Coffee Safari

Today I went with friends on a coffee safari.  No, we didn't hop from one coffee shop to another!  We were invited to a coffee-tasting at a friend's home.  The coffees, however, came from exotic locales - where the best coffees grow.

I had no idea my friend Dante was a member of a local coffee club.  As you can guess, he doesn't have coffee at coffee shops because he enjoys making his own at home.  He has a collection of coffee gadgets, ranging from grinders, to roasters, to French presses and espresso machines!  He buys international single-origin coffee beans from a trusted source, and only roasts 250g of beans at a time.  He grinds his beans just before making his coffee, in order to take advantage of the beans' freshly-released flavor and aroma.

We had, in order:  Peruvian, Ethiopian dry-process (where the coffee berries dry in the sun naturally, as opposed to wet-process where the berries are hulled and the beans are dried separately), Jamaican Blue Mountain, Panama La Esmeralda Gesha and Ethiopian Harar coffees.  Plus an Ethiopian dry-process Americano (1:1 espresso and water).

Dante used the hand drip coffee method.  I was wondering if the ceramic dripper was available locally, and found out it was being sold at Craft Coffee Workshop along Broadway Ave. in New Manila, Quezon City.  It's also available in different sizes , along with other coffee accessories, on Amazon.com.

The coffees all had a wonderful aroma, each different from the other.  The aroma of the ground coffee was much stronger than that of the whole roasted beans.  I wish I had taken tasting notes, but I don't know the terms.  Dante arranged the progression of flavors in terms of complexity and body.  I guess it would be like how a sommelier arranges wines to complement a dinner.  We tried each coffee black, then with some muscovado sugar, then with non-dairy creamer.  All the coffees were very good, but the Jamaican Blue Mountain and Panama La Esmeralda Gesha were particularly delicious.  Sublime.  (Jude, to me:  "So, did you hear the choir of angels yet?" With my mouth full of coffee, all I could do was nod and smile.)

Yes, we had a LOT of coffee, in small cups, not the big American-size mugs.  We were served pan de sal (soft breakfast buns), with our choice of filling - butter, strawberry jam, peanut butter and Spanish-style sardines.  We also had a lot of water on the side, to cleanse our palates.  You would think that all that caffeine would render me into a quivering mess, but I checked my hands and they didn't shake.  Dante explains that when coffee has been made properly, you get the flavor of the coffee without too much of the caffeine.  To prove his point, he served me and Christine an Americano each, made of the Ethiopian dry-process beans.    My sixth coffee, but in a tiny double espresso cup.  I felt extraordinarily alert, but I felt great!  No palpitations.

Of course, this isn't something I'd do on a daily basis.  I don't think I'd ever get to experience that in a commercial coffee shop, or even in a hotel.  It was such a treat (thank you so much, Dante)!  I learned so much about coffee that I never knew before.

I like to support Philippine coffee bean producers.  My usual coffee at home is Arabica from the Cordilleras or Liberica from Batangas ("barako"), so Dante suggested I try the local coffee brand Monks' Blend.   It's produced by Benedictine monks from the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Malaybalay, Bukidnon.  We have an active Philippine Coffee Board, so maybe one day I'll work my way through the different local coffees, which I see being sold in organic weekend markets, food trade fairs and sustainable lifestyle stores like Echo Store.

Two Old Churches in Pampanga

Last August I joined a group of friends on a day tour of Pampanga.  It's north of Manila, about a drive of an hour and a half.  We had a special ten-course lunch scheduled at Bale Dutung, but had the morning free to visit a couple of old  churches and take photos.

The San Guillermo Parish Church of Bacolor dates back to Spanish times.  After the original church (constructed in 1576) was destroyed in an earthquake, it was rebuilt in 1897.  In 1991 half the church was buried in lahar during the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.  In one of the photos below you'll see that the arched windows on the sides of the church are now as low as the tops of the pews.

