Mama's House

Well I suppose this is one less thing Faye can throw up after a night of drinking.

Among working-class downtown shoppers, belligerent clubgoers and adventurous foodies, devotion to the famed "heart-attack dogs" is strong and strident, a source of raw L.A. nostalgia.

So you can imagine the frustration of vendors like Palacios, caught between the demands of the market and the demands of the law.

She would love to sell bacon-wrapped hot dogs — trust her — but a trip last year to the women's county jail, a trip she says officials orchestrated to "make an example" of her, finally pushed her to give up the bacon and illegal grilling device she used for so long. Instead, she prepares dogs the only way the county Environmental Health Department currently allows, by boiling or steaming. Not grilling. And grilling is the only way to make a classic L.A. bacon-wrapped hot dog.

"Honestly, I can tell you, I've been a working person all my life, I've worked since I was 9 years old," Palacios says. "I don't like being bothered, I don't like being arrested. Never in my life had I been to jail, and they threw me in jail for violating the laws of the health department."

She's not the only one. Ask any Fashion District hot-dog vendor and he or she is sure to have at least one story of being cited, arrested or even jailed for grilling bacon-wrapped hot dogs on the sidewalk.

So why are these tasty treats now effectively banned from being made?

Now a commander, he remains adamant in urging eaters to understand that when prepared on the street, bacon-wrapped hot dogs are illegal on several levels, and potentially hazardous to your health.

"I've seen cockroaches just pour out of the bottom," he says. "I've seen meat sitting out in the sun for hours. We've seen hot-dog carts where the owner has a little bottle where he urinates, because he doesn't want to leave his cart. And he stores the bottle alongside his food."

I suppose the possibility of a hot dog basted in urine is a good reason to regulate hot dog vendors but doesn't it make more sense to narrowly regulate the cleanliness of the vendors rather than to ban entirely the practice of grilling hot dogs? It seems to be a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Of course, one can still get their fix after a night of drinking.

Below the legal vendors are the more ubiquitous operators of homemade carts, which usually consist of propane tanks strapped to modified baby strollers, Target shopping carts or, in most cases, tool carts. They operate completely outside of codes and regulations, their particular rules and organizational methods a mystery to outsiders.

Licensed vendors like Palacios refer to the makeshift bacon-wrapped-hot-dog vendors as "ambulantes" or "piratas," colloquial terms for unlicensed street vendors in Mexico. The ambulantes of L.A. present a host of problems not only for licensed vendors, who often get lumped together in the media with the pirate cart owners, but for law-enforcement and health-and-safety officials as well.

Basically, you can still get your bacon-wrapped hot dog but instead of from someone who is legally licensed and possibly clean you'll be getting it from an illegal cart that is most dirtier than the street it's being sold from.

And to top it all off,

"They told me, 'The mayor wants to make this area like New York, Times Square,' but I told them, 'Who told him we want that? The people who come here are not like that....' Why are they coming now to get us out of here? Why the abuse? Why the abuse?"

Seriously, who the fuck wanted this law in the first place? Who are the idiots that said, "Hey, Mayor, if you want my vote for re-election you'll have to get rid of the bacon-wrapped hot dog or at least make it so that I can get it only from the dirtiest hot dog carts out there." The whole thing boggles the mind.

Well other than the untimeliness of some - it's ok, we're all filipinos - this year's Thanksgiving went really well. Nothing that made it on to this year's Thanksgiving table was offensive. In fact, it wouldn't be hyperbole to say that all the food was pretty damn good. Mike's candied yams were nice and sweet. Melanie's cheesy mac and EJ's mashed potatoes were gobbled - pun intended - up quickly. Mehran's enchilada casserole were good enough to have been ordered up again by my mom. Oliver's guacamole recipe was asked for. There's no more of Sara's fruit salad. Jason's Fayes's ham was moist and full of flavor. Annette's pansit didn't disappoint the filipinos. Vanessa's and Lindsey's pies tasted better than what anyone else in this family could bake. And lastly, I didn't burn the house down when cooking the turkey. It all made for a very successful Thanksgiving.

Thank you all for cooking! And again, happy Thanksgiving!

Joni: Balut
Tita Elma: Egg rolls

Along with Mehran's chicken enchiladas and Annette's pancit I would hardly consider this year's Thanksgiving to be a "white" Thanksgiving as Vanessa put it.

And can someone tell me exactly when and why Thanksgivings started being classified by race? Is that like some new affirmative action program I haven't heard of? If that's so, should I be considering (i.e. leaning towards) a more minority oriented Thanksgiving?

