Romy and I just came back yesterday from a 4-day conference of the International Association of Culinary Professionals in Chicago (IACP, www.iacp.com ).  We went with high hopes for winning an award for the Philippines as we were listed as a Finalist in the Julia Child First Book Award category.  As it turned out, we did not win that award, so we braced ourselves for a long evening of more awards and awful food.  However, we were surprised when they announced that Memories was the winner and recipient of the Jane Grigson Award for Distinguished Scholarship and the Quality of its Research and Presentation (exact wording of the award).

This award is actually more prestigious as ALL the judges of all categories vote for this.  No one is allowed to compete for this which is why it is not listed earlier with finalists as with all the other categories.  It is only given when they feel that there is a book that deserves it.  There are years when no winner is announced.  So we are quite fortunate to be in this company of authors many of whom are our mentors (Rachel Laudan and Elizabeth Andoh, etc).

Jane Grigson was a British food writer and food scholar from Cambridge.  Romy actually met her while he was lunch chef at Hubert’s in the early 80s and developed a rapport with her.  She even wrote a couple lines about him in one of her books referring to him as a Filipino chef experimenting with exotic Asian ingredients.  She unfortunately died in 1990. She is known for her witty, (even humorous) and clear writing backed up with much research.

Romy and I were given a chance to say something as we accepted our award.  The only thing I can remember saying is “This award is for the Philippines.  We also share it with all the Filipinos out there who constantly ask us why Philippine food is not more well known or mainstream in the U.S.  This should be the start of sharing our culture with the rest of you. …”  I think I thanked my editor and STC, but the rest is really a blank.  Romy got to tell the audience his connection with Jane Grigson.  So all in all, it was a wonderful end to a long and tedious evening.

The woman beside me at our table who is from Sonoma said to me that the first thing she was going to do was eat Filipino.  There were many culinary historians who came to us to invite us to speak again at their gatherings.  We also met the scholar in residence at that particular conference, Dr. Bruce Kraig, who said HE LOVED FILIPINOS.  He and his wife are doing a documentary about the Philippines for PBS.  We hope that we can find out more about that in the future.

Mabuhay!  And as Romy will say, Makibaka!

By Amy Besa
Presented at the LA Tour, Sunday, March 4, 2007

Our cookbook, Memories of Philippine Kitchens, took three and a half years to make and probably represents the most productive, exciting and rewarding years of our lives. It started out as a cookbook contract that was offered to us by Stewart Tabori & Chang in late 2002 that eventually blossomed into a book about one Filipino generation’s comfort foods. These foods of both childhood and adulthood gave a personal face to that particular generation’s culture and history. Especially when recalled as childhood memories, food is indeed a wonderful lens with which to view culture and history. We were able to accumulate a roomful of research material from Philippine libraries that included copies of old cookbooks and recipes from magazines and newspapers to taped interviews of dozens of people in the Philippines from northern Luzon down to the Visayas who shared their day to day knowledge of the intricacies of Philippine food.
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Well, not really, but Julie Weiss serves up Cendrillon’s Wild Boar Pizza for guests of a recent dinner party.

Hello, Amy! Marisa Aguila-Manalo here, classmate of Jaime. Ordered several copies of your book through amazon…what a treat! Thank you very much and congratulations for producing such a masterpiece. Could almost taste the food with the high quality photos. The information and vignettes about the regional delicacies were well-written and very engaging. (couldn’t put the book down…just had to read it in the office when the books arrived!) .

Congratulations again and thank you for making holiday shopping a lot easier this year!

Isa

Memories is selling out at certain retail locations, so come on in to Cendrillon to pick up your signed copy for the holidays!!

The response has been so amazing towards the book! Here are some great emails we have received from our lovely supporters:

“thanks!

i’ve started reading the book and i’m really enjoying it. browsed through the photos, they were beautiful. i’m going very slowly inorder to absorb all the information. you see, although we were raised to appreciate a variety of different foods, we grew up in manila and never had a chance to understand the history and origins of the dishes we enjoyed. so, your book will definitely provide these knowledge most specially to our children who may have grown up in america, but equally enjoy and appreciate our philippine cuisine. thanks to you and romy.

-dada”