Morning Struggles – Opening Maly’s Country Market – This is Our Philippines

It is always an early morning when your running a sari sari
store in the Philippines. Every day you must come in and prepare what you are
going to serve that day if you have food products. Even if you do not serve
food, you have to be up early to catch anyone who might need shampoo, soap,
coffee or a snack before going to work or school.

Some mornings you just wish you could go back to bed. A
simple job of placing a lid on a pot can become a struggle! It sure was this
morning. Maly, who I thought should know how this worked, struggled at first.
She quickly gave up her struggles to me! I twisted, flipped and I spun the lid
I every direction possible trying to get it to go on. I was having about the
same luck as Maly. Just as I was about to give in, it caught my eye that the
handle should face the other direction. Thankfully this worked and the lid then
locked in place.

We went ahead and finished our regular routine of opening
the doors, gates and rolling of the tarps. I even had a little helper come out
to assist. This was a surprise being it was early in the morning and he usually
sleeps in on the days he is off from school.

After getting everything opened and ready for business, Maly
and I take our break form the hectic morning. We enjoy a cup of coffee and some
pandasal as we wait for customers to come fill our store!

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Tortang Talong – From Garden to Plate – This is Our Philippines

Maly had made a garden out beside the store with the help of
Tina. They had grown a good planting of eggplants. There is no better way to
enjoy eggplant than to make you some tortong talong out of it. The best way to
do this is grill it first.

Maly went out and gathered a bunch of eggplants in the
morning. She had quite a few by the time she finished picking them all. With
Grandma and Ellen over, we decided we would make tortong talong out of a few of
these eggplants.

First, we started the grill so we could char the eggplants a
bit. These are done over a high heat turning often to keep them from burning.
As they cooked the out skin would brown. You don’t want to leave these on too
long, but long enough for the skin to become soft enough to peel off.

You then take them inside (or wherever you decide to peel
them) and let them cool for just a few minutes. You do not want to try and peel
them while they are hot off the grill. Just give them a few minutes to cool
down.

You must take all the skin off the eggplants. This is simple
and easy to do. The skin just peels away. Just be careful here as the eggplants
can be slippery.

Once the egg plants have been peeled, you want to make up an
egg wash to dip the egg plants in. This is just eggs, salt, Ajino Moto (unless
you prefer not to use this flavor enhancer), pepper and Maly’s special ingredient
from her child hood, onion tops finely chopped.

To the egg wash you dip in the egg plants and fully cover
them. You can do this prior to getting out your pan and heating it up. You want
to add just a little oil to your pan to coat the bottom of it. If using a none
stick pan, you could omit this part.

The eggplants are dredged through the egg mixture and then
put into the frying pan. At this point it is basically like cooking an egg
omelet or pancake. You just watch your sides to make sure the egg mixture gets
cooked. You will need to flip over the eggplant at least once during the
cooking.

And there you have it folks! Tortong talong! Brought right
from the garden to your plate!

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Cauayan Market – This is Our Philippines – Philippine Province Living

This is Our Philippines! I took Maly to the Cauayan Public
market to pick up a few items. While she went inside, I just stayed out and
watched what went on outside the market. You never know what you might see. #ThisisOurPhilippines

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The Kano Tries Eating Bault – Should You Eat What You Sell?? – Philippin...

What a fun experience it was to go through the barangay
selling balut. Each and every person has their own story to tell about why they
eat this delicacy. They know how to choose the best one and they search the
bucket for just the perfect balut.

To be an honest salesman, you should be willing to eat the
food you sell. How many times have you gone to a restaurant and wondered if the
chef would eat his own cooking? Well, I did tell everyone that this balut we
were selling was “ang sarap sarap”. Little did they know, I had never eaten
balut in my life.

Everyone said it was "ang sarap sarap". They told
me it would make me strong! They if I wanted a good one to find one that was
big and round. I was assured it would help my knees be strong!

All these qualities in this one little egg. What could go
wrong? You will have to watch to see if I would pass my fear factor test and
eat balut for the first time in the Philippines!

So, when we got back to the house, we had a few friends over
enjoying the nice weather outside. Grandma Anabel was there and she claims to
be a renowned balut eater. Junior was busy and he could not be there to show me
how to eat this delicacy. So it was me and Grandma!

We got off to kind of a rocky start. When cracking the
balut, you should crack it on the hollow end. This holds all the juice from the
egg. It is like a broth once it has been boiled. Well needless to say, my egg
was cracked on the wrong end to start with.

I quickly managed to crack the other end. When I did, the
juices started to flow out the first end I cracked. I placed my finger over the
hole I had made to start with and turned the egg up to drink the juice. It was
really not that bad. It did taste like a chicken broth soup if I were to tell
you what I thought of it.

Now comes the fun part. Peeling away the rest of the outer
shell and exposing the “chick” inside. I guess I am glad it was dark and I
could not see it. It probably made it a lot easier for me to eat. Once I got
the shell off, we sprinkled it with a little salt and away it went! I was
expecting the worse, but actually it was not that bad. There were not many
feathers to deal with and the yolk covered up any taste there might have been.

I now have tried balut. Would I try it again? Hmmm… I am
still undecided on that. But if it were to go as the first time did, I guess my
answer would have to be yes.  

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