In case any of you are worried about how the turkey will end up, and you would be right to, I thought I'd make the occasional progress report to keep you all informed about what's happening with the big bird. By the way, if it sounds like anywhere in my preparations for the turkey that I'm in danger of giving anyone food poisoning or, as Faye puts it, mud butt, l strongly encourage you to give me a call.

Well I've been reading everywhere that it takes 24 hours for every 4-5 pounds of turkey to defrost it in the refrigerator. I've also read that it will keep in the fridge, after it has been defrosted, anywhere from 1 to 4 days. I bought about a 16 pound turkey and decided to be on the safer side of the 1 to 4 days. Given that I want to brine the turkey I started defrosting the turkey yesterday late afternoon. Now after over 12 hours of defrosting the turkey is still hard as a rock.

If all does not go so well in the refrigerator I suppose I could finish the defrosting process in the sink before I start to brine it. That's the backup plan anyway.

Here's what we have so far:

Annette: Pansit and snacks
Melanie: Mac and cheese and jams
EJ: Mashed potatoes
Faye: Ham dinner package
Mehran: Chicken enchiladas
Vanessa: Pie
Wayne: Turkey

That's a lot of food right there. I guess we could use another dessert and maybe a salad, but we definitely don't need anymore main course type of dishes and I think we're fine with the side dishes as well. However, we do need drinks and perhaps a bag of ice. Otherwise we're pretty much all set as far as the menu is concerned.

Make note that it's going to be at Mama's this year and that the turkey will be ready to serve at 12:30. It's pretty much going to be going on all day though so feel free to come early if you want, especially since I have the potential to burn down the house by deep frying the turkey, trust me you wouldn't want to miss that. And if you have significant other's families to visit that day too, then feel free to come early or late but if you're bringing food please drop it off first if you're going to be having dinner instead of lunch with us.

Also, let me get a head count of who is coming so that everyone can know how much food to prepare. Thanks!

UPDATE: Annette, ignoring my wishes for a traditional Thanksgiving menu, has said she will make pansit palabok and Jade said he would make BBQ. I suppose the bbq can serve as a main dish alternative to the turkey - and seeing that I could totally screw up the turkey, that might not be such a bad thing to have - and I suppose the pansit can be some sort of side dish or stuffing alternative.

Not a bad start to the Thanksgiving menu.

So apparently I've been charged with making Thanksgiving happen. Actually, I more or less said us cousins could handle it. Now I know what you're all thinking, it probably ranges from, "Goddamnit Wayne!" to "What the fuck were you thinking Wayne?" Now before you all get upset over this, let me remind all of you that we pretty much pulled off Christmas last year when many of the titas and uncles were away. This is going to be a lot like that Christmas but with a lot more food and hopefully less of those terrible jello-shots that were made.

First things first in planning this year's Thanksgiving, the food. Of course, we gotta have turkey and since Joni got me this turkey deep fryer last Christmas, I'll be making the turkey. Yep, that's right, deep fried turkey. Doesn't this sound like it's going to be the most awesomest Thanksgiving already?

Outside of the turkey the only things we absolutely need to have are side dishes, stuffing, dessert, and drinks. Now I want to try to keep this a more traditional Thanksgiving. That means instead of dinuguan, maybe mashed potatoes. And really nobody has to cook anything if they don't want to, but remember what Robert Rodriguez has to say about cooking, "Not knowing to cook, is like not knowing how to fuck." And it would be nice if we could pull this off, seeing that we are old enough to pull something like this off. Also, you could just buy this stuff instead of cooking it yourself.

Anyway, so what would you people like to have for this Thanksgiving and what are you willing to cook or buy precooked for the meal?

This is the first of what I hope to be many recipes shared not just by me but by all of you.

So with arroz caldo winning the recent poll I thought I would share with all of you how I make arroz caldo. Now you can find many recipes for it online - some of which are probably tastier than mine - or I guess you could just ask Tita Malou how to cook it - definitely better tasting than mine - but I think my way is the easiest and still produces an an arroz caldo that any arroz caldo lover would enjoy eating.

Ingredients:

1 lb. of Cooked Chicken (whatever part of the chicken you like most)
1 cup Calrose Rice (or any medium grain rice)
10 cups of Chicken Broth (I just use canned chicken broth - unsalted)
2 tbsp. of Butter
2 teaspoons of Salt
Pepper for taste

That's right, only 6 ingredients and if you're any sort of asian, the only thing you probably have to go out and buy are the chicken and the chicken broth.

