5:15p

ode to salted shrimp paste!
aka BAGOONG, baby!
perhaps it is the Ilocano blood that runs through my veins (the other half is bicolano),
but dammit..Bagoong is a favorite staple food of mine.
you can't go wrong with a nice jar of it.
(I prefer the kind that is already sauted in garlic and all that good stuff)

of course, you can eat it with your kare kare
or cook it in your Pinakbet
or just saute it with pork, sitaw and green beans.

but for today, in my quest for something different and cheap to eat,
I had it with tomatoes and steaming rice...just the way my Ilocano father first taught me how
to eat it. And what a lesson it was.

Especially now in my state of unemployment,
where every penny counts,
a regular-sized jar of this can last for months...years even!
and if i don't have any vegetables around to mix it with,
I'm quite happy to simply enjoy it with a nice bowl of hot rice.
hell, if the poor folks in the provinces in the Philippines can
survive on it, then I surely can!

even though it's stinky, wierd looking, and high in salt content,
it's safe to say that it has provided some type of nourishment to
those who cannot afford much to eat...or at least the psychological mask of nourishment.

hmm..you think all that sodium has gone to my head?