Anabel in the Kitchen

By Ginny Mata It is the end of summer. Its dusk, and a tall, tattooed woman is teaching us how to make Spicy Ginger and Orange Shrimp. Her name is Anabel Bosch, and she is a rock star. Weve gathered here tonight for our friend Romina Diazs despedida. This is her familys house, and Anabel is her best friend (and mine too; many of us were lucky enough to call her that). For the past four months, Anabel and I have been working with her on the Loring Project. Three times a week, we gave photography and creative writing workshops to young girls in the squatters area on this same street, which culminated in an exhibit of their works in Galleria Duemila. With the project finished, and the exhibit, a great success, Romina is going to return to Florence to resume her fine art studies there soon. As Anabel moves her hands deftly over the cutting board, peeling the ginger with the back of a spoon, mincing the garlic using short, even knife strokes, the delicate curlicues on the inside of her wrists seem to twirl, and the butterflies on her right forearm seem to be flying. The tops of the solid blue angel wing tattoos on her back peek over her black tank top, so as she squeezes the juice out of three oranges, the notches of the wings feathers also seem to bend and move. Anabel pauses, and retrieves a pack of Marlboro Lights from her back jeans pocket. She takes one cigarette, and lights it with the fire from the stovetop gas range. And just so, with that lit cigarette dangling from her lips, she proceeds to show us how to slice siling labuyo, and to devein shrimps. She runs the knife down the middle of one long, red chili pepper. Careful not to get any of the white seeds on her hands, she scrapes out its white seeds with the blunt hilt of the blade. You cut down this line in the back of the shell, she says, holding up a gray tiger prawn, half the size of her small palm, this technique is called butterflying. When you open the shrimp here, youll see a black vein. Take one end of this with your knife, then pull it out, cleanly. Once the prawn has been cut open, its thick, fat vein sticks out, throbbing against dark grey flesh. She pulls at it, trying to grasp the vein out by root, but it does not budge. She tries

again, and this time the vein snaps off with a sharp crack. Still, there is an inch of black sludge left, visible below the carapace. Why do you have to do this to shrimps before you cook them?, asks her 11-year-old daughter, Mishka. This is like the intestine of the shrimp, Anabel replies, so all of the dirt and yucky stuff is in there. We dont want to eat that, do we, love? Mishka shakes her head, as do the rest of us. She looks remarkably like her mother long-limbed, lithe, her black hair falling in waves down her shoulders. Here, season the shrimp with salt and lots of pepper, Anabel says to her daughter, giving her a ridiculously large pepper mill, which seems even more ridiculous in Mishkas small hands. Soon the entire bowl of shrimps are properly seasoned, although theres more black pepper in them than most people would be accustomed to like her mother, Mishka loves strong flavors, or in her words, yung sumisipa. With all the ingredients ready, Anabel tells me to heat oil in a wok. I do so, clumsily, pouring a little too much oil at first, which I then return to the container. Anabel says, reassuringly: Its ok, youll learn eventually. As soon as the oil begins to sizzle, she takes over, and things go very quickly: chopped ginger and garlic, tossed into the sputtering oil, followed by the sliced chilis, then the shrimp. After a few minutes, the shrimp blush light orange, then deep naranja. Were already beginning to salivate, and one of us Katrina Lagman, a writer, who liked to shave her head, and whos now wearing purple earrings and 6-inch purple boots asks: Can we eat that already? Katrina and I are novices in the kitchen. Oh, Ive had some experience, having gone to regular summer baking classes every year for four years, from the time I was 10 until I turned 14. At Dorothys Cooking School in New Manila, I learned how to measure dry ingredients, melt chocolate in a double boiler, separate egg yolks from egg whites, caramelize sugar, and so forth, but I never developed a knack for cooking, this enviable oido of real cooks like Anabel, this ability of instinctively knowing which ingredient goes with what, what kind of flavors enhance and complement each other, and what proportions to use, without having to be completely dependent on cook books. *** The last time I would talk to her would be while she was browsing recipe books at Fully Booked in Rockwell. It was December 30, and we had just finished our post-Christmas,

