Overcast for a week. Soup and expat cooking

     There had better be narra flowers on all the narra trees after this.  PAGASA however, has declared more rains. Thing is, here in Santa Rosa, it has hardly rained.  It's been cool, overcast, gray with the sun peeking once in awhile.  I think I prefer more showers than these light ones, and drizzles. Just so alanganin (uncertain/undecided).

   On one such day this past week,  I got comfort, real comfort food, so unexpected at my door.  Soup, from my Indonesian neighbor!  Penang Hokkien Mee, she said (husband is Malaysian and this gets his thumbs up).  I salivated seeing the sambal belacan and the soup. She had separated it for me to refrigerate and eat at my leisure.  She's got to be kidding. Why would I make this wait?  It was so very masarap, enak, delicious. 

oops I should've uncovered the soup

This is what I had made. Fish fillet with papaya-mango salsa from the Maya Kitchen

    The same week, I had three neighbors come over on the same morning.  As soon as they settled, I realized I had a cookbook for each of their nationalities.  All three do cook, and in fact we are having a Thai lunch next week.  There is a good mix here isn't there.  Same time last year, a Sri Lankan neighbor who was leaving for home gifted me with something like croquetas--I forget the name and couldn't pronounce it anyway.  The real thing was meant to be spicy, but she cooked it to my taste buds. I would have liked spicy, as I did the sambal above, but I appreciate the consideration.

     Anyway I quickly handed them their respective books.  My Thai friend said I was quite lucky to have the planner with recipes and photos of Her Majesty the Queen Mother.  It contains her personal favorites and specialties, not necessarily Thai.  It is a unique book and I thank an old Thai friend for it.

These mothers are amazing, they've been producing yummy treats and meals for us.  There must be a requirement for expat wives to be excellent cooks.  I have not met one who wasn't.  

My husband's mother was from the North (below Ilocos though); mine from the South (Negros)

Then again, I have experienced having to cook (and sharing the food) while overseas with my husband...and surprisingly came up with a super adobo if I may say so myself.  Staff at the apartment hotel must have been hungry when they smelled the garlic. They tried to convince me to takeover the restaurant  which was closing.  My husband's Filipino colleague must have just been homesick when he raved about it. Ah, the pleasure of not having a ''history'' somewhere else, being new, or anonymous haha.  Seriously, if anything, it's probably confidence borne out of necessity that has produced some culinary talent. In other words, walang ibang magluluto ng gusto ko kapag nasa ibang bansa.