Of Family Reunions.

Butch, a nephew from the U.S. recently posted a picture tucked in another U.S-based nephew's (Rog) refrigerator, and this triggered a lively exchange within family, and then Singapore-based nephew Jei blurted out the R word.

The mention of the word "reunion" brought back memories of childhood, of happy times, of yesteryear.

Reunions generally refer to gatherings of family members or classmates from elementary, high school or college years.

In Canada and the U.S., there is a yearly "homecoming" in high schools and universities.  Whole towns or cities where schools are located busily involve themselves in these events.  Why?  Homecomings generate economic activities and of course, income for local businesses.

Hotels and inns are booked, rental cars and restaurants are patronized, and other incidentals get business, too.  Parades and balls are held, and there's a general feeling of "one-ness" again amongst the townsfolk.

This U.S. and Canadian phenom happen because many Canadians and Americans usually move away from their places of birth and childhood and settle into far away states or provinces where they find work, and start their new lives.

This "homecoming" or "grand reunion" feeling has started to take shape among Pinoys (Filipinos). While before, reunions only happen within the school setting, usually commemorating important milestones (silver, golden, or diamond jubilee), nowadays "grand reunions" take place more often because families have been torn apart by migration and overseas working arrangements.

Since the mid-seventies, many Filipinos have worked overseas.  I remember an Uncle who went to Riyadh in the late seventies, and of course my own sister who took post graduate medical training and then work in Maryland in the mid-sixties.

Ask any Pinoy and seldom will you find any who doesn't have a relative working or permanently settled abroad.

Among OFWs, family reunions, although in smaller scale, occur each time the OFW returns for a visit.  Or when someone in the family gets married, or sadly, dies.

With the recent demise of Mang Dolphy, the whole nation saw the "grand reunion" of the Quizon clan on television. One son proclaimed, " we suddenly became complete, but our Daddy was no longer there to see it."

Love of one's family and clan, and also camaraderie among school pals or co-workers, should always be celebrated; it's a way to remind ourselves of our life journey.

A 1997 wacky film about a high school reunion.

During family reunions, there'd be laughter and sometimes, old wounds are opened. In our extended family, a grand reunion where all those living overseas gather at the same time in one place with the locals has not yet happened. We look forward to one. 

Why maybe Dolphy just didn't do it.

Mang Dolphy as he is fondly called by everyone passed away on Tuesday, July 10.  If I were in TO, I would probably have just read the news on Internet (www.inquirer.net) and thought not much about it.

But I'm in Manila right now and since the household is glued to the almost 24/7 coverage of Mang Dolphy's "burol" or "lamay," (viewing at Heritage Park, and eulogies given by ABS-CBN and TV5), I also see snipets of interviews of the comedian's children and friends, and clips from his old movies and TV sitcoms.

If my Diche (Aunt Silang) were alive, she'd be crying buckets for sure; she simply loved Dolphy.  My Uncle, her husband, was an original John Purontong, the character popularized by Dolphy in John N' Marsha.  Tsop (Tiop for Tio Pen)  wore similar "sando," and was funny and humble.

The Purontong Family of the famed John N'Marsha.

Our household watched Buhay Artista on Sunday evenings, then.  My favorite part was the song and dance portion of Dolphy and Panchito, where Panchito sang lines in English and Dolphy translated into Tagalog.  That was hilarious.

Then came John N' Marsha, the classic sitcom of the 80's.  The memorable vignettes of this sitcom are John's sira sirang sando (torn T-shirt), Matutina's shrilly voice (napakasakit sa tenga),  Dona Delilah's "kaya ikaw John, magsumikap ka... ", and the evening ritual of John N' Marsha cooing or moaning at each other, in raspy, longing tones, before they go to bed.

Marsha:  Johhhhn....

John:      Maaaarsha....

Repeat 4X.

And of course in one early-episode openings, John was seen sleeping on a wooden bench in their crowded shanty, with a sangkalan (chopping board) as his pillow. Classic.

Dolphy has 18 kids but never married.  Maybe he didn't marry because he wanted all his kids to feel equally loved (walang inggitan - no jealousy), because their mothers had been equally loved, too. Just a thought.

MAY YOU REST IN PEACE, Mang Dolphy.

Sweet but not taken.

Choco-flavoured Jello with fresh strawberries  to satisfy the sweet tooth.

If you're diabetic you know how hard it is to forgo of sweets.  Well if you're not diabetic but you're conscious of your waistline, you know how hard it is to give up on your favorite chocolate bar, ice cream, pastries and native kakanins especially halo halo.

I still have a big pack of hard chocolate in my mini ref that I steal from from time to time.

To satisfy the craving for sweets, diabetics have multiple food recourse: they're sweets without sugar.  Or simply, they're loaded not with natural sugar but with non sugar sweeteners.

Among the sugar sweeteners is Splenda.  Then there are the sugar substitutes that contain aspartame and saccharin.

