The Adobo Road Cookbook: A Filipino Food Journey --from Food Blog to Food Truck and Beyond

The Adobo Road Cookbook is Filipino Cooking by way of LA, written by food blogger and Filipino food truck chef Marvin Gapultos.  It is a refreshing take on Filipino food as it takes nothing for granted including Filipino Spaghetti and Garlic Fried Rice, but also includes reinventions of traditional favorites.   Marvin answered some questions for excerptsandconversations.  

How did you discover your love and talent for Filipino cooking?

Although I’ve eaten Filipino food all my life, I only really became interested in it after getting married. Because my wife isn’t Filipino, I realized that in order for me to enjoy a good, home-cooked Filipino meal I needed to learn how to cook Filipino food on my own. This desire to learn about Filipino food only grew after the birth of my son—I didn’t want the next generation to go without my family recipes. So I started a blog, and discovered that I had a knack at presenting Filipino food in a different light. With the things I learned on my own from writing my blog, I transferred that to my food truck and proved that Filipino food can be enjoyed by anyone.

What were the more popular dishes your gourmet food truck, the Manila Machine, that are in the book?

Dishes from the Manila Machine that are in my book are Sisig, Adobo wings, Pork Belly and Pineapple Adobo, various lumpia, and longanisa.

What regional cuisine has the biggest influence on your cooking?

My parents and grandparents are all from Ilocos Norte, so my cooking definitely has a heavy Ilocano influence.

How did you put together the recipes in the book?  What kind of research or testing did you have to do?

The recipes in my book are a mix of family recipes, recipes I developed on my own through my blog and food truck, and classic Filipino dishes with a contemporary twist. I researched by asking my grandmother questions, but also reading various Filipino cookbooks and Filipino food writing. Claude Tayag is a big influence on me, and I was lucky to be able to pick his brain a little bit while I was writing this book. As far as testing, I had over 50 blog readers, friends, and family test every recipe in the book--so I wasn't the only person to taste and test these recipes.

What are the notable recipes in which you put your own spin on traditional Filipino dishes?

I have a Humba recipe in which I braise pork belly in coffee. My Bicol Express recipe is unique. And there's a Poqui-Poqui recipe that is very different from the original. There's also a short rib adobo with red wine and red wine vinegar. There's a Turkey Inasal burger. Oh, and there's a coconut milk fried chicken recipe that I'm fond of. There are really many many more recipes that I can list.

How did you develop the varied adobo dishes and which one is your favorite?

Adobo is a method of cooking. So I just applied that method to different types of proteins and vegetables to create different versions of adobo. My favorite is probably my Pork Belly and Pineapple adobo.

Any message for Filipino chefs and home cooks here in the Philippines.

Stay true to who you are, be proud of what your are cooking, and be proud of what other Filipinos are cooking. Just because someone's adobo may be different from your own, it does not mean that it isn't a good representation of adobo. Accept the differences and diversity of our cuisine.

How can we learn more about you?  

My blog can be found at http://burntlumpiablog.com/.

My twitter is @BurntLumpia.

There's something for everyone in this cookbook and the recipes were easy to follow and well-explained.  Here are two of the recipes I've tried which are delicious new additions to my repertoire:

Pork Ribs Adobo with Pineapple Juice

Crispy Chicken Wings with Spicy Adobo Glaze

Exclusively available in National Book Store, Powerbooks and Bestsellers for P795.

Order from National Book Store Online. 

For Dinner Tonight: Barefoot Contessa Foolproof

I was thrilled to meet Ina Garten at the Book Expo America last June. My favorite cookbook author in person!

Somehow The Barefoot Contessa always makes cooking actually seem easy and manageable.    I love the tips she gives for foolproof cooking; 

1. Read the entire recipe before cooking

2. Follow the recipe precisely for the first time

3. Buy the right ingredients

Seems intuitive and simple enough, right? 

I usually only cook one dish everytime I invite friends over, but Foolproof even challenges me to make a whole menu for a dinner party. The Barefoot Contessa suggests strategies on how to organize the cooking so everything is warm when guests are ready. She also has a list of menus for various occasions in the back of the book that references other Barefoot Contessa titles. 

In the book she has cocktails, starters, lunch, dinner, vegetables and dessert.  What I would love to cook for dinner tonight if I had the time to grocery shop:

Tomato Crostini with Whipped Feta

Chicken with Wild Mushrooms

Chocolate Cassis Cake

Hope my cooking will be foolproof.

