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Mabuhay! I'm an Asian American writer (Back Kicks And Broken Promises, Abbott Press, 2012), martial artist and teacher who was born in The Philippines, raised in Hong Kong and ended up in New Jersey.

21 February, 2011

Tocilog

I'm off work this week and, of course, on the first day of break it's snowing. Looking out my window, it looks like the snowfall has stopped and I can go out and shovel. My back is tightening as I think about what I have to do. Haha. At least, only a few inches have fallen and not the few feet we had last month and at the beginning of this month.

Anyway, while waiting for the snow to stop, I decided to make breakfast for my wife, son and I. Looking in our ref (the common colloquial term for the refrigerator in The Philippines or, at least, in my wife's family), I found our rice cooker, half filled with leftover rice from yesterday, eggs and a package of tocino in the freezer. While thawing the tocino in a bowl of watre, I chopped some garlic and sauteed it before adding the rice and some rock salt from Manila to make sinangag, garlic fried rice. With the tocino ready for the skillet, I put it in a little oil and cooked it on low heat. While that was going on, I cracked three eggs - one at a time into a shallow bowl and added a pinch of rock salt to each - before making sunnyside up eggs. These are sunnyside up eggs I grew up with that are cooked overeasy without actually turning the egg over in the pan. The yolk is splashed with a little oil to cook it over just enough that when you eat it with the rice it oozes over the rice like a sauce. This combination of food - tocino, sinangag and fried egg (itlog) - is commonyl referred to as tocilog by native filipinos.

To top off our breakfast, we drank kalamansi juice. Unfortunately, although I'm grateful that we can get it here at the Asian grocery store, the juice is made from a honey sweetened concentrate and not fresh kalamansi. Only once did I find fresh kalamansi and fresh dalandan in a supermarket in Jersey City but, like I said, that was only once and it was super expensive. It was worth the purhcase though.

As far as this being a vacation week, it was tasty to have such a nice breakfast that we don't normally have. And along with the feeling of being snowed in, I've been put in a holiday, chillaxing (I don't normally use such words but since it was recently added as an official dictionary entry I've decided to) frame of mind. I guess, in a way, topsilog is a kind of comfort food. Thinking about that, I ask you, what are your comfort foods? And, if you're an immigrant, as I am, or come from a strong ethnic upbringing what are your comfort foods from your childhood or your homeland?  Let me know and include a recipe. I'd love to try it.

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