Foot and Fire

This packet is a gift from a good friend who now works in Beijing, China. It says "Ginger Poweder" but from what I can understand from the photo, it is more like what we came to know as Chinese Five Spice. I wonder why they did not name it so. I googled and found these suggestion on how to make your DIY spice combination. This is perfect for beef stews and beef soups and stocks. Here are the varied stuff I found and brace yourself as I will post the ingredients which were posted at the back of this luckily in English: It is not five only. 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground cloves 1 teaspoon fennel seed, toasted and ground 1 teaspoon ground star anise 1 teaspoon szechuan peppercorns, toasted and ground *** 1 tsp. ground Szechwan pepper 1 tsp. ground star anise 1-1/4 tsp. ground fennel seeds 1/2 tsp. ground cloves 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. ground white pepper *** Anise, Cinnamon, Star Anise, Cloves, Ginger *** 2 tablespoons ground star anise 2 ta...

This is the cappuccino my friend ordered in NO Joke Cofee, a coffeeshop in Tianjin, China. Please note the cigar-like cinnamon stick on the side...  We don’t use cinnamon at home for daily cooking, and so I believed that cinnamon is only for glazing breads. This belief remained had I not bought Chinese Five Spice in Thailand. And so, I learned that cinnamon is one of the five ingredients and the five-spice can throw one’s braised beef in a whole new light considering we only use the usual salt and pepper. I rub five-spice in my chicken, fish and favorite vegetables before grilling or frying. I fell in love with five-spice and its fragrant component, cinnamon. Long after that and long before I headed to China for a vacation, I read an interesting note on cinnamon in the book of compiled columns of Filipino historian Ambeth Ocampo entitled, Chulalongkorn’s Elephants (The Philippines in Asian History, Looking Back 4). In one column entitled Walang Cuenta (No Value), Miguel Lopez de Le...