This is tilapia escabeche from Tienda Morelos.

In countries where refrigeration came late, freshly caught fish is often preserved for future consumption in Spanish-inspired techniques now associated with the Mexican ceviche. A variation is escabeche, lightly cooking the fish then marinating in vinegar and spices, a technique that works better when one lives inland or up in the mountains where fresh fish is not available.

In the Philippines, escabeche is a more elaborate affair. Fish, often cleaned and cooked whole, is fried then cooked in a sweet-sour concoction of vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, onion and maybe a little soy sauce to which are added chunks of sweet bell pepper, tomatoes, maybe slices of pineapple in syrup.

Raw fish preserved in vinegar we called kilawin, a technique used for other food stuff like pork ears, shrimp and prawn. Fish has to be really fresh. I remember tiny sardines that are quickly filleted then marinated in vinegar, finely chopped ginger, scallions and maybe a wee bit of garlic. The translucent flesh turns opaque when it is ready to eat. The finished product is used more like a condiment, in small doses often to accompany really rich viands like fried sole or mackerel steaks.

 

I've lived in North America for over forty years but I've never had a nectarine until a few days ago. How could I have missed it? What happened was, I think, the fruit appeared toward the end of summer when I'm usually sated with the bonanza of fruits the season brings and I just skip its arrival as a non-event. Or maybe I thought the nectarine was not a true fruit but a cross between two fruit species and elitist that I sometimes can be I decided it was not worth my time to discover this luscious delight.

I blame Trader Joe's for introducing the fruit into my gustatory repertoire. Last week they advertised white nectarines as something to try because it was sweeter than the usual nectarines. True to form I didn't see "nectarines" and though the fruit was "white peach." I didn't discover my mistake until I was ready to serve the fruit to a friend and bragged how this was something new, a white peach. He corrected me: it's nectarine. Nectarine? I salvaged the label from the trash and sure enough it read nectarine, but white nectarine.

Anyway I went ahead, cut and served it. I sunk my teeth into my half of the fruit and juice squirted all over the place, overflowing and dripping out my mouth. I felt momentarily silly until the experience blocked out any other sensation. I was conquered territory. I'm now a fan.

I explored produce in other markets and decided to try the regular nectarines. Those are juicy too but the flesh has a different quality. It's translucent whereas white nectarines have fine sandy, milky flesh. I can see how people think of nectarines as crossed cultivars of plums because regular nectarines have flesh that look and taste like plums.

In fact nectarines are cultivars of peach except that their skin is smooth so that sometimes they're called "shaved peach." Like peaches they're believed to have originated in Central or Eastern Asia although Europeans initially believed peaches came from Persia, hence the name peach from French peche, from Latin malum persicus.

Like regular peaches, white nectarines should combine with banana and the usual fruits I blend with dairy to make my post-workout meal in the morning. I am not as keen about plums or regular nectarines because the consistency of the flesh is different. They would show up like translucent or glass-like fragments, which I suppose, can be attractive too, like tapioca "pearls" in Taiwan iced bubble teas or "nata de coco" in Philippine halo-halo.

Nectarines like peaches don't do well in the tropics. They are summer fruit in temperate countries. Nonetheless our summer harvest of fruits in North America take me back to the tropics and their unique fruit offerings. Wherever we are, we develop our own list of favorite foods, what become our comfort food, food we associate with the good times. White nectarines is joining that list for me.

I've heard it so many times, I've even preached it myself, but sometimes we don't act until we're in a corner and have to do it. Fitness is a lifestyle and improving health and fitness means modifying my lifestyle. When things are going well, too well, it is easy enough to swell our ego with talk but nothing gives true confidence, faith if you will, than seeing the evidence with our own senses.

Okay, health is an ongoing concern. It is ongoing because our goals change over time and, more to the point (corner), our bodies change. The demands we place on our physical, psychological and spiritual beings change, too, and, hopefully, with time and the experience of well-observed time we may learn a little more about ourselves and the world that impacts our concept and therefore goal for health and fitness.

Quitting regular outside employment two and a half years ago was more difficult than I thought it would be. For years I'd actually been moving towards this change but when I did finally take the plunge (okay, I'm switching metaphors from home interiors to sea) the repercussions were greater than I thought they would be. Now, why did I think I knew about this change before actually implementing it? Didn't I just write that time and the observation of what transpires in time are necessary ingredients to growing and learning?

