By Alan Gore
For our September Shoestring, we visited the Philippines for the first time. We lingered over the appetizer, bibingha, Marilyn McDonald and Jim Morgan’s sweet confection of unlikely ingredients: flour, "century" egg (marinated, like Chinese "hundred year" egg), and cream cheese, with parmesan - yes, parmesan - and sugar on top. They accompanied this with crack nuts, which are peanuts covered with adobo mix. Jane Khatiblou followed with chicken in coconut milk. To the accompaniment of Ursula Gore’s tropical mixed fruit platter came bamboo shoots and seafood adobo, featuring squid, from Ken Brown. Next came Ray Pisar and Diana Toone with sinigang, or tamarind paste soup, and Yvonne Clark, with a translucent little delectation of watermelon rind. Our host, Pat Hull, dished out pancit, which is a stout stew of noodles, mushrooms, red pepper, and pork. Morcon came next, Ursula’s rolled flank steak stuffed with carrots, kielbasa, pepper, hardboiled eggs, and diced pickles. For the finale, we barely saved room - but we were certainly glad we did - for Marilyn and Jim’s halo-halo, a parfait of red beans, coconut, white beans, jack fruit, flan, and ice. Though served in exquisitely prepared layers, it is supposed to be mixed after being served, which is what gives rise to the name ("mix-mix" in Tagalog).
For this month’s Gourmet, we note that Saturday, October 11 is the first non-fasting day of Yom Kippur. This is your occasion to knish the cook with those Jewish delicacies. We don’t have a host at deadline time for this article, but call Ursula Gore at 863-9648 by Thursday, 10/9 to find out where and to coordinate our dishes.