More on Adobo: Are We Hungry Yet?

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Nothing shouts Filipino food louder than adobo. And nobody has researched, collected stories and written about adobo more than the chef/author/artist Claude Tayag.

In his seminal 2022 book The Ultimate Filipino Adobo: Stories through the Ages, Claude begins: "Mention the word 'adobo' to any Filipino, wherever he may find himself in the world, his mouth will start to salivate for that taste of home. It will titillate his palate like a symphony of subtle sour, salty, garlicky, and peppery linamnam, or yummy flavors like no other. Eaten with hot, steaming rice, sinangag (garlic fried rice), pandesal or even baguette or ciabatta, nothing will beat this combination any time of the day or night. Just a sniff of this aromatic, comforting dish wafting in the air will bring him to his childhood back home. It is the link that connects generations through food like an unbroken chain."

Claude's second book, The Ultimate Filipino Adobo: Stories + Recipes from the Heart, Second Edition comes out next month. With more than 30 new adobo stories, testimonials from non-Filipino celebrities, recipe ideas and even a music sheet for "Adobo ni Inang," a song composed by Nonoy Gallardo and sang by Celeste Legaspi, this new volume is both food for the soul and the heart.  As author/food writer Elizabeth Ann Quirino writes this week in her review of the book, "And like the adobo your mother cooks, the stories’ flavors mellow in time, the tart sourness of descriptions turn smooth, and if you close your eyes in reverie, the garlic aromas stay indelible in your thoughts."

Are you hungry yet?

Stories This Week

Adobo’s Never-Ending Story by Elizabeth Ann Quirino

Fil-Ams Among The Remarkable And Famous, Part 56 by Mona Lisa Yuchengco

Kumander Sisa – Hukbalahap Anti-Japanese Guerrillas’ Top Woman Leader In WWII by Cecilia I. Gaerlan

Impossible Things by Ian Layugan

Read Agains: 

Remembering Nora Daza, the Philippines' first celebrity chef  by Noel Anonuevo: https://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/remembering-nora-daza-1929-2013

An Intro to Ilocano Cuisine by Micky Fenix
https://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/soup-tales-and-big-breakfasts

[Video of the Week] At Seattle's historic Pike Place Market, she's the queen. Mama Lina is everyone's inspiration, savior and Mother Earth figure. A badass Filipina lola with a heart of gold.  Mama Lina

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Staff

Finding Filipino

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A few months ago in San Francisco, FilAms were gifted with the unexpected sight of 15 bus shelters adorned with comics-like posters reminiscent of the art of famous artist Larry Alcala. Drawn by FilAm artist Rina Ayuyang, the poster series entitled Finding Filipino celebrates the lives, events and legacies of the city's vibrant FilAm community. San Francisco writer/multimedia artist Wilfred Galila talks to Rina about the commissioned project in "Finding Filipino in San Francisco's Bus Stops."

A magical mystery tour -- that's what Toronto-based writer/photographer Odette Foronda regales us with as she shares her pictures and stories of her one-day visit with the Tuareg tribe who lives at the edge of the Moroccan Sahara. A constant traveler, Odette has 11 books of her pictures and stories to her name.

A Filipino tenor, Arthur Espiritu, has taken the Viennese opera world by storm as he performed the title role of Verdi's Don Carlo. According to PF contributing writer Pablo A. Tariman, opening night drew standing ovations and unanimous acclaim for Espiritu by Vienna's biggest media outlets. No mean feat in a city where opera resides as part of the air the people breathe. 

Our series on Bridge Generation personalities as profiled by BG historian Peter Jamero continues, this time featuring Joey Tabaco, New York City-born and bred whose career in the US weather service involved "flying into typhoons and hurricanes all over the world."

Though the triumph was short-lived, the national joy that the Filipinas Women's Football Team brought when it scored the first-ever Filipino ball in world-stage soccer was immeasurable. Now it's time to take stock, as businessman/columnist Juan Miguel Luz writes. Lessons learned, lessons to be learned as the country builds on the World Cup experience, points to one long-hoped-for opportunity: a sports development program for Filipino youth. Surely the hundreds of billions of pesos budgeted annually for "confidential funds" for the Philippine president and vice president can spare several millions for this worthy sports project, don't you think? 