One of the concomitants of the decision I took was the loss of the very structure that motivated me to make the change in the first place. Constructing a new structure to take the place of the old is in itself a process. It's again not a project we can fully anticipate and work out ahead of time. I guess there is a kind of genius to the whole process. If we can learn without experiencing i.e. living and observing what happens in time what's the point of living? Okay, this is not correct logic.We live because we are living. Introjecting meaning into living is something else and not the raison d'etre for living itself. If learning is not the reason for living, it does give meaning to it. That's just one of the ways we can look at living, of course. For others, living is loving. Or, for others, living is for finding what they call God. For me, living is just living but slathered all over the cake (another metaphor change) are the various icings we concoct to make what is essentially joy itself feel joyful. And that is what I mean by the genius of mindful living.

Back to the title of this piece (more of the preceding in subsequent written-out thinking). This is what seems to have worked for me just in the past two weeks. 

Regular aerobic exercise, at least five times a week, daily being better still, starts the day best in terms of waking up energy for creative activity. Since I'd gained 10 lbs. in the past year, resuming a regular walking regimen felt harder than in the past when I'd slack off and start over again. I should know. I've been working out an exercise program that works for me for some 25 years. (I remember that first day I stepped out of the apartment to go walking for the first time. The body was heavier than the world on Atlas's shoulders! My! It got better over the years and I've been more often on a program than not. Then again I'd not weighed as much in the past as I do now!

My goal two years ago was to bring my weight down to 168 lbs. That would make my BMI accord with recommendations for my age, reduce my sugar to well below the maximum healthy pre-prandial concentration, and tune down my bad cholesterol. (Other than these, my physical health couldn't be better!) Instead, I gained 10 more pounds!

Through trial and error, with lots of help from my physician/friend, Kevin, I've found out that taking a mouthful of raisins, wheat bran and grouts, and raw or dry-roasted almonds with 500 mg L-carnitine gives me the energy boost to take my morning walk to cardiovascular levels again. My capacity still has ways to go but it's now up to where it was last year when I was walking five to eight miles a day on the Monon. That was insane. It was taking too much time—2 or more hours a day—and my feet and legs were taking a punishing they didn't like!

Now I just do 2 to 3 miles a day, occasionally spurt to 5 or 6 miles, and my feet feel fine. I've been doing interval running which counterintuitively seems to be helping my lower back. What really proves the point to me is the slow, steadier weight loss. It's not much but unlike before when my weight fluctuates all over the map (the final metaphor change), now it stays closer to the range. And I can feel my belly again.

Frankly I wanted to lose the weight to have more energy and flexibility again. That belly gets in the way of some of the things I used to enjoy doing, like some yoga asanas. Then again I didn't use to have to deal with deteriorating cartilages but this is why formulas for fitness, for happiness, for joy don't stand still. We change, they change. Without change, how do we know time? And without time, can we know we're alive?

As the sun blasts us and the earth in July and August, we can still take comfort in the abundance of fruits and vegetables burgeoning from the fertile earth. What to do with this bonanza while trying to stay cool? Think fruit sherbets!

The old way if you don't have an ice cream maker is to blend the mix, freeze in an ice cube tray, stir every 15 minutes while the mixture solidifies until you have a smooth frozen concoction. My way is easier. Freeze chunks of fruit, process quickly in the blender and voila! Sherbet that satisfies the sweet tooth while keeping your fat and cholesterol intake low.

Here's the recipe for blackbettery peach sherbet: For two huge servings, take 1 C. of frozen banana,1 C. fresh chilled ripe peach, 1/2 C. frozen blackberries, 1/4 C. each orange juice and whole milk, 2 Tb. whey protein powder and a basil or mint sprig for garnish. I use Bally's Performance Whey Protein that is sweetened with Splenda but you can use any good quality whey protein and skip the sweetener or add a little demerara cane sugar or honey. Pulse in the blender and serve!

Mung Bean stew is an old favorite from childhood days in the Philippines. I never cooked this when I still lived in the islands. In fact I didn't cook much until I came to the Promised Land. So when I cook Filipino foods today I base the recipe on memory. Nostalgia is a powerful teacher, much like necessity in the old saying about invention. Today's stew, cooked while freezing rain was causing a racket against the window glass, was a last-minute concoction.

Ingredients: mung beans (monggo in Ilonggo), garlic, onion, tomatoes, olive oil, Malaysian salted Red Fish, canned jackfruit chunks, fresh spinach, and salt. I boiled the beans and fish until almost tender. I sautéed garlic, onion and tomato in olive oil, salting as I cooked. I added the beans and jackfruit chunks and simmered until beans were tender. I added spinach, corrected the salt and presto! A wonderful, fragrant soup against which the ice storm outside was no match! Served with brown rice tenderized with dried kelp, it was lunch for a king.