From Bacolor we traveled to Betis, Guagua - an old town famous for hand-carved furniture.  Built in the 18th century, the Parish Church of Santiago Apostol (St. James the Apostle) is known for its splendid retablo art.  Its facade is quite simple and relatively recent, but old carvings decorate the church door and selected pieces of the church's original wooden furniture.  The altar is rich with more carvings, gilt and saints.  But the showstopper is the church's ceiling, painted in the early 20th century.  We were requested by church staff not to use flash photography, to protect the artwork.

The lovely thing about these churches is that they're still working churches, serving loyal parish families throughout their town's history.  If you have a long weekend coming up, a map, a camera, and a sense of adventure, this sort of trip is immensely rewarding.

Dining at Bale Dutung

When our American friend Tom said he'd finally visit the Philippines last August, Carlos immediately organized a trip to the province of Pampanga, complete with a ten-course lunch at Claude and Mary Ann Tayag's restaurant, Bale Dutung.

"Bale Dutung" means "house of wood".  If this house looks somewhat familiar, it's because it was featured in Anthony Bourdain's Philippines episode on No Reservations.  Here's the Pampanga clip on Youtube, showing artist and chef Claude Tayag's restaurant.

Mary Ann Tayag welcomed the seven of us warmly.  We had to call ahead and reserve, so the Tayags could put us together with another small group in order to make the 12-head minimum.  We chose the "Anthony Bourdain menu", which referred to an all-Kapampangan lineup of dishes.  As each dish was served, Mary Ann would annotate, explaining the origins and flavors of each dish.

A salad of wild ferns and tomatoes topped with half a soft-boiled egg.

Grilled chicken buttons (it's the behind, folks!) with brown rice.

Quail stewed in soy sauce, garlic and vinegar (adobo), with egg pan de sal.

Lechon taco.  Each diner is served only one ( in order for them to be able to appreciate the rest of the ten-course meal properly), but the fixings are buffet style.

Beef bone marrow.  You get a wooden popsicle stick to scoop out the delicious marrow, plus a straw to help you get all the juices.

A thick guava-flavored soup called "bulanglang", featuring "ulang" (large river prawns).  There's a small serving of plain rice inside the banana leaf package.

Seafood kare-kare (a stew with peanut sauce).

The courses I didn't photograph were the appetizers (crackers and dip made of homemade herb pesto, "taba ng talangka" or crab fat, and "balao-balao" or fermented rice flavored with shrimps); the coffee and dessert (maja blanca with corn and young coconut).

The meal took us four hours to consume!  It was amazing how we could all still stand up at the end of it all.  Claude visited our table and signed the books we bought.  He and Mary Ann co-authored the book Linamnam, a regional food guide to the Philippines (Anvil Publishing, 2011).  Claude also styled Kulinarya (A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine), by Glenda Rosales Barretto.

Was it worth it?  Foreign visitors and locals who aren't too familiar with Pampanga cuisine (like myself) can definitely check this menu out.  Some of the dishes were known quantities with a distinctly Pampanga/Tayag twist.  Some, like the balao-balao dip and the guava-redolent bulanglang, were exotic. If that doesn't strike your fancy, there are also other menus to choose from.  I truly enjoyed Mary Ann's entertaining and informative spiels, and learned a lot about Pampanga's rich history and culture through its food.

What to do after an afternoon of eating?  We decided we all wanted a richer dessert, and went all the way to Kabigting's a few towns away in Arayat, for white halo-halo (with pastillas milk candy instead of ube jam)!

Thank you, Tom, for visiting the Philippines, because if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have thought of going on this Pampanga food tour!

Fountain Pen Network - Philippines

Our group of pen lovers, Fountain Pen Network - Philippines, is three years old and keeps growing. It started with a handful of enthusiasts in a thread on analog writing instruments at (oddly enough) a local tech forum. It now has about 20-30 active members, many of whom are also members of the Fountain Pen Network forums. Our yahoogroup moderator, Prof. Jose Dalisay ("Butch" to his friends, aka "penmanila" on FPN), has written about fountain pen collecting, and the group, several times in the Philippine Star. Anyone who enjoys writing with fountain pens, wants to try them out, or collects them, may join. We meet about once a month, for lunch or coffee and pen talk.