Directions:

1. Wash the rice and then soak it in water for about 30 mins.
   
2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a pan, wok, or pot on HIGH heat. Drain, rinse, and drain the rice one last time. Add rice to the melted butter and cook, stirring, until rice is well coated with the butter and smells toasty, about 5 mins.
   
3. Add chicken broth to a slow cooker dump in the toasted rice, salt, and pepper. Stir well, cover, turn the cooker to LOW, and cook for 8 hours, or overnight.
   
4. After 8 hours, stir well. If you want it thicker, turn cooker to HIGH and cook for 1 hour more, stirring now and then. The soup will become thick and white.
   
5. Stir in cooked chicken and serve with soy sauce or hot sauce.

It's that simple. You can't go wrong with this recipe. It's damn near impossible to overcook. I usually cook it overnight or start it early in the day to have for dinner. Give it a try, don't be afraid to add your own touches to it, and let me know how it goes.

Need further convincing that this recipe is good? Feel free to ask Annette, Joni, Darryll what they think about my arroz caldo.

Notes: Most chicken broths at my score come in 6 cup cans so I just end up using 12 cups of broth and add an extra 1/5 cup of rice to compensate.

Now you can buy the chicken cooked or you can cook the chicken yourself. I usually just boil the chicken or pan fry some strips of chicken breast.

The toasting of the rice gives it a nice nutty flavor. You can skip this step but I wouldn't.

Traditionally, the chicken is cooked with the rice, but I choose to cook them separately, so all of the flavor is basically coming from the chicken broth.

I love it with hot sauce.

Arroz Caldo wins as your favorite filipino food. I know it's mine. There's nothing more satisfying in my mind than a meal consisting of chicken and rice. To be able to have it in a hot porridge form makes it all the more satisfying.

Arroz Caldo: 4
Lechon: 2
Kare-kare: 1
Leche flan: 1
Sinigang: 1
Afritada: 1

I only recently heard about Max's Restaurant and that they had locations here in SoCal and although I've been aware of Jollibee, I didn't know they had locations all over SoCal.

So who's down for some filipino fast food?

New poll out, remember you can vote for multiple items. Not that any explanation of the dishes should be needed because we're all true filipinos here, but here you go courtesy of Wikipedia:

1. Adobo - consists of pork and/or chicken stewed in a broth of soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, and peppercorns, a favorite dish among many.
   
2. Pancit - a dish primarily consisting of noodles, vegetables, and a bit of meat or shrimp with variations primarily distinguished by the type of noodles used.
   
3. Lechón - whole roasted suckling pig. Sometimes, either a piglet (lechonillo, or lechon de leche) or cattle calf (lechong baka) is baked instead.
   
4. Kare-kare - also known as "peanut stew," boiled oxtail and/or ox tripe in a peanut-based stew of mixed vegetables, served with alamang (fermented shrimp paste).
   
5. Sinigang - tamarind-soured soup typically made with pork, beef, or seafood. But tamarind is not the only souring ingredient used: Variants include guava and miso, but these are only used on seafood.
   
6. Kaldereta - beef or goat simmered in vinegar and tomato sauce. There is a variant that uses dog meat.
   
7. Afritada - made of pork or beef and vegetables simmered in tomato sauce.
   
8. Dinuguan - a stew made from pig blood, entrails, and meat.
   
9. Balut - is a partially-developed duck embryo boiled then served in its shell.
   
10. Halo-halo - composed of shaved ice, milk, coconut sport, purple yam pudding, caramel custard, sweetened plantains, and jackfruit.
    
11. Bibingka - hot rice cake topped with a spread of butter, slices of kesong puti (white cheese), itlog na maalat (salted duck eggs), and sometimes grated coconut.
    
12. Leche Flan - caramel custard made with eggs and milk.
    
13. Puto - sweet steamed rice muffins.
    
14. Dinengdeng - consists of malunggay leafs and bittermelon similar presentation to pinakbet.
    
15. Pinakbet - vegetables stewed with bagoong.
    
16. Arroz caldo - a Spanish inspired rice porridge cooked with chicken, ginger and cheap saffron, garnished with spring onions (chives).
    
17. Soup No. 5 (Also spelled as "Soup #5") - a soup made out of testicles. Found in restaurants in Ongpin St., Binondo, Manila.

And others that didn't make the cut include:

1. Camaro - are field crickets cooked in soy sauce, salt, and vinegar. It is popular in Pampanga.
   
2. Asocena - Dog meat, is especially popular in the Cordillera Administrative Region.
   
3. Pinikpikan chicken - chicken which has been beaten to death. Cooks do this to tenderize the meat and to infuse it with blood. It is then burned in fire to remove its feathers then boiled with salt and pork.