The Art of Sisig

"Sisig" is to Pampanga (Philippines) as pizza pie is to Naples (Italy). Many pretenders and imitators claim to be "the" real original, etc. sisig. All they end up doing, of course, is flattery. So, to all who love sisig (and everything about Pampanga's cuisine), "cavete comedentis" - beware eater. The only sisig worthy of true palateal adulation is Pampanga sisig. Mere mention of the word turns me into Pavlov's drooling pooch.
My first memory of sisig was at Aling Lucing's (Lucia Cunanan: RIP) in the city of Angeles. Aling Lucing's stall was just one among the many other side-street hawkers in that short strip near the railroad called "Boulevard." But hers was the most frequented and the most thickly populated. People from as far as Manila were known to drive in the night, via the North Luzon Expressway, just to have a first-hand experience of the buzz and intrigue called "sisig." It was easy to understand why. Aling Lucing herself was there to prepare the individual orders. Watching her in her apron (soiled from constant swipes of greasy, sauce-stained hands: which evoked the image of the paint-stained apron of a Picasso), arms and face glowing with the sweat of diligence, smoke rising from the grill and enveloping her in an almost surreal aura, I thought that there was art and love divine in what she was doing. The "bonus" to that my initial foray into the giddy world of sisig was that I got a front seat "view" of the recipe and the procedure of her art, so much so that, in my own humble way, I have learned how to do sisig the "original Pampanga" way, i.e., Aling Lucing's way.

Here's a youtube video which might interest you. (Just be reminded that nothing, at least to my knowledge and "taste," beats Aling Lucing's.) ----

http://youtu.be/qs9l3GUcNsA

MJ's "Epiphany"

    This is about MJ’s epiphany. MJ is my 7-year old nephew, a second grader in one of the public schools somewhere in Queens. I guess he is at that age when “reason” often intrudes upon the child’s imagination, often challenging his imaginary universe. Like most of his peers, MJ is an ardent believer in Santa Claus, complete with flowing white beard, red suit, his paunch, his reindeer (including the red-nosed one), the workshop of toys (including the latest Playstation,  Xbox, etc.) whose headquarters are based in the North Pole (and please, only there and nowhere else!).

    Three years ago, in late autumn, MJ came home from day school. On the verge of tears, his voice trembling, in the pure sadness that only a child who has lost a favorite toy could feel, he told his parents, “One of my classmates said that Santa is not real!” My brother and his wife were hard put explaining to their only child the “reality” of Santa Claus without unduly hurting MJ’s feelings about his classmate’s “lie.”

    I guess that that experience was a turning point in MJ’s mental geography and his imagination of the universe - a teachable moment, I’d say. From then on, around Christmas,  MJ would ask his parents, if there really was “truth” to Santa Claus. A single and unmarried adult, I guess that explaining Santa’s “reality” (as opposed to his “truth”) could count among parenthood’s challenges. For MJ’s parents, however, an unexpected “opening” presented itself a few days after this past Christmas. A bit flustered, almost out of breath, MJ asked his parents if Santa could be real if he was not from the North Pole. “Because,” he said, turning his Christmas toy upside down,  “look, it says here, ‘Made in China’! ”

Is there "poetry" in sickness?

I composed the following poem the summer I was diagnosed with cancer.

Mortality

(Queens Hospital Center, New York, June  2013)

Mortality I’ve always ignored for

Being Alive is my constant thrilling

daily companion, so why

bother at all with that old killjoy, that trifling

one sulking like a boor in his dark corner?

But Mortality never gives up, never

stops sending feelers of connection –

murmurs of the heart on your daily morning

showers, or walks, or out on the street jogging

across  from where you live,

to keep your faithful appointment with

taichi and zen, unknown to you, Mortality

crosses the busy road with you as a big yellow cab

whizzes by and almost kisses you a big rending

heart-breaking goodbye.

O Mortality, today, June 10, 2013, finally

you ambush me. You look

so spiffy in your scrubs, surgical

mask, gloves and all that

crap at ER. Yet you look suspicious

to me; pretending to be a necklace,

that stethoscope you wear

is in fact a snake, as you offer

me a firm welcoming handshake and a smile

that insinuates itself under your antiseptic mask,

as you introduce yourself, giving, dropping, in fact,

that pretentious Greek-sounding, almost romantic name,

“Myeloma,” on this rainy New York Monday evening.

