Monday, October 16, 2006


FINDING JAIMIE


October 15, 2006 is a very special day in my life. On this day, an angel was given to me by God.

It is a whole new world for me…suddenly, our home is filled with the sweetest music of a babe’s cry and whimper. There is reason to wake up early in the morning, to see the soft innocent smile of this little joy. Prayers are unceasingly said, full of hope and good intentions for this babe from nowhere whom I now call my own.

The future looks bright, and I foresee days of laughter, loving, and letting be…. Thank God for a promise fulfilled, and more promises to keep….May I be worthy of this precious gift dear God has entrusted to me.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

"OIDO"

(Oido is a Spanish term which means "to play by ear.")

Playing the piano is one of my childhood passions. At the tender age of five, I would quietly stay at the sidelines, listening to my aunt play some melodic and captivating pieces. I remember sitting on the piano stool, beside my aunt, desperately trying to mimic her motions, which include flipping the pages of the piano book, moving the wrists in rapid staccato, and humming the tunes which I've seemingly known all my life.

My Tita Beth would patiently teach me some simple tunes from the time she took note of my interest in the ivories. My first piece was "DO RE MI" from "The Sound of Music" - all treble, played only by the right hand. The first two-hand piece she taught me was "Chopsticks", with one bar played with crossed hands, i.e.,left hand crosses over the right. It delighted me no end learning a piece, and playing it over and over again.

The old piano in my Lolo's house was sold when my gracious aunt and her family migrated to the States when I was six. Since then, I would imagine playing the piano on our wooden sofa, to the point of drawing one octave on the hard sofa seat. With my improvised piano and with eyes closed, I would imagine my fingers move to the beat of the music playing on my mind, to be interrupted each time a visitor would come and had to sit on the sofa.

I was seven when I had my formal piano lessons. Unceasingly, I prodded my mom to find a good piano teacher who would make me play "like Tita Beth". Find a teacher she did, in the person of Mrs. David, a music teacher in the public school where Mom taught. I vividly remember my first day of piano lessons…. I wore my favorite jacket (though it was a hot summer day), tied my hair in a neat pony, and cleaned my hands thoroughly. I was so excited to learn I was one hour earlier than our scheduled session. I thought then that after my lesson, I could already play a tune flawlessly.

I realized that reading a piano piece is much like solving a math problem. Each note has a beat which is a fraction of a whole bar, and the sum of the notes’ beats in a bar should equal the numerator in the so called “time signature”, the fraction indicated on the left most side of the staff. (A staff is a series of bars.) The denominator in the time signature specifies the kind of note which would receive ONE beat. Thus, a time signature of 2/4 means that a quarter note (1/4) would have one beat, and each bar would have two beats; an eighth note (1/8) would receive a half-beat, and the bar may have as many as four eighth notes, or a combination of one quarter note and two eighth notes, and so on and so forth. Whew! Beethoven must have been a good mathematician!

I labored through my piano lessons, until I was able to read notes on my own. My teacher would sometimes use a “metronome”, a device used by musicians that marks time at a selected rate by giving a regular tick, to help me capture the correct rhythm or beat. Many times, frustration, desperation, and irritation set in, since apart from the correct beat, one should also be able to read the notes accurately, and play the piece with the ultimate feeling. The pianist has to evoke the composer’s message clearly, through the music’s melody and rhythm, my teacher would always remind me.

Three years after my first piano lesson, I could effortlessly read difficult pieces, and play them “on first sight”. (I later learned from my teacher that not all piano students possess this skill, which I should further hone.) I enjoyed playing and memorizing each piece, although many times, I no longer followed the piece “to the note”, and began improvising. My teacher would always call my attention and say “Never do oido, not yet. Only when you’re older and better equipped should you do so. Discipline yourself into not playing by ear this early; for when you start doing so, it would be very hard to stop, and you will never learn the masters’ pieces.”

I wondered why my teacher discouraged me to do oido then. To my mind, it was a sort of achievement….having to interpret another’s music in my own terms – from the rhythm, phrasing, feeling, and pacing. I did not heed her advice, and continued to do things as I please. I enjoyed playing by ear non-classics, and for a while stopped reading pieces. (Classics are taught the formal way, all the time.) By this time, the latter genre has become boring, since with oido, the possibilities are endless. One may play a single piece one hundred different ways.