P1279
National Book Store

Meet Alyson Noel author of Fated

I flew to Singapore a few weeks ago to meet bestselling author Alyson Noel.  She was there to promote Fated, the first book in her new series Soul Seekers. Her last series, Immortals was a 6 story arc and has sold millions of copies.   We were disappointed that she couldn't come to Manila, but I was determined to convince her to plan a trip.  "I'm here to officially invite you to come to National Book Store in the Philippines," I said as she welcomed me to her hotel room.  We had a lovely conversation, and she signed some books for me.  

Much to my surprise, she emailed me a few days later that she will be cutting the vacation portion of her trip short and work out her schedule so she can come to Manila.  I get to have another conversation with her on  Friday, July 20 at 6pm in Powerbooks Greenbelt. Here is an excerpt from our interview in Singapore, and hope you join us for more next week.

What is Fated about?

Fated involves a new mythology in YA--shamanism and Native American lore.  Daire Santos lives a pretty glamorous life. Her mom is a Hollywood makeup artist and she grew up travelling the globe, moving from movie set to movie set, surrounded by celebrities. This lifestyle has made her vulnerable and lonely. She has never been to a real school.

At 16, she suffered horrible hallucinations and the only one who can help her is a grandmother she has never met who lives in New Mexico.  She has to move to this tiny town. She has to find her way through a new school and make friends and fall in love and learn how to fight the evil that has overtaken this town. 

   

How did you do research for Fated? 

I took a three day shamanism course and had a healing session with the shaman.  I interviewed Native Americans about life on the reservation in New Mexico.  I talked to local teens about their experience in going to high school and growing up there. 

How do you think teens around the world will relate to a story revolving around Native American mythologies? 

Daire's journey is a very universal one that any teen can relate to. She is trying to find her way in the world.  She is trying to meet this destiny of hers that seems overwhelming.  She is falling in love for the first time. 

I enjoyed getting to know this new mythology and tweaking it for the book’s purposes.  I’m not following Native American lore or shamanism strictly, but I learned as much as I can about it in order to tweak it for the needs of the story.   Readers are in for an adventurous, romantic, thrilling and suspenseful ride.

Weeknights with Giada Update

I have to thank Weeknights with Giada for several meals these past few weeks. No hassle meals with easy to find ingredients, but with interesting bursts of flavor, that even I or my cook can follow.  We've tried the tart balsamic glazed salmon, chicken with tarragon (a bit too sour) and the refreshing couscous with watermelon, watercress and feta cheese.

My husband has been raving about my new adobo to his mother(!) who serves great party food. I humbly say it is Giada's adobo, stewed in white wine vinegar . I used the Goccia D'Oro Aceto di Vino from Santi's (P150), but next time I will try the Cirio Aceto di Vino Bianco (around P275?) from Bacchus Epicerie to see if there is a diff.  I thought Giada might use Kikkoman for her light soy sauce so that is what I mixed in.  The result is a dish that tastes like the familiar adobo, but not with a more sophisticated twist.  After the chicken is cooked, she added fresh lime juice as an end note to the sauce which I might forego next time as it makes it less Pinoy and more Vietnamese.

Fellow busy moms, I recommend this cookbook. It's worth the price and will yield many recipes with new flavors to add to your repertoire.   Thanks, Giada!

Cookbook club: Weeknights with Giada

 I don’t really get to cook that often.  My excuses are I’m busy, it’s a hassle to find ingredients, I’m on a diet, and of course, it’s hot in the kitchen. But it seems Giada de Laurentiis shares some of the same concerns about preparing meals for her family, keeping it simple without sacrificing taste since she now wants to spend more time with her husband and four year old daughter Jade whose cute pictures are all over the book.   In her new cookbook, Weeknights with Giada: Quick and Simple Recipes to Revamp Dinner (P1419, National Book Store), she made it a point to put together recipes that can be done in much less than an hour, that would be enjoyed by her whole family.

My husband and I poured over  Weeknights with Giada while sipping coffee in a Starbucks. After all, early in our marriage, Giada’s cookbooks were our go-to resource for preparing dinner. We decided to try Spicy Linguine with Clams and Mussels (without the mussels) so off we went to S&R to buy the clams and the Pinot Grigio.  S&R might not be the cheapest place to buy seafood but they already blanched the clams. Giada suggests submerging them in a bowl of water doused with coarse cornmeal to spit out any sand. Then I found some vegetable broth in Healthy Options. 

