The Fruits of My Youth

I am participating in a "Leanest Loser" program through my work's Recreation & Fitness Center.

It's a program that teams you up with others and a team lead to provide a common goal of exercising regularly and eating better. This includes points for (daily) eating (at least) five fruits and vegetables, drinking 64 ounces of water, exercising regularly, and attending seminars to learn all these elements in other contexts.

Most of this is stuff I already do but following this makes me hyper-aware of what goes in my mouth (snicker). Veggies are not a problem for me. I love all veggies!

Well, the last time I said this out loud I started getting quizzed:
Others: Beets?
Me: Um, no.
Others: brussel sprouts?
Me: Nope.
Others: Rhubarb?
Me: NO!

OK. So I don't like all veggies and they managed to find the few that I will not try but overall, I love all veggies that matter.

Fruits I eat too. I loved fruits more as a kid, as most of us did/do. But as I got older, I got to be a lazy fruit eater.

But I started thinking about this more and I think the reason is that as I got older, I moved away from the place that I enjoyed my fruits.

As a child, apples, oranges, grapes were not readily available to me as other fruits. The fruits local to where I lived, which was the Philippines, and later, Guam.

Bananas are my favorite and I eat them constantly. But I did as a child too. Those were native to where I lived. Here are some others:

Lanzones were my very favorite fruit while in the Philippines.

This is about a large grape-sized yellow fruit, which when peeled, reveals translucent wedges that are is the actual edible fruit of this wonderful thing.

The fruit taste is tart, like fresh pineapple: sweet and sour at the same time (which is primarily my choice of fruits - sweet & sour fruits).

Duhat is another fun fruit I enjoyed. This was usually picked off the tree and rarely purchased.

This fruit is pretty unique: once you take a bite, it almost sucks the entire saliva out of your mouth and throat. It's not entirely sour, there is sweetness to it, but it just dries up your mouth. And it also colors your entire mouth, fingers, whatever it hits, in deep purple. But it is sooooo delicious.

One not-so-funny story associated with Duhats for me, is me and some friends of mine were picking and eating the fruit when we saw some men gathered around. They had dug up a hole and were standing over something near the hole. As we moved closer, we saw that it was a big ass lizard. I mean, a good four foot long. I *guess* it was a monitor lizard. But man-oh-man, the sight creeped me out and will forever be linked to my memory of duhats.

Green mangoes. You read correctly: green mangoes. Unripened, extremely sour mangoes.

I *never* enjoyed nor liked the yellow-to-orange mangoes (I do now). In fact, the taste of it was a huge turn off for me. BUT green ones were my second favorite fruit.

This was "street" food: you could buy this from vendors all over the place. The vendors sliced the mango in such a way, that you could pick off slices. Then they wrapped a newspaper piece just so, that it held the fruit and a big scoop of rock salt. So you pick a slice off the mango, dip it into the salt, take a bite and shiver from the tart and the salt, and smile because it's soooo yummy.

This can also be served with, what I know as bagok but everywhere else is known as "bagoong". This is a shrimp paste that is also quite salty. I preferred the salt, but amazingly, I enjoyed the bagok as well.

Baby coconuts is another favorite. We had coconut trees everywhere and at least two outside of my childhood home. This is a great fruit in general as there are so many ways to enjoy it.

Fresh young coconut fruit is translucent and mildly sweet. It is indescribable. I don't know why anyone would want to eat the hard coconut pieces.

The coconut "milk" is so good too. So a common way to eat fresh coconut is to chop the top off of the coconut, bearing the fruit, stick a straw through the fruit, then sip the juice. Once the juice is gone, split it in half, and take a spoon, and scoop the beautiful fruit into your mouth. HEAVEN.

Coconuts were very versatile too. My Auntie Cely would continually use coconut oil in my hair. The red cement floors were shined with the husks of the coconut shells. And frozen treats were made from the coconut juice and shredded young coconut fruit.

Rambutans were also fun to eat. An unusual spikey looking fruit but the spikes are flexible and not sharp.

The fruit is translucent and just the outline of the big seed. So it's more seed than fruit. These are actually sold in the US in CANS. I have never tried one. It seems a little weird to me.

Monkey bananas...that's what we called them. These were teeny sized bananas in CLUSTERS that were so sweet-and-sour. A banana between unripe and ripe is similar to the taste of a ripe monkey banana. These were up there in my book with green mangoes and lanzones, I ate a mess of these.

I have had many other fruits native to the Philippines: papaya, guava, starfruit, durian, and others. I didn't particularly like these then...not sure if I'd try them now based on my memory of them.

But I now make a more conscious effort of eating more fruit native to _here_. So far so good.

My Favorite Pizza

I have a lot of favorites:

The meat pie (don't remember the name) from Lilly's Pizza.
The pepperoni and mushroom from Schiano's...and yes,
the Brooklyn Style pepperoni and mushroom from Domino's.

But at home, there are a couple of favorites I love to make. One is a chicago-style sausage pizza...but most often, this vegetarian pizza is made. I thought I would share it today.
This is my Spinach, Mushroom, Tomato and Garlic pizza. I love everyone of those ingredients and I can add as much of the ingredients as I want, which is *a lot*.

