So this evening I am sitting in my favourite little cafe in Seef drinking a black coffee and enjoying a St Sebastian Cheesecake. Spires is a little haven. Winter reigns, even in Bahrain for the next couple of months. Cool winds now buffet my face as I face North and cast my spells upon a dark beach under the cloak of a night sky. A sky full of stars and a brilliantly clear waning moon.
Yes, I am back in my groove. Back to the routines after the Solstice and Christmas and New Years holiday spent hand in hand with my beloved in her native Philippines.
Now I don't want to bore you all with my holiday pictures and trite anecdotes that to the speaker seem ever so obviously witty and erudite but to everyone else are just, not. Perhaps even boring to everyone else!
Instead let me share with you things that struck me. In no particular order or with any over arching schema or reason. Just things that I personally noted.
Firstly then I have clearly in my minds eye, right this instant as I am writing, blood. I saw a transfusion being removed. Then a few seconds later, blood from the vein flow out under the sterile covering. It spread like a Rorschach blotting print under the dressing. It was the casual manner in which this happened, that shocked me. I realised that I am not used to seeing even this small and almost trivial amount of blood in the sheltered life I have created around myself. Luckily my beloved was sorted and treated. Peculiar that that one incident is the memory that sticks out. Revealing more about my state of mind than the reason we went to a hospital in the first place.
Secondly the Great Empanada Search of 2023! I was blessed with a road trip to the North part of Luzon. Ilocos Sur and Ilocus Norte. My Filipino hosts had mentioned that empanada was something of delicacy in this region. So it gradually evolved that over the few days we travelled I tried at various towns and seaside stops a local empanada. Along with the other local delicacies such as Longanisa (a kind of sausage with Spanish antecedents) and Bagnet (crispy fried pork) and a creamy aubergine dish whose nameā¦ seems quite rude in Tagalog (puke puke!!)
The result? Well the best Empanada I had was in Batac. It used finely chopped green papaya instead of cabbage like other places. Its monggo and longanisa and egg was perfect. I hardly knew what an empanada was before this trip! Now I have a favourite Filipino version! This is, it seems to me, the perfect street food.
I was amazed at how the paste is rolled out in front of you; your choice of filling added; the empanada sealed and deep fried as you wait and watch. I enjoy watching craftswomen and men do their cooking. How they had prepared their ingredients. The skill in creating quickly, efficiently, a particular customers choice. Voila! A fresh and piping hot empanada in your hand in 5 minutes!
In the Mountains of Ilocos Norte are small villages and towns nestled in deep valleys shrouded by the moist mists and cool breezes sweeping in from the Sea this time of year. Whilst still being warm! The Forest is alive with tropical fruits and birds and the mariposa are huge and black with shards of vibrant orange or red or yellows that simply flash past my eyes like the memory of a good deed in my life. Alas I saw too few.
So there is in that valley a tiny berry called Bugnay. On its own quite the sweet berry. The size of a smaller redcurrant for an anglicised audience to see in their minds eye. Yet when made into a wine, O yes, Syre Byrd enjoyed it all the more!
Yet the highlight of the day was visiting a homestead perched on the side of the mountains and eating their home produced salad. Simplicity.Ā Fresh from theĀ garden to the plate and topped with edible flowers that the locals called blue turnip when I asked! I looked it up afterwards, and shall we say, giggled to myself at its obvious anatomical name of Clitoria Ternatea. Exactly. You read that right.
Just some random takeaways from my vacation with Jean and her family. Of course I could have written a blog each day. I could share with you a hundred fold pictures of our walks on tropical beaches. Of the foods I tried. Of the people I met. Yet this SubStack is not a Facebook substitute, nor just an alternative highbrow social media replacement.
Writing this has become a discipline. It has a clear reward for the author: I get to think more and try to order my experiences of life and try to make sense of life itself. For you the reader? All I can hope is that as you read and follow the (mostly) weekly work, the other work such as the poems in the Poesy Tab and the more academic concerns in New Nobility Tab; that there is resonance or perhaps even some discordance that creates debates on occasions as well!
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I wish you all a more harmonious year!