The guide to these artificial sweeteners is in the package,  yellow packet (sucralose), blue packet (aspartame), or pink packet (saccharin).

Diabetics should be actively reading food labels of anything they buy.  The last time I was at the supermarket and examining peanut butter I found out that the SM house brand Bonus has two types of peanut butter - one with a higher sugar and sodium content which is cheaper and another with lesser sugar (3 gms) and no sodium but more expensive and with a label "for export."

My fave peanut butter smooth Kraft ( 1 kg. jar) has 1 g sugar and 70 mg sodium and 0 transfat. And the strawberry or grape preserve I use to top off my peanut butter sandwich, Smucker's, is sugar-free.

I still could not find any sugar-free pancake syrup.  At Pancake House where they serve delicious blueberry and banana pancakes, no sight of sugar-free syrup, either.

To cap off my sweet tooth, I prepare sugar free jello at home and top it off with fruits in season.  Or I fry saguing na saba rolled on alcohol sugar, or make guinatang halo halo, complete with saguing, bilo bilo, ube and gabi, langka, and sago but with Splenda or Nutra Sweet.

Grapes. Sour.

I love globule grapes; big, seedless and sweet.  If grapes are small, I tend to chew and spit, like "nganga," or betel nut.

When we were small, we used to watch our Dada Ana (grandmother Ana) and her "nganga" brigade do the rituals of ikmo chewing.  They peeled and cracked the betel nut, cut these into small pieces, put in the apog or lime (white sticky gel),  pounded the mixture, lay it on the ikmo leaves, wrapped and chewed it.

My grandmother grew ikmo and transported it to Bulacan as a business so while she and her crew piled the ikmo leaves neatly and loaded them into big native baskets called kaings, they'd be having a "nganga" session.

This is what a nganga looks like. The green leaf is the ikmo, and inside it is the mixture of betel nut and apog (lime).

Any woman the generation of my grandmother and mother worth their salt chewed nganga in our hometown of Papaya (now General Tinio) in Nueva Ecija.  My mother only chewed nganga once when she needed to spit on the open wound of my baby brother; barrio folks believed in the healing feature of ikmo and apog (betel and lime).

I'm not a big grape lover.  But when I hanker for it, I'd get a bowl of grapes, peel them and eat like I'm feasting on potato chips. The peel itself is nutritious but I don't eat it.

One of the byproducts of grapes is the red wine, then there's the dried grape or raisins, both of which I love. When I didn't have diabetes yet, I used to have raisins as snacks.  Now I eat raisins sparingly.

I also drink red wine occasionally now.

My assignment at the kitchen is occasional now so is my red wine habit.

The other day I uncorked a bottle of red wine and now it sits unfinished in the refrigerator.  I have to wait again for my palate to long for its taste, and of course, to have the pep to prepare for the right food to go with it.

In the kitchen I've always been outmaneuvered, so I don't get to cook my kind of food.

Last time we ate out, we went to Mann Hahn so it was Chinese food.  The other time it was lunch at Sbarro's so red wine was out of  the picture. As I'm the only avid red wine drinker in the house, it's a waste to open a bottle.

So one mid-afternoon Sunday when I hankered for alcohol, I poured a Gilbey's, some Sprite, several twists of lemon,  and cracked some ice and enjoyed with it an Oishi cheese-flavored Chips and some peanuts.  That was the Sunday before the big storm this week.

I'm not sour graping, but the Philippine weather doesn't jibe with red wine for me.  The tropics is better enjoyed with beer. Beach and beer. That's cool.

My preferred brand of Beer for now. I can't find Molson in Manila.

Canada, eh.

Happy Canada Day to everyone!

It's great to be a Canadian, the land south of the U.S.  The land of opportunity, the welcoming land.

It was in 1990 that I came to Canada from the Big Apple.  I drove for about 10 hours passing through Mt. Poconos in New Jersey.  I drove early because it was already almost fall, early October.

I remember it was my first time to drive through Poconos and it was a lovely route. Prior to this, I went to Canada via Ohio and Pennsylvannia, when I brought my parents sightseeing in Niagara Falls.

When I reached the border at the Peace Bridge, it was dusk.  My ever reliable Isuzu I-Mark carried all my stuff.  The check in at the Immigration was uneventful.

When I was at the QEW, I sort of got mixed up with the speed limit.  In the U.S. then, the speed limit was 55 mph; in Canada it was and still is 60 kph.

I drove fast because I didn't want to be on the road as dark befell the highways.  I reached my destination, Mississauga in no time.

That was October 1990.  A few days after, my cousin took me to get my social security.  Later on, I got a temporary job with a car rental doing computer work. But 90's was recession both in U.S. and Canada.  After my temp assignment, it was an uphill battle to find regular employment.

But Canada had systems and places to help its immigrants and citizens.  After taking up some studies and training,  I got regular employment.

Three years after I arrived in Canada, I became a citizen.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!