Rest in peace, dear sweet Lolo Ben

My dear Lolo (Grand-uncle) Ben passed away at around 3am this morning. He was the brother of my Lola (Grandma) Amy, mom of my mom. They were good companions to each other since my Lolo Doming (dad of my mom) passed away about 4 1/2 years ago and especially when Lola Amy had a fall and became bed-ridden.

He was always a jolly guy, waking up every morning at 6am for his walk around the block and his gardening duties. He would always eat 2 cups worth of oatmeal everyday.

I laugh whenever I'd see him sneakily eat a few fish crackers -- he has high uric acid and in the past he got gout from an overdose of salty fish crackers!

He was always so proud about his survival of World War II -- at 9 years old in Baguio, he and Lola Amy were running away from the Japanese; one Jap actually hit his head with a bayonet! My lola had to carry Lolo Ben on her back as she trekked the Cordillera mountains to safety.

He was the main source of our news. As a child I remember calling him early in the morning just to see if there was no school for the day (due to typhoon). He was our local newscaster, he knew every piece of news from his trusty FM radio. He could tell you the latest chismis (gossip) about politicians and local celebrities.

He loved playing solitaire and could play that game day in, day out.

There are other memories I have of my gentle Lolo Ben.

Lolo Ben, I'm sure you're in a better place now. Sleep well. We'll miss you!

A study of homemade vs. white powdered sugar

Okay so here's a post showing my kitchen geekness / Martha Stewartness.

I hate using white flour because it has no nutrition whatsoever. But, you can't make cupcakes with wholewheat flour -- you might as well call them muffins. Or hockey pucks. Next best option should be unrefined, unbleached white flour, but that stuff's not available commercially and affordably. Healthy Options sells Bob's Red Mill organic unbleached white flour but... who can afford that stuff anyway? Who buys that stuff in this country, under these economic circumstances? Probably the expats and the class AAA's. RIght now I'm limited to refined white flour, boo.

My next baking peeve is white sugar. At least in this arena we have alternatives -- brown and raw sugar. I'm trying to switch to raw sugar in my baking permanently. Quite surprisingly brown and raw sugar are cheaper than white by like three pesos (6 US cents?) at the baking supply store. According to this site:

"Unrefined raw sugar is made from the juice from the sugar cane plant and has trace minerals and nutrients present. Refined sugar is devoid of all nutrients. Typically, white sugar is made of pure carbohydrates. Today, it is common knowledge that refined white sugar has devastating affects on the body and health in general. Besides being a certain way to elevate blood sugar levels, refined white sugar is considered to be “empty calories” as it offers no nutritional substance whatsoever. Raw sugar contains minerals and nutrients that are stripped from refined white sugar. Raw sugar contains roughly eleven calories per teaspoon and has the same vitamin and mineral consistency that is found in the juice from the sugarcane plant. These minerals include Phosphorus, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, and Potassium. In addition, when sugar is refined and processed there are many harmful ingredients that are added to the sugar as a result. Unrefined raw sugar does not have these harmful chemicals. Some of these include: Phosphoric Acid, Sulfur Dioxide, and Formic Acid."

Raw sugar: the lesser of 2 evils

But what's difficult is the frosting. You can't have cake and cupcakes without frosting, and you can't have frosting without powdered sugar. Commercially available and prepared powdered sugar is of course, made of refined white sugar.

I've seen recipes for homemade powdered sugar in a couple of vegan cookbooks which I've been dying to try out. I finally was able to experiment last week. I used the recipe from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. Pretty straightforward: blend 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of sugar for a few minutes until powdery. Instead of cornstarch I used sweet potato starch; instead of white sugar I used 1 1/4 cups packed raw sugar. In the homemade-powdered-sugar arena, blenders are superior over food processors.

It did take me a few noisy minutes to come up with homemade powdered sugar. I also had to stick a knife in to occasionally break up the clumps (turn off the motor when doing this). Here are the results:













Left: the devil's posion. Right: the homemade stuff.

You can see that powdered sugar made from raw sugar is a little honey-colored while that refined stuff is dead white. Homemade doesn't clump up as much because of the blender -- obviously blenders made for the home cook / baker are less powerful than industrial blenders made for corporations. I think the powdered raw sugar granules are heavier than their white counterpart, hence its non-clumping qualities. The texture is actually slightly coarser but it will still be able to pass through a sieve. Oh yeah, while white powdered sugar has no smell, raw powdered sugar has a slight molasses-like smell.

I used my favorite vanilla frosting recipe and here are the results:













Left: immaculately white vanilla cupcakes with white vanilla frosting.
Right: vanilla cupcakes made with raw sugar, with vanilla frosting made from powdered raw sugar.

I think this world is not ready for vanilla cupcakes made with raw sugar (what more with wholewheat flour?). People are purist about vanilla cupcakes -- they must be white white white. If frosting's not white, okay if some other artificial color. Not saying there's anything wrong with wanting white cupcakes, it's purely a matter of physical preference.

Nature appreciation: La Mesa Eco Park

A bunch of coworkers and I participated in a company-sponsored tree planting activity in La Mesa Eco Park in Quezon City last February 7. La Mesa Eco Park houses a 700ha reservoir and 2000ha forest. The reservoir is Metro Manila's sole source of potable water and sadly the forest is the last remaining one of its size in Metro Manila. It's always nice to get away from the city (even though the park was in Quezon City) and see an actual forest. I stumbled across some interesting flora and fauna...

A mother duck and her little ones. A little googling and wikipedia-ing tells me that she is a Muscovy duck, aka Cairina moschata. She's not as regal looking as her Google lookalikes though (OMG someone actually cooked a muscovy duck and uploaded a photo in the image search! Beware). I'm sure she's had quite a hard knock's life.... It isn't easy being a duck in the Philippines.










Her babies are the cutest ever. She's one protective mama -- every time I'd try to get close to photograph her and the ducklings she would flap her wings and quack at me. She loved to nestle in the grass and observe her kids run around excitedly.

A kind human offers her and her kids some breakfast.















The fruit of the samak tree. People from Laoag City, Ilocos Norte commonly ferment the fruit, leaves, and bark with sugar cane to make vinegar and basi. What your eyes don't see...





























Yellow orchid. I think it is a Odontocidium. From this website: Odontocidium Tiger Crow 'Golden Girl' is an intergeneric hybrid consisting of Odontoglossum and Oncidium. It grows in a wide range of temperature conditions from warm to cool. The flower spikes emerge often twice per year and are colored in yellow and burgundy. The species behind the cross include Oncidium tigerinum, Onc. leucochilum, Odm. crispum, Odm. pescatorei, Odm. hallii, Odm. harryanum, and a host of odontoglossum hybrids.

I think it's so interesting to find out the scientific names of plants and animals, and learn more about them.

NB / disclaimer:
The La Mesa website says it has a "butterfly trail and hatchery" -- I didn't get a chance to visit this place. Oh and La Mesa has horseback riding = not vegan! It has a pond and boating lagoon -- I honestly have no idea if it's manmade or not and whether it has natural fish (versus fish bought from some Cartimar vendor). And, I have no idea if the duck was endemic to that area (or again, bought from Cartimar as a baby in a paper bag).