Sunday Gravy with… The Philippines-Haiti-Ridgecrest-San Diego

Quick, first life changing moment from your childhood?

Mine, fairly easy, I was 10 years old when my 2 year old brother died. That dead face still haunts my memory, not like it used to 50 years ago but it’s still there waiting for me to have 2 too many beers and then it pounces right on my essential nature. Or

 When I was around 12. I met a girl, she was a year or so older than I was, so to say I was terrified of her would be an understatement.

One day after school she talked me into going to her house, but why did I go?

Upon arrival I look around only to discover that we are all alone, she looks at me with big blood filled eyes and says let’s kiss, the horror that filled my fragile little mind was practically elemental.

Being older than I, she was also bigger, so when she put her hands on my back and pulled me into her embrace? Her face grew like a giantess as she floats right into my own personal space.

I was needing just a moment for a chance to escape. As she closed in all slobbery, puckered and scary, I managed to wiggle loose, screaming in triumph as I broke free, then running like a pussy right out that front door.

YOU’LL NEED YOUR VEGGIES – Hey you’ve been there before.

 Next day at school when I saw her she, well.

I don’t think we ever spoke again and I am positive I never kissed her. I got better, I have since kissed several (liar, when?) women.

So let’s see, first memory, horrible tragedy. Second memory, the fear of sex, well what hell could be next?

LOOK MEAT!

Jumping back into brain, still around 12 years old when I met a set of unusual twins who lived up the street from me. We hit it off immediately and for the next( I saw “Joe” at a high school reunion years later and it was delightful) 2 years we were inseparable. The parents were, American dad and a super cool mom from Haiti. She was a blast. On weekends and holidays I’d stay over at their house or they would stay over at mine. Now on occasion we like to get up to some hijinks, nothing too serious but we did get into  a couple of jams that were wrought to work out of.

Here is just one example.

Decisions Decisions

Bill and Joe (they liked being called Billy and Joey but I never liked the Y at the end of names) had plans for this weekend oh yes they did. We started making those plans at school during lunch on Wednesday. I was staying the night with them this weekend and we had just gotten a whole box of extra large, mixed fruit flavored, prophylactics.

 I wonder what your mind thought upon the reading of that line? 

There was to be no need for such an item in my life for another 6 years.

Seems to memory that Bill had the ideas but Joe was the carrier out of said insane deeds. This deed?  Was to be a condom filled with pee, put onto a neighbors front door knob, and did it ever work swell.

Not That Kind, That Kind

I guess he needed to take a big whizz, for Joe filled that whole damn rubber right up, so much so it was flopping this way and that, it looked alive. Being the evil genius he turned out to be he didn’t tie it closed, had a better plan. 

He snuck quickly and quietly up to the front door of the poor sap in the neighborhood that was selected for this nefariousness.

Ever so gently he took the untied pee balloon and slid it over the door knob so that it was impossible to remove the blueberry flavored French tickler from the knob without the urine going everywhere, what a dastardly, evil yet workable plan he did conceive of.

Next of course is ringing the doorbell, running and hiding close by to take in all of the mayhem, What delight was yet to come.

When the angry man who lived there came out spewing curse words that I’m not sure I had heard at that point in my life, then saw the 10 inch golden pee dong hanging from his door?

Well he was powerless to stop what his next action was going to be. 

His anger was so overwhelming that he just used his hand to back slap the offense right off of the knob and then of course was immediately showered with the yellow rain that now filled the air.

It doesn’t matter if it’s funny if it makes no sense. 

Well we ran all the way back to the twins house and hid in their bedroom without light, whispering in fear, certain that we would be caught.

 Next morning we awoke alive and unscathed. We had gotten away with it.

 Following the yellow rain day, their mom served us lunch that included something that in all of my worldly days had never heard of, a dish called lumpia.

Oh blessed be thy name of heaven’s favorite tasty treat.

Crispy, spicy, magic filled my simple 12 year old’s palate. What is this creation? For the next two years I had that miracle dish many times. Sadly when we got into high school as people do, we drifted apart and I lost those friends but more important that brown crispy yum yum stick also went away forever, or not.