What do we do? Eat. Talk. Make new friends. Doodle (that's Caloy Abad Santos doodling on the Amici restaurant placemat above). Show and tell. Try out each other's pens. Hold raffles of pen, ink and paper products. Buy. Sell. Trade. Exchange information - where to buy pens and inks, care and maintenance of pens, pen repair, info on collectible models, where to find quality stationery, etc. In short, we are a bunch of enablers!

A friend of mine in the US said, "I love looking at your pen meet pictures on Facebook. It's all so geeky." Yes, geeky and we love it.

Some members' collections focus on a certain brand and model. On the table in the photo are Parker Vacumatics.

In this photo, teddy bears Ivan and Trekker guard pen cases containing Pelikan M800 limited editions, Toledo models and "Originals of Their Time".

Here are some beautiful celluloid and silver overlay pens.

A number of members have special frankenpens created by honorary US member Tom Overfield. These are pens that are cobbled together with usable parts of other pens of the same model, even if the colors don't match. They each have special names - there's Frankensnork, Bride of Frankensnork, the Bridesmaid Pencil, Tuckenstein, Frankenthein, Thinenstein, Rafflestein, Pencigor, etc. Mine is the grey, blue and maroon Parker 51 Demi known as "Demistein". It's second from right - I love it because its parts have been rescued from somebody's cabinets and it writes a nice, broad, wet line. If ever there's a token of deep friendship and love of pens, it is that.

Colorful pen wraps! These were made for me by May Zayco (fuschia and aqua) and Hazel Gazmen (olive green).

We like to hold raffles at Christmas, and during anniversaries. Keeps the attendance up!

Here's Leigh Reyes, doodling.

And more doodling, this time by Jenny Ortuoste. Featured is my Swan fountain pen with the semiflex Eversharp nib. Isn't it inspiring to be able to write in all those gorgeous ink colors? If you wanted read a good ink and paper review, then visit Clem Dionglay's blog, Rants of the Archer.

I even got a lesson on how to resac a Waterman 0852 1/2 BCHR ringtop from the 1920s, from Butch Palma, at the first anniversary pen meet.

Here we are at the second anniversary pen meet. And that's not even the entire group...

Photos by Chito Limson, Leigh Reyes, Jenny Ortuoste, and Mona Caccam.

Ultrasonic!

My friend Eilu posted in the FPN-P yahoogroup about a new product from CDR-King: an inexpensive ultrasonic cleaner. It's a machine where you immerse jewelry or other small items in a vibrating water bath for a three-minute cycle. The vibration causes pressure waves to produce tiny bubbles that dislodge hard-to-remove dirt. There's a more detailed explanation here.

I first read about using ultrasonic cleaners for ridding fountain pen nibs of stubborn ink on the Fountain Pen Network a couple of years ago. At the time the going price for an ultrasonic cleaner locally was about PhP 3,000++. I said to myself at the time: I don't really need an ultrasonic cleaner, I flush my pens regularly. At PhP 880 the CDR-King machine was suddenly tempting.

I checked CDR-King Podium, but they had no stock. The lines in Megamall were way long. Miraculously, my friend Karlo called and said he'd found the last two units at the Starmall branch. I asked him to get me one.

CDR-King started out selling branded and generic data storage and related computer accessories, and then moved on to stocking some odd novelty items, such as mini-refrigerators that fit a single softdrink can. Many of its products are cheap and cheerful, but the quality levels tend to vary. A number of us in FPN-P thought that PhP 880 for a real ultrasonic cleaner was a good deal. "Besides, that's only the price of two inks," Karlo said. Couldn't hurt to try it.

The ultrasonic cleaner is a 35-watt machine with a three-minute auto-off function. Place the items to be cleaned on the accompanying plastic basket and immersed in water. Close the transparent lid. As you connect the machine to an electrical outlet, a blue light comes on. Press the ON button. The cleaner will vibrate, making a humming noise. At the end of three minutes, the machine turns itself off. Unplug and discard the dirty water. Wipe cleaner carefully and store away from moisture.

Here's a photo for demo purposes only. DO NOT OPERATE MACHINE WITHOUT WATER.