A Reflection on Sickness and "Religious" Friends

Last summer I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a debilitating cancer of the blood. That did not keep me from praying, reflecting, and writing. One of the reflections I wrote is the following essay, which I composed mentally as I lay in bed at the Queens Hospital Center in New York. ---

Job, the biblical paragon of the afflicted man, had “religious” friends. They were well-meaning and well-intentioned friends. When they visited him amid his travails, they offered him badly-needed advice, telling him what was wrong with him and how he needed to be a better person than he was. In the process, they forgot that what their friend needed was love and a listening heart, a heart willing to go through the pain with

their suffering friend, without necessarily offering a “spiritual” solution.

Lying in bed at the Queens Hospital Center (from June 10 thru June 18^th), with the “CRAB” symptoms typically associated with multiple myeloma – i.e., Calcium level abnormally elevated; Renal failure; Anemia; Bone lesions -  I was visited by some “religious” friends. Like Job’s friends, they were well-meaning and well-intentioned. Above all, they were quite sincerely and deeply spiritual. There I was in bed – with the obligatory I.V. bag, the myriad pin-pricks on my arms from endless blood-letting for “lab works,” and all the trappings and accoutrements of one doing battle with a vicious enemy. Looking at me there in bed inside the isolation room, one of these friends told me to go on a spiritual retreat with monks, all expenses paid, somewhere in California. Another enthused about the prayer group she belonged to, where Jesus danced with one of the members who, without fail, had a special private vision of the Lord every Thursday evening. She was recruiting me, of course. To do spiritual “battle.”

These friends may in fact be holier than yours truly – although I must leave that determination to God. But when they tried to provide the “God answer” to my bodily pain, I was not sure if their “God answer” was really God’s answer. As they were leaving the isolation room, I looked at them and I thought they were walking on clouds, cherubic wings trailing them piously like a train. The wedding of religious fervor and sincere “God talk” explains why, imho, many religious people, for all their good intentions and sincerity, become victims of their own success.  As for me, I’m simply grateful that the God I believe in is the One who has the wisdom, love, and humor to walk with me and to love me with all my pains, my woundedness, my brokenness – without having to throw Her/His spiritual weight at me by quoting Her/Himself and the Holy Bible.

(Queens Hospital Center, Friday, 28 June 2013)

Atin Cu Pung Singsing

In my childhood in the province of Pampanga, the earliest exposure I had to anything approaching a "poem" was the popular folk song (or verse) "Atin Cu Pung Singsing."

KAPAMPANGAN LYRICS

Atin cu pung singsing
Metung yang timpucan
Amana que iti
Quing indung ibatan
Sancan queng sininup
Queng metung a caban
Mewala ya iti
E cu camalayan.

Ing sucal ning lub cu
Susucdul king banua
Picurus cung gamat
Babo ning lamesa
Ninu mang manaquit
Quing singsing cung mana
Calulung pusu cu
Manginu ya caya.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

I had a ring
With a beautiful gem
I inherited it
From my mother
I kept it very well
In a chest
But it just disappeared
Without my noticing.

The heartache within me
Is as high as the sky
My crossed hands
Are upon the table
Whoever can find
That ring I inherited
My poor heart
Shall forever worship.

(from the Center for Kapampangan Studies, Holy Angel University, Angeles City, Pampanga)

First post

This blogger is from the Philippine province of Pampanga (born and raised). "Pampanga" is from "pampang," or river bank. Aside from its cooks, tailors, and artisans, this province is notable for Pampanga River and also for its solitary mountain, Arayat. Some people say that this mountain is an extinct volcano, and others a dormant one. I say simply that it is Mount Arayat, my heart's peak. So, there, you get the picture - "the peak and the river bank."
My personal interests center around good writing, particularly poetry. Getting admitted into the two important writing workshops in the Philippines (UP and Silliman) set me on a path of no return. Poetry - the reading as well as the writing of it - has therefore become an endless preoccupation. Through this blog, I therefore invite you, dear reader, to post anything that relates to creative writing and poetry. Or to just about anything, for "anything" could be worth writing and blogging about.