It was that crunchy, savory, meaty, deliciousness that sent me on a lifelong journey to taste something, anything, even close to that flavor that filled my blow hole back in 72.

I was told there would be fruit cocktail in heaven, fuck that. I want lumpia!

Hey, you said she was Haitian but this is a Filipino dish. What gives? 

Shut up over there you! Always has to be one in the crowd.

Luckily sex jumped to the rescue once again and changed the future.

15 years later my brother married a beautiful Filipino lady.

They had a “meet the family” party at their home. The lay out was an enchanting spread of food. Covering entire tables with so many delights, but wait there in the middle is it possible? There they were, a stack of golden lumpia, with banana sauce on the side, what? Wait for it. Just like that yum yum sticks were back in my life. Turns out my brother’s wife’s mother was a killer in the mess hall and I had a chance before she moved onto the next world to cook with her a couple of times and damn did I learn a lot, should have taken notes.

This comes from the internet but is based on what I learned in a very Filipino kitchen.

As always when I fill in I am going to assume you know your way around the cookhouse.

2 pounds of 

Crap, let me start again. My niece said (and she is not a drunken stoner idiot like her uncle) it’s half pork and half beef, I went pork. Do what you want but next time I am adding the ground beef.

Pork or beef or both damn it

½ cup of finely chopped onions

2 whole cloves of garlic minced fine

½ cup grated carrots

¾ thinly sliced NAPA cabbage

 Note: you can probably get away with whatever cabbage as long as it’s finely shredded, but the lady I worked with would stir fry your ass if you used anything else.

Salt: pinch to taste

Pepper: pinch to taste

Garlic powder 1/4 Tsp

1 tsp Soy Sauce

30 lumpia wrappers

2 cups of oil to fry up dem sum bitches, let’s get to cookin.

Brown the meat (don’t get me started) in a damn pan. Drain 90% of the oil and remove the meat to a size appropriate dish for later.

Grab the onions and throw in the leftover pork fat. Cook until tender about 5 or 6 minutes, throw in the carrots for 5 minutes and cook slowly together. Add salt, pepper, garlic Powder and soy sauce and stir together. Throw in the garlic and cabbage, cook for another 2 minutes and turn off the heat. Grab your meat (hey what are you doing? put that back in your pants) and fold all together and set aside. Cover with a dinner plate and let sit for at least 30 minutes.

Break an egg and scramble in a teaspoon of water for an egg wash.

Now comes the fun part. Put a wrapper down on a cutting board and lay it in a way that it looks like a diamond shape. Put in a fat tablespoon of filling and roll right up. Think of it as a burrito, you need to tuck your ends and roll tight. The more rolls the more layers of crispiness so don’t over fill.

Use the egg wash to seal the wrappers. Look, it takes practice, the first couple will look like a dead baby.

Keep trying, in 25 years you may still need practice.

I actually did this 2 days in advance and froze them. Large glass dish, parchment paper. Do not let them touch, more parchment. Cover with plastic wrap and off to kill box 51.

Dump 2 cups of oil in a large deep frying vessel. Preheat to 350 and drop in FROZEN lumpia cook for 3 minutes flip and 2 more minutes. Remove and let drain on a cooling rack or paper towels. Go in your room, smoke some good weed and prepare to touch the faces of all your dear lost gods.

The last two are serving suggestions. When I was a kid there was no such thing as banana sauce I discovered from the Filipino family my brother married into and damn is it tasty, sweet or spicy you choose, we did both.

The ride is always bumpier than the finish.

Look we did this 50 years ago and if you do it now that makes you a dick, so for Christ sake DON”T DO THIS!!

Deepest apologies to those I have insulted on the way. Do not blame “Yeah right” he tried to talk me out of it.

I am solely responsible for these shenanigan’s. I drew it, shot it and wrote it.

I don’t know why she was Haitian but she was.

Chris Paul is a crappy bowler and I can prove it.

Thanks for reading.

ne pouvons-nous pas etre amis

Formally know as D J Taj, 02/2023 Lar.

The market is Sea Food City in Carson California, parking sucks.