I cleaned all my removable nib units, the Esterbrooks and Pelikans. I thought I had been cleaning my Esterbrooks as carefully as I could for the last year and a half, but then I saw little swirls of old ink coming out of the feeds as the ultrasonic cleaner vibrated. As these were vintage nibs there was the possibility that some retained dried ink when I bought them. My regular flushings weren't enough get rid of stubborn red ink alone! I repeated cleaning with another three-minute cycle, which got rid of all the old ink. At the end of this cycle though, the water had heated up. The manual warns the user not to exceed three cycles in succession.

I cleaned some of my silver jewelry along with the nibs, but ultrasonic cleaning only removes the physical dirt, not the tarnish. You still need jewelry polish for that.

There is a caveat for fountain pen enthusiasts, however: you can't clean your celluloid or hard rubber pens in it. You also can't use it to clean vintage lever-fillers, as the metal parts inside the barrel may rust. (Good thing Esterbrook Renew Tips unscrew!) You can, however, clean nibs and feeds that can be manually removed and replaced. The sections of most modern pens are also safe to clean in the ultrasonic cleaner. So far I'm pleased with it. I figure I'd only be using the ultrasonic cleaner for my pens once every quarter.

Not bad for PhP 880.

"Un-Friending"

I "un-friended" someone today. That's such an unwieldy - yet very precise (in this age of social networking) term.

I don't tolerate people spewing negativity on my Facebook wall, especially if said negativity has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic or status at hand. When we make friends we let them into our personal spaces, and into our thoughts. If a person is on my friends list on Facebook that person is a guest in my personal space. As a guest that person is enjoined to behave with the courtesy and respect he/she equally expects of me, when I am a guest on their wall. When people know me from way back, that does not give them special privileges to behave badly towards me, or forget their boundaries.

It's so easy to be an asshole when one is halfway across the world, or to engage in some delicious schadenfreude. It's so easy to disregard social graces when the persons you relate with are separated from you by a modem. Sure, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but that feeling of entitlement does not extend to bad behavior.

The person I "un-friended" had injected out-of-place commentary on my super-mundane, non-inflammatory posts on three separate occasions. Nobody was stopping him from taking it up elsewhere (apparently he couldn't get an audience on his own, he had to choose my wall). Reminders to discuss issues on his own wall were ignored. When others ignored the direction he was trying to take with his comments, he claimed "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus." I'll take that with a grain of salt - there are civilized means of discussion where nobody has to create an argument where there was none in the first place. It is useless to remonstrate with someone who only listens to his own voice. Well, I don't like my wall hijacked with unsolicited negativity.

I'm not talking about one of those jejemon idiots who like to spam offensive but meaningless posts in different venues. This is someone I knew when I was a kid, who has intelligent opinions but otherwise has a Mel Gibson-like streak. He just couldn't get the fact that, "we can discuss that, but I don't think this is the right venue for it." He wasn't picking on me, he just liked dumping on my Wall. He was like the playground bully who shoves your ice cream cone into the mud. Troll, if you like. If he thought he could be aggressive, then I can be aggressive back. But you see, all that's unnecessary to begin with. Life is too short to be spending it fending off the Mel Gibsons of the world.

Actually, he's the second person I "un-friended". The first one insisted on posting his gory video on public feed, I suppose he thought it made him look cool. Of course I could just have hidden his posts and not "un-friended" him, but no amount of reasonable communication could make him reconsider his actions. I don't give a flying frak if he enjoys tentacle porn hentai, but I certainly don't ask to see gore - or his sick enjoyment of it - on my early morning Facebook feed. I mean, who does?

I treasure my real friends. I don't add many people I don't really know to my contacts lists, so if I "un-friend" somebody there's usually a very good reason. I may never speak to them again; some people are recidivists. No amount of remembering that you were kids together, or that there once was a bond, excuses the adults they have become. I won't be their enabler.

FPN-P Meet at Conti's

We thought it would be a mini-pen meet with less than ten members, but the event was so well-attended it became a full-size one. Not in pictures: Caloy (late), Mona (took pix).

Those who were able to join us (we were 15 in all) included John, JP (TOJ), Butch (DOB), Beng, Clem, Chito, Joseph, and Caloy. There were also a number of new faces: Cesar, Tato, Raffy, Paul, Winston and Sonia. The Conti's function room could barely contain us as well as the waiters, hahaha!

