Weird Day

Something unusual happened today. Two things really and that made the day unusual as a whole. Well, some things happen that are not usual but recently, nothing much out of the ordinary has been happening because my daily routine has become very predictable, with me being out of work. I got invited by one of my job agents with whom I had been communicating by phone and email a lot, to finally meet in person and have lunch together "to put a face to the name" so to speak. I went to Shibuya to meet him in front of 109. We went to this Italian restaurant since I had been to his first choice of restaurant twice before. (The Tokyo Brights used to meet there which I had attended on a few occasions.) As we were talking about life and the small things we never talk about on business calls, the order seemed to had been forgotten so we followed up with the waitress. I could tell my agent was irritated, he asked for the manager but there was no manager. The waitress was very apologetic and was really trying very hard to speak in English and offered us to take have salad bar for free. When we were paying, they refused our payment so our meal was free and the while staff floor was really very apologetic. I felt sorry for the waitress. I wasn't very hungry. I had breakfast at ten. My pasta turned out to be okay, seafood in basil sauce.

On my way home, I discovered I lost my 10,000 yen bill I put in my back pocket earlier. Something that hasn't happened to me before. I never put bills in my back pocket and I never lost any money since I've been to Tokyo more than nine years ago. I put it in my back pocket because I was in a hurry for my lunch appointment and my wallet was inside my bag. I was in Shibuya Hachiko crossing at exactly 12 noon, the appointed time (the beauty of the train system here), and met up with the agent 5 minutes later. I knew when I put it there that there would be a big chance of losing it but somehow I banished the thought. I was thinking I'd buy a good quality Japan-made, half face, motorcycle helmet with it on my way home - if I can find one within that budget. I guess buying the helmet is postponed for another day.

Foie Gras

I was in the the office today from 8:30 in the morning until about 6:00 in the evening. Except for the short break around 10:00 am to pick up a ham and cheese sandwich and a big cappuccino from the cafe at the basement, I didn't take another break until about 4:30 in the afternoon. As a result, I was starved. I work in a really expensive portion of the city and I didn't intend to spend a small fortune for a quick meal so I went to the supermarket also located at the basement. I took a banana, a chicken and rice noodle salad, and what is labeled as something with (テリネ) terrine, salmon pie, and foie gras pate. I was so tired such that I merely mumbled when the lady behind the cash register asked me something and I think I said "はい、お願いします" without really understanding what she said. Back to my desk, and after a detour to the loo and the vending machine to get my limone tea, I thought to myself I should start with the foie gras as it looked - おいしいそう - so tasty. But wait a minute. Where's the chopsticks? So that's what the lady was asking me about! Anyway, the basement is too far to go back to and I most probably somebody else has been keeping some disposable chopsticks around and sure enough just a few desks away, I found them. Great foie gras using chopsticks! I took a bite and savored it. It really is so tasty! Why didn't I know about this before? Right then I decided that it's never to late to learn a few more things about it so I turned to the net to find out more about this very tasty something. But what I found out almost made me choke for two reasons. First is reading how foie gras is prepared force-feeding the goose or duck to make its liver grow abnormally bigger and second, because literally, foie gras is French for fatty liver! I know of a disease in humans of the same name and I thought it could not be any different given the way its preparation has been described. I was diagnosed with a fatty liver two or three years ago so I know it very well to make my imagination run weird things. I don't usually eat liver, except the occasional chicken liver and the canned liver spread. Moral of the story is the old cliche that if you want to enjoy what you're eating, don't bother finding out how it's prepared. I heard from my very knowledgeable ex-manager how some great tasting tender juicy Japanese beef are prepared but that's another story. Will I have foie gras again? I love steaks. Maybe I'll have foie gras with it occasionally.

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture. :)

On Adobo

One casual moment, my manager told me about his mother who likes to cook chicken avocado which he said is a Filipino dish but surprisingly there's no avocado in it. I was a bit puzzled because I never heard of such a dish before so I asked him more questions. Finally, I figured out he was talking about chicken adobo so I explained to him what is adobo. I explained to him (I could be wrong) that adobo is a Filipino dish, the main characteristic of which is that it has vinegar in it. It doesn't matter what kind of vinegar, as long as it has vinegar. That not all Filipino dishes with vinegar are called adobo while no adobo has no vinegar. No vinegar, you don't have adobo. (This is not the fact it seems.) But there are many ways of making an adobo, and none of them are more adobo than the others. For example, in eastern parts of Laguna, there is a very common but different kind of adobo - cooked with coconut milk - while I have never encountered it elsewhere, it seems like it's quite well-known in the whole country. On our part, we call it, adobo sa gata (adobo on coconut milk), and it's usually chicken.

Based on the above, it now seems that the word adobo is a generic term, and based on the above-cited Wikipedia article, is in fact, Spanish in origin, which means marinate. Not a surprise of course given that the Philippines was under Spanish rule and cultural influence for over three hundred years. So adobo means different things to different Pinoys, and non-Pinoys for that matter. There is a standard-carinderia adobo and sub-culture adobo cooked in a non-conformist kitchen. Arguably, today's adobo is not the same as yesterday's adobo since ingredients also change over time. Whereas now we use commercial vinegar, my grandparents used vinegar from Balian (Pangil, Laguna) which also implies that tomorrow's adobo will be different still. At any given time, there will be an adobo dogma and adobo heresy. There is traditional adobo and fusion adobo. I bet that if adobo ever attains international recognition (doubtful), in the same way that pizza or chopsuey did, it will be a relative adobo to the culture it finds itself into. Indian adobo will be spicy, while Japanese adobo will definitely have mirin in it. Perhaps a Korean adobo will have a hint of kimchi and a Saudi pork adobo, though a valid theory, is less likely to exist in practice at all, the idea itself considered absurd/heretical by the gastronomical orthodoxy held by the zealots but nonetheless merits serious attention that holding the concept in public discourse must be punishable by public decapitation. Yet all of these variations are adobo in their own right taken in their respectively proper context. As long as adobo cannot be reduced to mathematical and mechanical means, adobo will continue to be a concept with different meanings and different degrees of having the quality of adobo-ness taken from different vantage points.

Pictured above is a mean pork Adobo with hard-boiled egg, Tokyo, circa 2007 CE.