Filipino food's greatest champion

The New York Times on Doreen Fernandez

Not surprised to see her written about so glowingly in The Paper of Record--frankly it's about time--but am surprised and delighted to learn she's inspiring a whole new generation of Filipino chefs remaking the American culinary landscape with their cooking (tried Bad Saint about a year back and it's impressive food).

Surprised most of all because I knew all this since college at least--she was my freshman English professor. Loved her class, lapped up everything she could teach about writing and critical reading, helped me develop my prose to the point I wasn't too embarrassed by what I wrote.

Hell I even know the kidney she received in a transplant--the donating nephew was a year or so ahead of me in that same college.
Her Lasa: A Guide to 100 Restaurants was my bible--tried to visit as many of the places as I could. Her column "In Good Taste" was my weekly reading ritual (every Tuesday if I remember right); whatever she wrote about was immediately added to my ever lengthening list of snacks or meals or places to visit before I die.

Her passing was a shock. Her column ran for some more weeks--she wrote that much in advance--then stopped, then I *really* started missing her.

Wish I kept in contact. Wish I kept that book. Wish I could talk to her again, or at least tell her of what I've eaten, what I've cooked, what I've learned of the cuisine we share and I've since grown to love.

Anything good in my writing is her small triumph I'd say; anything bad is failure on my part to listen. Which is far from everything I want to say about her but is what I needed to say at this moment.

Au Pied de Cochon (Martin Picard)

Pig out

I remember Martin Picard declaring to his friend Anthony Bourdain (in the Quebec episode of No Reservations): "Tonight I will keel you." To which Bourdain added: "these are words I don't take lightly." Picard proceeded to keel Bourdain with one spectacularly rich and extravagant dish after another, ending with the palate cleanser of a whole roasted suckling pig, bisected snout wrapped in 24 k gold leaf. "You can eat it and the day after you're shitting gold," Picard told his guest. I vowed ever since that someday somehow I would visit the scene of the massacre.

Thirteen years later and there I was. standing in front of Picard's Au Pied de Cochon, one of the pioneering restaurants that helped put Montreal on the international culinary map. A relatively quiet little joint: storefront of glass and wood folded aside to let in light and air; street deck with tables and--love this--planters full of herbs: rosemary, cilantro, so forth. Peered a little closer at the cilantro: some of the stems have been cut. They're not just decor, the herbs were being used. 

Junior (Jojo Flores, Toddy Flores, Bic Flores, Baba)

Home away

Junior isn't the only Filipino eatery in Montreal, but as all the others are clustered around the Cote-des-Neiges neighborhood it's the only one that chose to strike out for other pastures, establishing itself in 2014 in Griffintown, a former Irish immigrant community turned industrial area turned urban renewal experiment. 

A Filipino restaurant as part of the effort to revitalize an economically depressed community? Why not?