I stopped taking lessons when I was eleven. From that time on, I was free to choose what music to play and how to play it. Occasionally, I would try to study a classic piece, but I always end up so unsure of how to play it. To my mind, classic pieces are true works of art, with a life of their own. I have often wondered how the great composers were able to weave up symphonies, etudes, sonatinas, and the like with only eight basic notes to tinker with. Truly, music is heaven’s gift to mortals, understood by all, constantly uplifting the tired and weary soul.

Everytime I play an improvised piece on my piano, I remember Mrs. David, and her admonition on playing oido. With life, as in music, one must have a solid footing on what is true, right, and good, before treading on uncertain grounds. This foundation we get from our “life mentors” – our parents, elder relatives, teachers, good friends, spiritual advisers and people not personally known to us, but who have great influence on how we think and act. These people have our best interests at heart, preventing us to learn things the hard way, and sharing with us valuable lessons learned from their respective lives.

Equipped with their wisdom and our own perspective, we can journey through life on oido. We will definitely encounter a constant series of hits and misses, with some life episodes off-key and out of rhythm, but we should strive to make our life a beautiful musical piece borne of a tapestry of experiences, aspirations, and deeds - perhaps not perfectly woven like the masters’ pieces, but certainly as unique, meaningful, inspiring, and worthy to be played…..again and again...

Monday, October 02, 2006

"YEMA"

Ingredients:
8 egg yolks
1 big can of condensed milk
1 cup of sugar (for caramel covering)

Mix the ingredients in a bowl. Pour mixture in a wok, and stir over slow fire until it thickens. Set aside to cool. When cooled, form into small balls. Set aside.

In a clean wok, pour one cup of sugar and stir over very slow fire. Once the sugar turns into syrup and boils, drop the yema balls one at a time, and once covered in syrup, swiftly scoop out the yema balls using two forks (one on each hand). Set aside to cool in a flat aluminum tray, placing the balls an eighth of an inch apart. Wrap with cellophane of bright colors.

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Yema was the first culinary masterpiece I learned at a young age. I remember seeing my lola, titas, and mom spend hours on end alternately stirring the sweet mixture, and then forming little balls, dropping them, then swiftly and skillfully taking them out of the pool of boiling syrup. The caramel-covered sweet balls got wrapped with green, yellow, and orange cellophane, but the greater portion oftentimes got eaten by impatient kids and never reach the wrapping stage. The colorful yemas were then stored in big cans, to be served come fiesta or Christmas time, if remain undiscovered by sleuthing kids.

I was 9 years old then, and my brother 8, when we did our first cooking experiment with yema, unsupervised. Mom was in school (she was a schoolteacher) and Dad in the office, leaving my brother and I alone with our trusted helper, Cleofe, who was busy with laundry at that time.

My brother was excited about the whole cooking experiment. We alternately knocked the eggs, and thrillingly separated the yolks from the whites before pouring them onto a silver mixing bowl. I scoured over our cupboard for the stock of groceries, looking for the Dairy Maid condensed milk and a pack of sugar. I hurriedly opened the condensed milk, and poured it onto the small mixing bowl now quarter-full with egg yolks. My brother stirred the mixture before pouring them onto a wok.

Everything was perfect. Being the “Ate” (older sister), I was the one who turned on the gas stove. My brother volunteered to stir the mixture over the slow fire. Sounding like Mommy, I advised him to do it consistently, and slowly, so that the texture would be fine and not burn. My brother did so, patiently, using a wooden flat ladle. So far, so good.

When he would get tired, I would get the wooden ladle from him, to continue mixing the batter. Oh, how good it smelled! Just the scent of it made our mouths watery. My brother and I would alternately stir the mixture, and when it was his turn, I would see him occasionally steal pinches of the now thick mixture, unmindful of the heat emanating from it. I would reprimand him, telling him to be patient and wait a little bit more; he would listen and obey at times. More often than not though, I would see him, at the corner of my eye, continue pinching portions. So far, it was not that good anymore…..

After around thirty minutes of continuous stirring, the batter had then reached the desired consistency. I turned off the gas stove, and my brother, at this point, was eagerly anticipating to partake of the cooked sweet. We decided to forego doing the caramel syrup (since it would take another fifteen minutes or so), and just divide the cooked yema between us. Being a naturally democratic Ate at a young age (ahem!), I asked my brother if he would either (a) divide the yema but I get to choose which portion I’d take or (b) I divide but he would be the one to choose which to take. As if the question at hand was a matter of life and death, it took sometime before my dear brother decided to let me do the dividing and he the choosing. So, skillfully and neatly, I flattened the mixture on the wok, reached for the bread knife, and with just authority, divided the stock into two perfectly equal portions. He pointed to the part he would take, and slowly, using the bread knife, I scraped off that part of the wok onto his ceramic plate.

