seven thousand and one hundred plus islands in the philippines) that she had ever tasted.
"you can now open your own restaurant," she assured me.
"what? with just one dish?"
then we laughed heartily.
(as of this writing, my friend, now back in the concrete jungle called london, is still alive and well -- she survived my cooking --  happily mingling with the city's stiff upper lips, enjoying the rare sunny weather and of course, celebrating the birth of a new prince. she says she misses my adobo. no chos this time!)

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(this may sound corny, but i hope that just as i was finally able to cook adobo the right way, putting just enough vinegar, soy sauce, pepper, garlic and laurel, the government will finally find the solutions to fix the age-old problems of corruption and rampant pillage of the government's coffers. the solution is really simple: jail the thieves for life, seize their assets, and adopt an equitable tax system.
but i am not delusional. i know it's not that simple. triple chos!)

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that's all fairies, princesses, queens, pa-queens and wannabes.
baboosh!
(if you want to taste my famous pork adobo, given a seal of good housekeeping by no less than my london-based friend who has a discriminating taste, mind you, then please don't hesitate to call me. i'll be too happy to cook for you. for a mammoth fee, of course.)