Food Trip 18 - Tamarind

During my childhood days, we would climb a particular tamarind tree near the river because it bears sweet fruit.  The owners of the tree did not mind at all because they had no liking at the fruit much to our delight.  Those were the times when we still got to enjoy some fresh free picks.

One time, someone gave me a pack of processed tamarind fruits.  I forgot to ask about its place of origin but I got curious because it got chili.  I don't know how spicy it could get until I tasted that one.  And whew!  It was like burning hot.

Eventually, I was able to finish the entire pack but I had to take only a couple of pieces because I found it hard to withstand its being spicy.

Quote 52 - Great Things

Poem 18 - Beautiful Girl

Quote 51 - You

Something Wonderful 17 - Smile

It is wonderful to know that in spite of the trials of life that we are facing, we still have the courage to smile.

They say that the Lord will never give us trial that we cannot handle.  It is during the face of such trials that we come to know ourselves more.  When are at our lowest, what we do and who do we become afterwards define who we really are.

When we are facing what we thought to be the scariest and life-threatening situations, we might be suffering the God-knows all sorts of pain and mental torture.  Waking up each new day and going to bed at night may seem like hell if answers to our trials are elusive and may deem some far fetch reality.  We might even come to a point that it is already useless to go on living.

But through it all, our life is valuable and sacred.  The moment we think that each new day is a gift to live, then, the more we should strive to face life more courageously.  May be, just may be, when all those tears are already drained and we no longer know to cry, a smile can make a big difference.  We might not be smiling our biggest smile or we smile because we are at our happiest.  But we simply smile because despite of our trials, we still remain standing and holding on.  And that wonderful moment when we learn how to smile again always makes a big difference.

Quote 50 - Beautiful

Food Trip 17 - Camote

In the province, one of our wonderful afternoons are spent by enjoying a hot and sweet tasting camotecue.  Though some might argue that it should only be called camotecue once there is stick holding together a serving of deep fried sweet potatoes with sugar, the name 'camotecue' has been adopted even without the bamboo stick.

I actually experienced planting the stalks of the sweet potato and even harvesting that one.  And I tell you that the fun part is always the harvest time.  In our place where the soil is a bit sandy after the top layer of the soil, the sweet potato grows on bigger terms.  It is because the sandy soil is a bit loose giving more spaces for the root crop to grow bigger.  And after harvesting those we can consume for a day or two, we would enjoy an afternoon with boiled sweet potatoes, camotecues, or grilled sweet potatoes.

When we prepare camotecues, we usually go for muscovado.  Muscovado is an organic sugar and is a prized sugar for health conscious individuals. But in our place, muscovado is cheaper compared with all those processed sugar.  Aside from the oil and muscovado, a teaspoon of vanilla extract would always make the food enticing to eat.  The smell of vanilla alone would always attract even our neighbors.  Hehe.