Everything was well, and we began eating our respective portion (no more forming into balls the yema we made), when almost simultaneously, our attention turned to the wooden ladle still laden with bunches of yema, resting on a quiet spot near the stove. Instinctively, both of us simultaneously reached for the wooden ladle, racing to get the yummy yema now clinging to the ladle’s face and handle. My brother quipped that he should get the whole yema on the ladle being the “bunso” (youngest), but I told him everything should be divided equally, since both of us toiled to get the cooking done. He agreed to have it divided; this time, he would do the dividing, and I would get to choose.

He scraped the yema off the ladle’s face and handle, and awkwardly divided the stock into two. I chose one part, and was ready to transfer my chosen portion onto my plate, when my brother, thinking that he divided the yema inaccurately and I seemingly getting the bigger part, mumbled that I was being unfair, and was putting one over him. Of course I reacted, being the just Ate that I was (ahem!). I told him we were doing it fair and square, and nobody was taking advantage of anybody. I was about to continue to scrape the yema off the ladle, when my brother, blinded by misplaced doubt, reached for the ladle, and forcefully tried to get it from me. Not wanting to let go, I held on to the ladle and started to wrestle with him. My brother was able to take hold of the ladle, and instantly threw it towards my direction. I’d like to believe it was not intentional on his part, but the ladle landed on my head! Yes, my head!

My hair was a complete mess, with curly strands now stuck together in sticky bunches. I looked like Medusa with squirming sticky yema on my head. My brother gave out a loud guffaw, and continued to laugh heartily, pointing to my top. Blinded by rage and humiliation, I plunged towards him and instinctively kicked him in the groin. His guffaw instantly turned into gasping for air, and his face started to get red.

Afraid that he would die at that instant, I moved towards him to embrace him, whispering “I’m sorry” all the time. I thought everything was already okay when he started to breathe normally. How wrong was I! My unforgiving brother, after regaining his strength, started to pull my hair and scratch my arms. Defensively, I fought back, and started pinching him (wherever my fingers laid on) in return. With increasing intensity, both of us kicked, scratched, pinched, punched and hurled hurting words (“You pig!”, I would say….and “You bigger pig!”, he would retort) to each other.

Cleofe (who was in the laundry area outside our house when the big fight started), went into the kitchen and was in shock seeing her wards slug it out. Unable to separate and appease my brother and I, she called my aunt (who lived adjacent to our house) for help. At that time, my brother and I were already in the bathroom now throwing water at each other, almost flooding the kitchen floor. We continued to fight it out when my aunt came, and on top of her voice, yelled at us…”Joy, Joseph, stop it, or you’ll end up black and blue by your Mom’s beating. Stop it!”

It was at that time when we realized the gravity of our misdeed. Out of respect for our elder, we stopped fighting it out, although dagger looks continued to be exchanged between us. We went out of the bathroom, and saw the mess that we caused - scattered pans, bowls and utensils, broken plates, wet floor. In place of hostility, fear gripped my brother and I….We knew that our butts would again have a taste of the cold hard aluminum stick (tool used by mother to discipline us) once she would see the mess we created.

Knowing that the only sure way to escape Mom’s beating was to settle things between us, my brother and I made up, said our usual “I’m sorry”, and agreed that we would not fight that way again, not over a pan of yema. We cleaned ourselves while Cleofe took care of cleaning our mess. Waiting for our parents, we sat in a cozy corner of the kitchen, clutching our share of the yema we successfully made. (We subsequently decided to divide what was left of the yema which clung to the wooden ladle. My brother did the dividing…and the choosing…..)

Welcomed by a deceivingly peaceful and happy brood, my tired mom reached home, and upon seeing her, my brother and I raced to kiss her and ask her hand in blessing. We offered her the yema we made, and gleefully, she tasted it, and mused how lucky she was to have talented kids who could cook on their own a concoction which required much patience….

So far, so good….until Cleofe came into the picture…..

It took one day before the swelling of our butts wore off.

- THE END -