Foot and Fire

For lunch today, we had laswa. We mixed all solid vegetables available: papaya called kapayas here, squash or kalabasa, okra, takway (gabi roots) and saykwa or patola and the green leaves at hand: malunggay called balunggay here and saluyot called tugabang. The secret addition is the lemon grass known as tanglad here and some dried fish. .N.B. the ingredients are actually flexible; compare this laswa with my previous post.... Match this vegetable soup with fried fish and rice... Perfect!

The tshirt that educates us... In Vigan, you can order these great food without being hurt. Kung gusto mo PATOLA, just say, "Manang gusto ko nang DINENGDENG NA KABATITI or try the delicious Ilocos tortang talong, PUKI-PUKI o baka sabik ka sa freshly picked UTONG, yan ang Ilokano ng sitaw... WAREK WAREK, sisig naman yan.... native garlic abounds! Balicotcha or butong-butong for Ilonggos... Also called same as here, Tableya, a coarse cacao chocolate!  Bagnet, a crispy pata for us here. The difference  between the two is that the bagnet is  dried for two or three days before fying, hence less fat... Chichacorn is a hit... the corn pops like popcorn... chichacorn, up close and personal. onion and garlic tobacco cigars!!! Lastly, i am sorry. Out of excitement of sending some to a friend, I failed to photograph the Longganisa of Vigan... By GERLIE M. UY