Mise en Place: Strawberry Mash Shakes are the Life!

~Fresh Baguio Strawberries! Yum! ~




       One of the things I love starting the month of December is the abundance of fruit available. One of my favorites are fresh Baguio strawberries. Yum!

     I love these little morsels of sweetness, either dipped in sugar or on its own. Yummy!

     When we were younger, each December, and during Holy week, we would make the annual trek to Baguio with our parents, grandparents, and even household help. Imagine a convoy of five to six cars, packed to capacity with passengers, and double the amount of luggage in the car trunk. :D That's around 25-30 people back then! :D

     All of us would then stay in one house, one room per family. :D Breakfast would either be fried rice and adobo or longganisa from the market for the adults. For the kids, we were each given our tools of:

One bowl or glass (whichever you could manage)

One fork

Fresh strawberries

Kellogg's Cornflakes

Chilled Fresh Milk

Sugar

     Then comes the assembly:

1. With your bowl and fork at the ready, choose the best looking, most plump, red, ripe, juicy strawberries in a bowl (about 10 pcs, making sure to get only what you can finish  :D ).
2. Mash these to your desired consistency (lazy mash, or super fine, pulverized strawberry mash) into the bowl with the fork, making sure to "corner" the strawberry against the bowl or glass so that it does not escape. :D
3. Sprinkle sugar on to the strawberries.
4. Add cold milk.
5. Top with cornflakes.
6. Enjoy by the spoonful, or tip your glasses and judge who gets the best strawberry milk moustache.

     The recipe above is one my cousins and I share as part of our childhood memory favorites!

     We weren't exactly given a license to play with our food but rather, even as kids, we were given the freedom to create, and learn about food other than just something that you get frozen from supermarket shelves that you stuff in your mouth. It's pretty much like what my cousin-in-law is teaching her daughter, as they spend some bonding time together.

     Doing little family "rituals" as this also reinforce your idea of a particular comfort food because there is an actual skill or process tied into the food itself, that for me, rounds out the whole experience. From this little activity our parents devised for us kids arose our food preference personality. There were comparisons as to who made the best tasting strawberry milk? Are chunky shakes better than super smooth ones? How pink could you get your own creation? What is the correct strawberry : milk : cornflake ratio? Is your strawberry mash shake shaken, not stirred? Are bananas in the mix a way to show off? ;-)

     All in all, as a kid, making your own strawberry mash shake was a good way to get you out of a grumpy mood in the morning. It was a healthy, filling, breakfast item made with no food processors or blenders. You made it yourself, so it was always extra special. Hey, no one even complained that it was too pink a drink in the morning! :D

     Cheers!

©CherWriter 2011.01.03

Simple Saturday Satisfaction

     Growing up, we cousins had our own schedule that would go something like this:

1. 7:00 am - Breakfast.
2. 8:00 am - 12:00 pm Saturday morning cartoons (for my brother and I) 
3. 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm - Cousins/ Aunts and Uncles' arrival; Lunch with cousins
4. 2:00 - Playtime / nap time (depending on how young you were)
5. 3:00 pm - Merienda of Taho or Toasted pan de sal (bread) with butter and cola
6. 3:00pm - 5:00 pm - Playtime
7. 5:00 pm - Afternoon bath
8. 5:30 pm - Get your weekly allowance from lolo :D (Minimum 5years and below, PhP5.00; PhP1.00 increment for every year thereafter until 12 years of age; Bonus given for good grades and good behavior certified by parents during the week. Hehehehe.)

     This was our family ritual in our paternal grandparents' home, and sometimes, if it was a special Saturday, we would be allowed sleepovers in a cousin's house for a week during summer vacation.

     Such was the life we thankfully were brought up in. We had a natural peer group among our cousins, and we had loving aunts and uncles who really looked after our welfare much like our own parents did.

     So for me, comfort food would always include all foods we had on Saturdays, not only because of it's familiarity (and sometimes predictability... Coffee or Caramel ice cream, anyone? Hehehe), but because the food and special people always went hand-in-hand.

©CherWriter 2010.11.27