[Cook It Again] The Happy Home Cook: Vegan Filipino Spaghetti By Chef Richgail Enriquez Diez

[Video of the Week] Uncle Roger Makes Adobo

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Staff

They Who Heal Us

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At the beginning of 2020, our world was still what we had known it to be. Our daily routines were simple: work; play; love; travel; enjoy.  

Two weeks into the year, the Philippines suffered its first major tragedy, but it was localized. Taal Volcano erupted, spewing tons and tons of ashes that turned some parts of Batangas and Cavite gray, forcing large-scale evacuations and rendering farms and orchards dead. 

And then Covid-19 happened towards the end of January and, just like that, the world as we knew it was completely upended. Within a few weeks, lockdowns would be imposed in almost all countries, businesses destroyed, international travel banned, and mass deaths became the norm.

We're now on the 8th month of the pandemic and the end is nowhere in sight. In the Philippines, 80 health care groups representing 80,000 doctors and a million nurses have petitioned the government for a "timeout" to recalibrate its strategy (or the lack of it) in fighting the virus because the entire health care system is now in danger of complete collapse, its frontliners exhausted to their human limits.

The US is not doing any better. The country is on top of the list in covid infections in the entire world and every day, records are broken for new cases. Toiling at the forefront, side by side with the doctors and other health care workers are the 150,000-strong Filipino nurses scattered in most states but mainly in California and New York, where they make up about 20 percent of the labor force caring for coronavirus patients. Do a Google search and you'll see many reports on how Fil-Am nurses have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Watch our Video of the Week -- a CBS news report by Fil-Am journalist Elaine Quijano on precisely this topic. 

Our story this week on Zenei Cortez, the president of the California Nurses Association and co-president of National Nurses United, the US' largest nurses' union, is both a call to action and a tribute to these heroes of the moment, many of whom are our kababayans. PF Correspondent Cherie Querol Moreno reports.

Writer and long-time activist Bonifacio P. Ilagan gives us a capsule post-mortem on the real state of the nation, following President Duterte's address last July 27. 

And, if you haven't yet, register for Positively Filipino's webinar on "Immigrants in the Time of Racial Unrest, the Pandemic and Trump" featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Jose Antonio Vargas and veteran immigration lawyer Lourdes Tancinco. The webinar happens on Monday August 10, 6pm PST/ 9pm EST (Tuesday 9 am Manila time). Here's the link: bit.ly/ImmigrantsRacialUnrest.

Stories This Week

A Compassionate Healer And Fierce Fighter For Fellow RNs By Cherie M. Querol Moreno

The State Of The Nation In A Day By Bonifacio P. Ilagan

Master Watercolorist Josė Honorato Lozano—The Sequel By Myles A. Garcia

Architect With A Personal Touch By Rafaelito Sy 

Read Again:
Murder Most Foul By Alex Fabros, Jr. 

The Happy Home Cook: Instant Pot Beef Caldereta By Elizabeth Ann Quirino

Video of the Week: Asian Americans report increased discrimination, even as some work on the front lines of pandemic

[PARTNER] Watch It Again: Philippine International Aid’s Giving Hope to the Children 2020 Online Fundraiser

In the Know

Philippine capital returning to lockdown as virus surges
https://news.yahoo.com/philippine-capital-returning-lockdown-virus-055713263.html

Meet the Bay Area rapper working on a COVID vaccine
https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/Bay-Area-rapper-COVID-vaccine-Ruby-Ibarra-15450383.php?fbclid=IwAR1A8QZEyXedtt9yNbRqhh3zl_08lP16KKVnxNbotvvZp_YOYMEZ6UoWpMU

Why Filipinx Americans Should Be In Solidarity With Black Lives Matter: Lessons From American History
https://www.facebook.com/notes/filipino-american-national-historical-society-fanhs/why-filipinx-americans-should-be-in-solidarity-with-black-lives-matter-lessons-f/10158420594771602/

On Adobo and Anxiety
https://www.southernfoodways.org/on-adobo-and-anxiety/

Amy Schumer just shared her Emmy nomination with her nanny who is from the Philippines
https://news.abs-cbn.com/ancx/culture/spotlight/07/30/20/amy-schumer-just-shared-her-emmy-nomination-with-her-nanny-who-is-from-the-philippines?fbclid=IwAR112EuPUsXXD2R31DL-KcyItX07l6euegi5MUvMAF1Rd-alBgsNFV2nktk