I Should be Proud, But I’m Not

And a happy early Wednesday to you. It’s one of those rare times I’m up this early and I don’t feel exhausted. But I have to get moving, so I’ll keep this brief.

First off, my stint as a juror is over… without me having to ever step in court. Guess the caseload is light this week. So I don’t have to worry about it for another six years.

Second, what caused the title of this post was an article I saw on Twitter. I don’t have the link on hand, but it’s on the Washington Post website. Another piece about how Filipino food has finally arrived; noted some Filipino restaurants and those that are starting to cook Filipino food in the DC/Northern Virginia/maybe Maryland region; and snippets from Nicole Ponseca, the poster child/darling of the Filipino food movement.

I should be all rah rah about this and be happy. I am to a certain extent… but come on. Filipino cuisine hasn’t finally arrived. It’s been here. For a LONG time. If you live anywhere with a Filipno polulation you've most likely come across our stuff. But it takes some Fear Factor and Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern before people start to get curious… outside of areas that have large Filipino populations (aka the coasts and major US cities. Anywhere there's a hospital... but that's stereotyping, even if it is true). We’ve been spouting how great our food is for years.

Hiya… shame. Could you call my negativity that? Perhaps. I think many of the older generation have it, but it was ingrained in them to be that way. To be modest. To not boast. Bait... good. The younger generations are not like that. If you have to call it anything, they are “OA” – overacting. But I guess you have to be so absurdly OA for people to take notice. Balut eating contests? Pass. But it does get people wondering what’s going on.

And why does Filipino food have to be fancy? Something that was mentioned in the article. Fine dining or something. Why does it need to dressed up to be accepted? If you wanted to do that to say, “yeah, we can be fancy too!” Go ahead, do it. Do you. But I will be happy going to my mom & pop to get my Filipino food fix. Or just go home and eat. Probably better that way, those mom & pops have varied quality.

Blah. Proud and negative. Embarassed, but always with good intentions. Whatever. It’s early, I’m out of time. There still is no Filipino restaurant in the Capital Region. There is Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese. No Filipino. There are people who “cater” in the area. I don’t know who they are, but they do it. But no actual brick and mortar place. I think it would be kind of cool to open one up. Or do a pop-up. Food truck. Something. I’ve been taking these cooking classes for a reason… maybe for that.

But you need money for that. And time. And a whole lot of confidence. I lack just about all of that. So for now I guess I’ll just cook it and give it away to friends and co-workers. Because I can’t eat it all.