Rambutan!

It's the same cheap plastic colander the "ginger lily" or "Kamias" was in in my first post. That's just to follow "tradition"--like the kamias, a whole bag of Rambutan came also from a neighbor...whose tree has been giving an excess of the fruit!

     At no other time have I had so much rambutan...many fresh-picked and for free.  Well, maybe over a decade ago during a series of long stays in Thailand. There, rambutan is regular fare, along with papaya, pineapple, and other tropical fruits it seems.

     It is only this year that I realize how much there is in Santa Rosa, and even more so in Silang.  I am happy that my child has come to love this fruit so much, she asks to have it for snack time at school.  In fact, so many of her classmates love this. It was actually interesting for me to see one of her classmates open his food container, packed tight with the peeled rambutan. This is what snack time ought to look like! Not the processed, plastic packaged, additive, preservative, coloring-laden junk kids are now being discouraged (hopefully) to snack on.

   Inside, it is an oval shape, with a firm, smooth cloudy gelatin appearance. To open it, you squeeze the middle level of the skin (it looks prickly but those prickles are soft not sharp) with your thumb and forefinger, this should open crosswise. To eat it, you may nibble it in bits.  It doesn't matter if some of the seed's skin gets stuck in the flesh. If opened at the right stage---apparently when firm and maybe even slightly green sometimes--the flesh comes off the seed easily.  The seed resembles an almond.

     The rambutan has a mild flavor. Strange how in the past weeks since its abundance I have come to actually seek the taste, despite the almost-blandness.  That's it's beauty I guess, a mild, gentle, juicy flavor that provides refreshment. In my childhood I've mostly had tangy, tiny ones, often not fresh anymore. It was always a surprise to open one...I was never sure if it was still alright--plump and smooth--or rotting.  In the groceries the fruits turn black on the outside. These are not as great as the ones I saw for sale by the roadside today:

     Just as I've admired the following fruits' colors:  Avocado Green, Macopa pink (and green), Guava Pink, Kamias Green...I have a new addition: Rambutan Red.  The photo doesn't quite capture it...but the Rambutan's red at this fresh-picked stage is not deep. It's something I would describe as maybe coral-red...it would make a good lipstick shade, I think.

    Lanzones is also in season. When I got this Rambutan, Lanzones had run out.  

Full Moon, Narras Bloom, 36 degrees and Maybe...Hopefully, (a few minutes more)...RAIN

    When it is this HOT and HUMID, and one has a HEADACHE caused by dehydration...it is a struggle to do anything that involves movement.  I woke up to this perfume--it is rich and for some reason (maybe the Gap Guest House's jasminey or honeysuckl-ey air) reminds me of Chiang Mai, Thailand. It has not rained here in weeks; last weekend the forecast thunderstorms quickly reverted to the sunny 36 before Friday even came.



    In the beginning of this blog, I wrote about how the Narra blooms after a brief shower usually in the month of March.  Now, no rain, but just a very full moon, and voila, yellow flowers, heady scent.  I appreciate the scented air, because really...enter a shopping mall these days and you won't escape the air heavy with the scent of mmm....pawis (perspiration).

     So anyway, I need a horticulturist to confirm this.  It seems to me that flowers bloom when I water sporadically. That is, water it well an deep one day, and then the next maybe skip watering, even in the heat.  The sampaguita has sure proven this to be true. It does not want too much watering. And now it has presented us everyday with our daily dose. A fist full of flowers.  
     

Ay nasingit (oh! it got squeezed in)! These are flowers of the MORINGA OLEFEIRA (malunggay)
They emit fragrance too.

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.

Stamps, the friendly Barangay Post Office, and going postal

    
     I still enjoy sending and receiving "snail" mail.  Luckily, I still have one (come to think of it just ONE) friend who regularly sends me something on my birthday every year, and on Christmas, even if she is Thai and doesn't really celebrate Christmas the way we do.  She is a stamp collector. Along with a pack of Nestle Thai iced milk tea powder sachets, a present such as bags shirts, or whatever she can send that doesn't cost more than 500 baht to send by mail, are sets of postage stamps. BEAUTIFUL Thai stamps.  Sadly, I am not into philately, though I admire and have cherished all the stamps she has sent me through the years.  I keep the envelopes too. I really have to set up some webpage and scan everything to show them!

     The very last time I had to pick up my parcel from Thailand at the MCPO (Makati City Post Office) on Buendia, I gave away a set of those stamps. Actually, I think it was the envelope I gave to the post man.  He was nice anyway, and remembered that I had been coming to pick up the same kind of parcel with gorgeous stamps inside.  Besides, he was a true collector and was shy to say so. Of course I could share.

     What saddens me is I have not been able to truly share, to return the favor, to my Thai friend.  I have sent her some of our stamps, I have even given her this book about Philippine stamps by the late Reynaldo G. Alejandro (may his soul rest in peace). But I cannot match the stamps she sends me.  Ours just pale, pale pale in comparison. I'm not too proud to send them.  Often, I read press releases about commemorative stamps I would like to own and send to her.  I have not been successful in purchasing any of these, as I could not travel to the main post office in Manila.

     At the MCPO, there is a department upstairs from which to purchase the stamps.  I did get to buy a few, but they did not have the stamps advertised.

It was always disappointing.  Even if the designs had potential or were significant to me, the printing was not as nice as my Thai ones.

     These photos are of the ones I received last month.  I have even better, more brilliant ones tucked away in a closet and bins...from 20 years of friendship.  As an aside, I made friends with her when she hosted me in her home as part of this Japanese-government sponsored program, The Ship for Southeast Asian Youth.  I was a participant during a time when we had no option but to send letters written on paper. There weren't even cellphones in 1991.  I am just so happy she continues to send me these. Oh, and she sent them right before the flooding got around her home in Bangkok, so I received them during.

    Anyway, I have listed my mailing address as one in Paranaque now, and not this one in Sta. Rosa.   I consider it 'safer' in a sense, because then I would not have to go to the bayan to pick up registered mail.  Also, I notice that I only saw the Philpost van twice in here, and that was on our first year. I even spoke to the mail men (because call me postal but I love the idea of mail, post, and stamps, really.), who said they actually deliver registered mail instead of waiting for us to pick them up.  I then learned where the nearest post office in Barangay Don Jose is.  It is just at gate 2 of the Laguna Technopark, at the pedestrian entrance.

   Once, I intentionally mailed something, for my toddler to experience the whole post office thing.  It turns out this little post office room is manned by one interesting lady, but then you can never tell if it's going to be open or shut for the day.  Or some days, half the day.  The friendly security guard will tell you the various reasons, too.  When we finally got lucky, we met the postal lady, who is interesting because of her accessories. She matches her outfits with bangles, necklaces and earrings of similar print/color.  On our first day, it was animal prints, and the other, wooden beads in summer limes and yellow to match her green outfit. I complimented her.

   So now my toddler has this impression that the lady who takes your letter to lola is fashion-conscious.  Really, the accessories did a lot to perk us up (and I'm sure her), in the little roomful of mail to sort.

   I still cannot obtain commemorative stamps from her though. I wanted the John Paul II one, but she said I would have to go to the main office in the bayan, or really, in Manila. My compliment got me a friendly response, but didn't get me the stamps.