I stayed away from clams before, as I thought it would require a high degree of cooking expertise, but this was really easy. The clams were simmered in an aromatic mixture of onions, garlic ,white wine and vegetable broth. After about 5 minutes, the clams opened up and the pasta was ready to serve. 

My take on the Spicy Linguine with Clams. Yum!

I kind of forgot I was not supposed to eat pasta as I tried Giada’s spicy linguine. Flavor was not bad at all although I should probably have tossed in a bit more wine.  Even my daughter ate the spaghetti without the clams. My cousin felt that it lacked a herby flavor so she added some thyme, and the hubby wanted it more spicy and poured on the chili flakes. But the linguine soon vanished and only unopened clams remained. 

We found a lot of other dinner ideas which can last us for months.  Hubby and I want to try Shrimp and Sausage Cioppino, Couscous with Watermelon, Watercress and Feta Cheese, Chicken with Tarragon and White Wine, Balsamic Glazed Salmon. Giada even has an intriguing chapter called “Change of Pace” which to my surprise included multicultural dishes like Chicken Adobo. Her spin on adobo is white wine vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaves, arrowroot and lime juice.  It might be interesting to check out Giada’s cookbook and revamp even our own adobo. 

Lauren Oliver

I recently had the privilege of hosting Lauren Oliver in Powerbooks Greenbelt.  Lauren's first successful book is Before I Fall. Although she did not deliberately write a genre title, Pandemonium and Delirium is has been successfully riding the wave of the Hunger Games phenomenon. She also has a middle grade book, Liesl and Po. I had fun chatting with her her books, her strong heroines, writing in subways on her blackberry and finding love. She loves high heels and she managed to sneak in some shoe shopping between lunch with fans and the event. I was thrilled when we discovered we owned the same Chloe wedges.

Amor Deliria Nervosa: How did you come up with the idea that love is a disease that must be cured?

I wanted to write a book about love in all its forms: romantic, familial, social, between friends. The idea for it came when I was on the treadmill. I seem to get a lot of my good ideas at the shower or the gym.  At the time there was a big fear over swine flu and bird flu before that. In New York, people were going crazy over this, bathing in anti bacterial soap, pulling their kids out of school.  I was struck by how media can drive people in a panic. The two ideas started combining in my head.  When you’re in love, one minute you are ecstatic and devastated the next. With weight fluctuations, sleep disruptions, the inability to focus on anything other than the other, love has a lot in common with psychiatric disorders that would normally be treated by medication. 

How is one cured of love? 

It would be chemically done via pills.  Scientists actually identified the chemical pathways that light up when you are in love.   It might not be too far away to be able to take a pill if you were heartbroken, or suffered from unrequited love. 

How did you create the world of Delirium to make it believable?

The epigraphs quoting from the Book of SHHH were not supposed to be in the book at all.  I wrote them to help me work out what kind of society it was. What kinds of beliefs would they hold socially, politically, religiously?  What kinds of songs would they sing?  By putting epigraphs, I could give the reader a lot of little hints without cluttering the book. 

Lena, the protagonist in Delirium, was buying into the whole deal about getting cured,  but goes through a radical change by the end of the book, and is a completely different character in Pandemonium.  How did you let her character evolve?

My main interest as a writer is character growth and evolution.  I like to think that she really changes and emerges as an adult in Requiem.  When you are a young adult, you go from child to not, and I’d really like to reflect that in literature. 

What can we expect from Requiem?

You can expect me not to say anything about it.  One thing I will say, is that Requiem takes place from 2 different points of view so it’s Lena’s point of you, and somebody else but not Alex.

Ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I love stories where an unlikely girl transforms into a kick ass heroine. 

How did you shift between two different points of view in Pandemonium (Then and Now)?

I left Lena in such a bad place after Delirium. She was so broken down and I felt so bad for her that I needed to believe she had a future and she would be ok.  I started writing a future for her six months in advance. Then I realized that piggybacking between "then" and "now" would be a cool way to tell the story of her growth.

What is the message that you want teen girls to take away from Before I Fall?

It is a story of interconnection. Our actions have deep ripples on people around us that in turn ripple back and affect us. It is a book about what ultimately makes meaning in the world. I would have succeeded just to get readers to ask questions, is my behavior bringing good ripples or bad ripples.

Were you speaking out against bullying?