One of the original reasons we decided to organize a mini pen-meet was that John needed help resaccing his Sheaffer 875 Balance. Fortunately I had a spare size 18 sac, shellac and some pure talc from Woodbin, and we very quickly put his pen together. (Since I started buying relatively inexpensive vintage pens on Ebay, I figured I would invest in a basic resac/polish kit. My order arrived in the mail early this year.) Clem's Eversharp Skyline also needed resaccing, as the sac it came with had fallen off for some reason. The cap of the copper Esterbrook SJ Clem bought from Cindy also had some dried up shellac marring its finish, so that was the very first pen I used my micromesh (also from Woodbin) on.

Pidoy arrived, bringing Adring Silverio with him. Mang Adring is an experienced pen repairman and vintage pen dealer from Sampaloc. He brought with him some items to show the group (mostly an assortment of Parkers). Despite the fact that we didn't have much time to look over the pens for sale, some of us were able to have a very interesting discussion with him over lunch.

We raffled off only 4 items this time because we didn't expect such a huge turnout. Winston won the disposable Japanese fountain pen, but Chito won a Japanese notebook from Saizen, Joseph won the Wality 69T eyedropper fountain pen and Clem won the Rhodia notebook. Caloy arrived after lunch, so Chito, John and I stayed to have dessert with him.

All in all, it was another very successful pen meet! We may meet again some time in July.

Gift For A Stylophile

What do you give a writer and stylophile (as in stylo lover, one who appreciates fountain pens) like Reggie? Why, another journal, of course. Can't have too many of those.

As you can see, I tried out different pens on this page, all of which agree very well with the quality of the paper. What is this mysterious notebook? Clue: It's a black hardcover notebook with a marker ribbon, and it's not the brand that you think it is.

You gotta love a notebook with a flexible enough cover and spine to let the pages lie flat. It's also got very high quality paper. 90 gsm lined, creamy white Clairfontaine paper, to be exact! No feathering, no bleedthrough, and best of all, loves ALL fountain pens and inks! Yes, those are some of my vintage Sheaffer fountain pens in a case above. I decided to give this journal to Reggie at the Fountain Pen Network - Philippines Christmas Pen Meet last Dec. 30th. About 18 enthusiasts attended the meet, bringing together various pens, inks and papers. We'd just raffled off some very nice items, and Reggie won the blue J. Herbin glass pen I donated to the raffle. I thought I'd raise the excitement level some more by giving her this:

The Quo Vadis Habana Notebook!

This excellent 6" x 9" notebook came to me, on a very long journey, from the very generous Karen Doherty of Exaclair, Inc., distributors of Clairfontaine, Exacompta and Rhodia paper products in the US. I first heard of the Quo Vadis brand online, from various reviews. This year my friend Clem Dionglay, whose blog was recently included in the Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper, mentioned that she had written Karen for products to review, and was surprised to receive the Habana, despite being all the way in the Philippines. I started following @exaclair on Twitter, and one day, I read that they were again offering paper products for review.

I emailed Karen and then kept my fingers crossed. To my great big shock, the items I emailed Karen about arrived two weeks into December without getting lost in the Christmas postal backlog! (It arrived with a plain Clairfontaine notebook with a maroon morocco cover, plus J. Herbin inks Poussiere de Lune and Lie de The. I'll describe these in later reviews.)

Now if the Habana is so excellent, why am I not keeping it? I'd just won 2 different Clairfontaine notebooks in previous FPN-P pen meet raffles. Reggie just got a new job teaching World Literature at the College of St. Benilde. She needed a notebook JUST LIKE THIS! She's had plenty of the other brand, now's the time to try something new.

Now check out that big smile :)

-----------

Clairfontaine paper products are available at all branches of Fully Booked. The Quo Vadis Habana is not yet available in the Philippines, but other Quo Vadis and J. Herbin products are available at Scribe Writing Essentials at the 3rd Floor of the new Eastwood Mall, Libis, Quezon City.

This blog has no affiliation with any of these outlets.