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.