I don’t believe happy people are mean and I don’t believe that mean people can be happy.  I wasn’t a particularly nice girl when I was a teenager. I was also very unhappy and the more mean I was, the more unahappy I became. 

You said that Liesl and Po was your most personal work?

Sometimes it’s my favorite book that I’ve written.   Liesl grieves the death of her father. For much of the book, the world has turned grey. Part of the journey is restoring color to the world world.  In 2009, I lost my best friend  when he was 29 and it was very devastating to me. A lot of the scenes in Pandemonium where Lena is running and grieving came from a very personal place.  I think I am still traumatized by that experience.  I wrote Liesl and Po when I was grieving him and I wanted to write color back into my world. The book is dedicated to his nieces and nephews and brother and sister. It has been very healing. 

What can we expect from you next?

I’m working on realistic fiction for young adults now.  It’s like Before I Fall on the wrong side of the tracks.  It’s a very different world that I’m exploring and it’s called Panic. I’m also working on an adult novel.  I’m glad my publisher is very flexible and let’s me explore different genres.

Are any of these books optioned to be movies?

Both Before I Fall and Delirium have been optioned. A lot needs to happen for both these books to make it onscreen but I have great producers and a studio behind them. I was actually reading the Delirium script on the way here.   I’m hopeful that one day I’ll be wearing a fabulous dress on the red carpet. 

Do you have any advice for any aspiring writers?

I’m going to put more writing challenges and advice on my blog, www.laurenoliverbooks.blogspot.com.  The first thing I always say to people is to write everyday.  I’ve been writing my whole life and it took me years from when I started a novel as a freshman in high school at 13 to when I finished it when I was 21.  Finishing a novel takes time and practice. Write as much as you can until it becomes habit and you are not playing Angry Birds on your phone. If you have a free moment in time, what you do is write. When I wrote Before I Fall, I was going to school, I had a full time job and a part time job and I wrote on the subway.    

Lauren, thanks for coming to National Book Store and Powerbooks and we can't wait until Requiem comes out in November. You left us with such a cliffhanger in Pandemonium.  

Christmas Gift #3 Decorating with Flowers

With co-author Elizabeth Reyes and publisher Gail Tok of Tuttle

With author Robert Caballero

This is the gift I would recommend to a friend who is looking for the perfect gift for her mother-in-law. I will even give it to mine. (Hope she likes it!) It is perfect for ninongs/ninangs, titos/titas, and anyone else you want to impress. It is  beautifully styled and photographed, with each home done by a stylist and florist team.

Although the book is filled with fabulous floral set-ups, I was interested in the book also because of the interior ideas and varied tablescapes.

This contemporary black and white setting was done by Cynthia Almario for her own home using decorative pieces to set the tone.

Stylist Leo Almeria advised, "Look around your host's home first, and most likely you'll find enough artifacts and ideas to build up a theme successfully." and so he and florist Anton Barretto were able to re-create a Moroccan inspired table.

 An alfresco dining setting in the Moon Garden, an events place in Tagaytay designed by Ely Bautista.

 A Balinese table is created by Ponce Veridiano in Violeta Lim's home in Silang, Cavite.  "You don't have to spend money on imported flowers. Just look to the jungle and create your own fantasy."

The Jonathan Matti vignettes are luxurious, tasteful and eclectically filled with art and decorative pieces reflecting a period or theme.  Here is one setting in a Tagaytay rest house.  "Fresh flowers, vines and leaves collected from one's own garden can be the simplest and most cost efficient way to bring a home to life."

Filipino-American florist Pico Soriano flew in for a working 2 week vacation to create 5 installations for this book. Here is one he did for his sister Carmen Rojas' silver wedding anniversary.

Tanya Lara's home stands out as a modern minimalist beacon of striking simplicity.

Flowers adorn the chandelier in Lizette Cojuangco's home as styled by florist Nathaniel Aranda.

The Vijandre-Toledo tablescape is as much a fantasy as their beautiful windows for Firma and AC+632.

Margarita Fores created this festive Latin-inspired table for Gianna Montinola.

There are many more treasures in the book. Just don't mind the two table settings with the forks on the right side and the knives spoons on the left.  Hope your mil likes it!

Update:

Just found out that Pico Soriano, the featured California-based florist featured in Decorating with Flowers did my brother's elegant wedding in San Francisco in 2008! Here is the bouquet and the table Pico created for them.