pre-New Years Eve dinner with our girl friends at Caf Via Mare downstairs. Wed gone up to the bookstore, as we usually did whenever we were in the mall, and she immediately headed to the cookbook section. She stayed there a good fifteen minutes, before picking up a couple of small cookbooks on Filipino food and Thai cuisine. Cookbooks are my porn, she said, I get off just on reading them, so I can invent my own recipes. Ive always wanted to learn how cook lamb, I replied. I promise Ill teach you next year. I taught you how to cook shrimp, didnt I? Yes, you did. It was the start of my culinary career, in fact. We both laughed, and made a promise to see each other sometime during the first week of January 2009, which was only three or four days away. As she said goodbye, she kissed me on my cheek. When she left, her smell of vanilla perfume, and the cigarette smoke that clung to her clothes hung in the air for a moment, before fading away. *** In the kitchen of the Diaz house, it is almost eight in the evening. The shrimp is bubbling in the orange juice in the wok. Anabel has just tossed in a few tablespoons of butter into the sauce, and were watching them melt, dime-sized pools of gold dissolving into the fiery lake of orange juice, ginger, chili, and shrimp. We are already delirious with hunger, but Anabel tells us that its best to wait for the liquid to reduce, so we can have a lovely, thick sauce that we can pour over our rice. Her boyfriend, photographer Reg Hernandez, wraps his arms around her, as shes bent over the wok, trying to check if the dish is already done. Here, taste this, she tells him, turning towards him, spooning a small amount of the sauce into his waiting mouth. He gurgles assent, a deep, guttural mmmm, and declares that it is ready, and it is spectacular. Anabel ladles the shrimps out onto a large casserole dish, and Rominas maids move in to help us set the table in the garden for dinner. Were having this magnificent meal outside, under the stars: the statues and sculptures in the Diaz yard stare at us, perhaps, a little jealous of what they were seeing. This motley group of friends me, Katrina, Reg, Romina, Anabel, and Mishka with our plates heaped high with peeled shrimp shells, while hot, orange liquid dribbled down our chins. The mlange of tastes pungent, sweet, spicy, savory was most potent in the shrimps heads.

We tore them off, and sucked them dry. Our fingers greasy, shrimp shells in our hair, we must have looked like such a mess, but we did not care. *** With her, there had been so many other meals like this. A memory, then: we are at Sayao Farms, just fifteen minutes outside of Pagadian City proper. All around us are glorious mountains, a slight mist settling lightly on its peaks, and just beyond our little hut, we could see miles and miles of rice fields and tall trees heavy with fruits. We'd just finished interviewing the fishermen in Pagadian. We stink of the sea, and we are hungry. Our hosts, Rey and Mercedes, the owners of the farm, have laid out a feast for us: a bucket (or was it two?) of crabs, fried rice, grilled fish and pork chops, and afterwards, something called "everlasting berries" and fresh durian, plucked right off the tree. Ive never eaten durian, I tell Rey. When I see the gleam in his eye, I knew that I had made a mistake in saying that loud. He cleaves the spiky fruit in half, and gingerly takes out one pale-yellow crescent from within its shell. Here, try it, he says. Anabel giggles, a long, throaty giggle --- so amused was she at my predicament. She could never hide what she was feeling, even if she tried. The smell of it, of moldy cheese and dogs droppings, makes it difficult for me to take the fruit from his outstretched hand. But I didnt want to be rude he was my host, after all. Trying very hard not to chew, or breathe, I eat it. Then the taste of brown butter and toasted almonds, of raw custard and caramelized onions explodes in my mouth; its juicy pulp, creamy and smooth, slides down my throat. Anabel grins at me knowingly. I knew youd like it, she says, sometimes the most delicious things come in the most foul-smelling packages. *** The Wild Cats have come to visit us tonight. These are the teenage girls from the slums down the street whom Anabel, Romina, and I had given workshops to as part of the Loring Project. They crash into us, shouting our names, over and over again. Theyre loud because they have to be: in their houses, they have to scream above the noise just so they can be heard. But over the summer, theyd grown up so beautifully. Proud and confident of their

abilities now, they stand taller, and smile more easily. Ging, the smallest and shyest among them, tentatively makes her way to Anabel, and throws her arms around her. Ate, makikita ka pa ba namin pag umalis na si Ate Romina?, she asks, wrapping herself even tighter around Anabel. Oo naman! Lagi-lagi tayong magkikita, promise ko yan, Anabel says. After the girls leave, we head towards Penguin. This ramshackle bar, home to the hippie counter-culture of the 70s in Malate, is where Anabel grew up, at the feet of her uncle, the guru of Manila, Pepito Bosch. This is where she first started singing, when she was 14 years old. Outside of the kitchen, this stage is where she feels most comfortable, where she is most herself. Tonight, Anabel has decided to perform a song shed written with her band, Basag Pinggan.Its a loud, angry song, and she soon has the crowd on their feet. But she doesnt seem to care: she would have still sung like this straddling the mic, stomping her feet, losing herself completely to the music even if no one was watching. How can I describe her voice? The adjectives for it rough, ethereal, sweet, sad are inadequate. It is a storm, lashing out against the rocks. (No.) Or a tiger, lying in wait. (No.) Or, a fire tree in full bloom. (No.) All metaphors fall short. Nothing is enough. *** So, then, another memory. This time, of Oarhouse, yet another bohemian habitu in Malate, run down and reeking of decade-old cigarette smoke. Reg owned it, and Anabel helped him manage it, whenever she had time off from her job. One late night in August, we arrive at the bar, exhausted from work. It has been a long day for both of us, and we are hungry. What else is new? Reg has just come from the 24hour dim sum place, Suzhou, down the street from here, and he has brought us xiao long bao. I have never eaten this before. They look like ordinary dumplings, but there is soup inside each bun. I would later learn that this was made by wrapping solid meat aspic inside the skin, along with its usual filling of pork and minced crabmeat and roe. As it is being steamed, the heat turns the gelatin aspic into soup from within the bun. One must be gentle when handling these: the slightest misstep could pierce its skin. Using chopsticks, Anabel lifts one dumpling to her lips, carefully. She bites off the nipple of the bun. Quickly now, she slurps up the soup, the same way that one sucks out the