So the first thing I do is saute thinly sliced garlic, about four to six cloves, depending on how big they are, in olive oil. I use about three or more tablespoons of olive oil. NOTE: All of this is eyeballed. I am guesstimating the amounts. I do amounts according to how much I want.

Once sauteed, I take a brush and brush garlic infused olive oil onto my pizza crust. On top of that, I place the individual garlic pieces throughout the pizza. The pizza crust varies from Boboli, Pillsbury refrigerated crust, or my own recipe. The best? My own recipe. The quickest? Boboli. In the picture below, this would be the refrigerated Pillsbury version:

Depending on how I feel, I grate Parmesan cheese on top of the garlic.

Then I pour off any remaining garlic-infused olive oil and saute a whole box (8 oz) of sliced mushrooms (I usually slice whole mushrooms) in the pan. I may have to buy a bigger box because I now have to share the sliced mushrooms with my kids. I. LOVE. MUSHROOMS. Pure ecstasy for me. But because I love my kids, I give them a few. But I would put a whole box of mushrooms on my pizza. Here is what it looks like after sharing...if I had my choice, I would cover it with mushrooms:


Next comes the spinach. I can saute it or put it on fresh, again, depending on my mood. Today, I sauteed the spinach in batches in some of the garlic oil I saved after the garlic was sauteed. I use almost an entire bag of spinach, save two handfuls:

Tomatoes go on last. I like to think that any juice from the tomatoes drain down to cook the spinach (which is why I sometimes put it on without sauteing). I usually use romas, cut thinly, but today I had regular tomatoes that I diced:

A little salt and pepper on the tomatoes, I love salt on my tomatoes, so I think that's what brings the best flavor out. Then I top it off with cheese. I usually use whatever is left in the fridge. Today was mozzarella and sharp cheddar:

After about 15 minutes in an oven heated to 400 degrees, this is what I end up with:

If you love spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms and garlic as much as Tim and I do, you will LOVE this pizza!

Name Calling

So my post on being compared to a CARTOON CHARACTER brought back memories of some names I have been called as a kid.

In fact, somehow it came up with my kids last night, to which they laughed hysterically about the names I was called. It's quite silly now but at the time, it was devastating. I stayed up many a night tormented by my deformed body. If only I could now convey to my own kids, or to young kids, to say "fuck you" to the name callers.

OK. Maybe not the f bomb, but the attitude that's behind those two words is what I would love to "give" my kids. Forget what they say. They don't know jack. Don't let anyone make you feel bad about yourself.

First off, my nose has been a target nearly my entire childhood. I come from a mixed race family: my mom pure Filipino and my dad, white American. I ended up with "his" nose: more pointed than my mom's less pointy nose.

This is a big deal in my Filipino family and throughout my childhood years, I endured constant pinching of the nose. You know how people pinch cute kids' cheeks? That's what my nose was to my relatives.

I hated it. It was so annoying. And yet I could do nothing about it. I was already labeled a brat so making any other bratty face just added to my reputation.

But one day...I got a nosebleed after a nose pinch. It could have been coincidence. It could have been a result of the nose pinch. But I was so happy that it happened. Maybe nose pinching would end.

And it did shortly after, but as I say, karma can be a bitch. What happened next is that my nose "led" my legacy.

I became known as "Nose 1" and my BFF, Karen, was "Nose 2". All because our noses were "big".

This was further backed up by a random few folks who claimed I resembled Barbara Streisand. Yes, you are dumbfounded. But when I was a tweenager, I was told by many people how much I looked like her. In hindsight, I think my face hadn't caught up with the growth of my nose and perhaps for a finite amount of time, I may have resembled her. I never thought I did. And I was heartbroken to think I would look like her...but tried hard to find her good qualities (I did :)) so that I wouldn't feel so bad.

The "Nose 1" stuck for awhile. But "chicken legs" lasted for a short time.

Sixth grade track and field day, I came with my shorts and shirt, ready to participate in mandatory track and field day. Side note: if only I loved running then as much as I do now...a totally different outcome.

But I didn't and I still remember running those little races and running as hard as possible, only to end up near the end of the pack. It was disheartening. But what traumatized me were the fellow boys who laughed at my legs and called them "chicken legs". I had never been made fun of before and I had always wore dresses or shorts that showed off my legs, so what was different that day?

If only I had the attitude I have now. I would have known they were just being silly. But what happened was I never wore shorts in public again. It wasn't until I was in the states, at a totally different school, two plus years later, when teen boys were actually gawking at my legs, did I feel certain that my legs were not "chicken legs".

The other name I had, along with "Nose 1", was "butt" or "big butt". My name callers were not very inventive with their names... But when I came on the school bus, I would hear either "There's Nose 1 and Nose 2" or just "big butt".

I was so worried about the way I walked. Did I stick my already big butt out more? How can I make it look smaller? The worst part was when someone stuck my big butt into the trashcan at school...along with the rest of me.

Oh sure. We thought it was funny...or at least I pretended it was funny. But I felt like one deformed girl: chicken legs, holding up a big butt, with a big pointy nose.

I won't even mention, what I call my Voltes V (roman numeral five) that I have on my forehead. TO THIS DAY, it flares up when I get flushed or mad. I don't know who called me that but it still can embarrass me -- only slightly -- to this day.

The rest I am *so* over.