Ingredients:

3              garlic cloves, peeled, crushed, chopped

2              shallots, medium, sliced

2              Roma tomatoes, chunks

2 Tb.              Olive oil

3 C.              String beans, cut 2 in. long

1 ½ C.       Okra, frozen and defrosted, or fresh

2 C.              Butternut squash, steamed till fork-tender, 1 inchchunks

              Salt to taste

2 Tb.              Coconut flakes (Optional)

              Water or vegetable stock, as needed

 

Directions: 

1.   Heat oil over medium high heat. Sauté garlic and shallots till fragrant.

2.   Add tomatoes and cook, stirring, 1 minute or until tomatoes are soft.

3.   Add string beans, cover, lower heat and cook 2 to 3 minutes until tender.

4.   Mix in squash gently. Add stock or water if desired for a little sauce. Correct salt.

5.   Serve hot over Basmati rice, topped with coconut shavings.

 

To prepare for New Year's Eve this year I cooked minestrone then refrigerated it. Tonight I reheated the vegetable soup, added cooked cooked white beans and had it with a green salad, a slice of my homemade French bread and a Moroccan clementine. Healthy. This new year I want to get back to eating home-cooked meals more, and more vegetarian. I think I can make the switch to complete vegetarian food without gaining weight as I did in the 1980s when heavy reliance on beans and cheese made me gain weight. I have had more experience with food since. I am going to keep my recipes coming from authentic ethnic traditions instead of cooking what was then known as "vegetarian" fare. The most important thing, I think, is taking the time to use fresh ingredients, adding special touches to the food and eating it while still hot. Attention to detail seems important to eating well. And being more aware of portions. I need to use that scale I bought for measuring out ingredients to get a sense of my protein servings. So, here's to the New Year! New resolutions that I don't have much faith in: what I do have faith in is introducing changes. When it is time, the change takes and becomes part of our routine.

Now that I've substituted going to Lifestyle Family Fitness for going for a cup of McDonald senior coffee, a once-in-a-while treat is brewing coffee at home.

For coffee like what you get at a café on the Champs-Élysées or the Piazza Navona, without ther vaunted ambiance, of course, the Bodum is eminently suited. The French press, also called a cafetiére á piston, was popularized in New York City fifteen or so years ago when my friend, Ingrid, gave me one for a gift. It's perfect for making two espresso-sized cups of meltingly strong coffee, a heady brew one quaffs by the exquisite mouthful like ambrosia!

Here I've pictured my ancient French press with a recent acquisition, a long-handled coffee measure perfect for dipping into a bag of Starbuck's pre-ground coffee. Sometimes a simple gadget like this turns a plebeian act into something like music, art for the eyes as much as for the palate.

There are many ways to live: we each must find our own way. There is, I believe, a balance between hedonistic simplicity and the overly materialistic way of the average American consumer. I try to navigate my own way between the two extremes, delighting in the tension of choice and desire.

I can't believe that I haven't posted to duendejoes since January last year. Can memory be so unreliable? I thought surely I'd posted photos and squibs about food since then?

I do admit: I have not cooked at home much since last summer when I would fix lunches for Tony. Tony was my excuse to drum up meals so I would eat hot meals at home. Of course it didn't work like that. By the time I'd photographed the food it was cold. More often than not I'd fix the food and not have time to photograph the masterpieces: Tony was already at the door. It was an exercise in frustration and futility. I eventually stopped doing it, and stopped cooking at home. Is this like throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

Life is the series of attempts we make to change our basic structure—our karma, our character. I should learn not to accumulate regret and realistically just enjoy the gambit.
This was a meal I prepared for myself a week ago. Since then I made chickpea soup and spaghetti with oyster sauce and that's it: all the home-cooking I've done.

Wal Mart has been offering a large tub full of organic field greens for under two dollars. The organic revolution may be said to have arrived mainstream when Wal Mart offers organic veggies on its shelves. The greens include baby red-leaf lettuce and arugula, which by itself is often prohibitively priced. I should have used plain cider vinegar instead of balsamic that darkened the salad. A Greek salad to me is mixed greens, cucumber slices, a few tomatoes slices and feta cheese dressed simply with vinegar and olive oil. I didn't quite achieve this but the mix was tasty nonetheless.