briny liquid from balut. Ladling a teaspoonful of amber-colored vinegar into the dumpling, she proceeds to eat it, slowly, deliberately. I do the same. The soup is hot, and salty, but without the vinegar, the meat would have been bland. Its the texture that makes it so curious, the symbiosis of warm solids and liquid heat. Anabel turns to me and asks, between mouthfuls of xiao long bao: Were going to celebrate our birthday together next year, right? Yes, of course, I reply. Our birthdays fall on consecutive dates mine is on January 24, hers is on January 25. Aquarians, both. I am turning 29, while she is turning 33. Im going to prepare a feast, she says, just you wait. *** Food and music were her passions, but to pay the bills, Anabel Bosch worked as an editor. This was the work that afforded her the independence she had been denied for too long, after her husband had left her: her own bank account, her own apartment, her own furniture, her own kitchen. Her own home. Home was no. 42 Classic Apartments on Penafrancia St., Paco, some 50 meters from her office, on the same street. When she was beginning to move in, she had painted its walls cream and lavender painted them by herself, on her own and between its two rooms, hers and her 11-year-old daughter Mishkas, it was clear that she had intended on finishing Mishkas first. All the furniture was already in place there (the double bed, the study table, the purple chair, the skull decorations that her daughter so loved), while her own room was still bare. In the living room, she had placed a day bed, which also functioned as a sofa for guests, next to which her twenty or thirty of her books had been neatly stacked. At the very top of this pile were signed copies of Anthony Bourdains Kitchen Confidential, Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking, and The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones. Reg had given these to her, as he had been the official photographer of Anthony Bourdain during his shoot in the Philippines for the show No Reservations some months earlier. And so it was her kitchen that was the most furnished area in the apartment. On the counter, she had placed a blender, the rice cooker I had given her as a housewarming gift, and an electric grill. On her shelves, there was a complete set of chefs knives, a full rack of spices and dried herbs, a bottle of white truffle oil, her prized butterscotch vodka. Using her online

journal on Multiply, she had chronicled the building of this kitchen, from its smallest details repairing the chipped kitchen counter, deciding what kind of vegetable peeler to buy to the purchase of substantially more expensive kitchen essentials, like an oven, and a refrigerator. After almost two months of searching and canvassing, she decided on an LG French Door 20. cu. ft. refrigerator, which cost her almost 40,000 pesos no small amount for a single mother, struggling to make ends meet for herself and her daughter. And when the refrigerator was finally delivered to her house, she threw her long, tattooed arms around it, hugging it close. All the dark years were behind her now. As she wrote in an email to us, her closest friends, she said: I cant wait to show you my apartment when its done almost there, folks, almost there. *** But it was never finished. On New Years day, in 2009, she had been spending the afternoon watching TV with Reg and Mishka. It was a lazy day, one that she so deserved after working long hours over the holiday break, even on Christmas day itself. And then she began to feel severe, throbbing headaches, increasing in intensity every minute, until she was doubled over in agony on the cold bathroom floor. Reg would later tell me of how she had insisted that this was just another one of her migraines, how she had pleaded with him to stay with her, to hold her until it went away. And just as he was about to bring her to the hospital, she fell over, and lost consciousness. In the ER, the doctors would find that the right side of her brain was heavy with clotted blood. She would never wake up again. *** The word comes to me in the middle of an essay about food by Doreen Fernandez. Adumbrate: to describe roughly or briefly, giving the main points or summary; it can also mean "give to understand" (i.e. insinuate). It originates from the Latin "umbra", or shadow. I have been looking for a way to communicate this grief. To adumbrate the void that her absence has wrought. Most of the places I associate with Anabel are gone now, or have moved elsewhere. The one-storey building where Oarhouse once was, along Mabini, has been converted into an office building. And the ramshackle edifice on the corner of Remedios Circle, where Penguin used to be, has been torn down.

The only place left then, is the kitchen. I come here to immerse myself in smells, flavors, and tastes, to practice the ancient alchemy of food. Most of all, I come here to remember Anabel. I still make her spicy ginger and orange Shrimp by myself, mincing the garlic the same way that she did, peeling the ginger with the back of spoon, slicing the chilis, deveining the shrimps, just as shed taught me that summer night three years ago. Ive since expanded my repertoire to include pumpkin soup, pesto made from scratch, roast chicken, hainanese chicken, and yes, even roast lamb. After spending so many hours cooking in the kitchen, I was finally able to develop some sense of that elusive oido. Im not yet the intuitive, accomplished cook that she was, but I am getting there, one dish at a time. Oh, Anabel, if only you could see me now.