We arrived at our beach front paradise around mid-afternoon, and my friend mentioned that we should cook some fresh fish for dinner. The hotel we’d chosen didn’t have a kitchen so I wondered how she intended to make a seafood dinner. She mentioned that she’d seen a bbq grill at the corner of the property when we’d come in. We walked back and found what appeared to me to be a discarded pile of metal, but she picked it up and after a couple minutes had reassembled it into a grill.
Continuing with reservations about this endeavor, I mentioned that the last town we saw before arriving was 20 minutes away, and we didn’t have a vehicle. She suggested we flag down a motor tricycle and get a ride to the fish market. As she delivered her transportation solution, a motor tricycle pulled in with a man selling cooked corn out of a box on the side. We bought a couple ears of corn, and my friend inquired about getting to the market. A couple minutes later, she hopped onto the back and waved goodbye with a handful of the money I’d given her to purchase supplies.
I wasn’t worried when she hadn’t returned an hour later as we were in the Philippines, she spoke the language, and I knew nothing happens quickly here. When she did pull in, it was with a huge grin on her face and a bag of seafood held up, triumphantly, in her hand. After paying the tricycle driver, she told me the story of her trip to the market.
Because the man on the motor tricycle had just begun selling his corn when he’d pulled into our inn, he had to sell his stock while giving my friend a ride, so she helped out by yelling “corn” as they drove down the road and through villages. Along the way, someone even inquired of the driver if he’d gotten a new wife.
What corn wasn’t sold off the trike was sold at the market when they arrived, and my friend walked around procuring our dinner. On the way back from the market, they were flagged down by local school kids who asked if they could have a ride. In just one hours time, the motor tricycle had been a food delivery vehicle, a taxi, and a school bus. That’s the way it is in this part of the world: solutions instead of limitations.
I questioned her when she opened the bag of seafood and saw four large fish, half a dozen prawns, and two crabs. There were just the two of us, but in the Philippines, I learned, you always cook extra because you never know when family might show up.
The next discussion came up when we began to light the grill. The charcoal she’d bought was very slow to catch. Fortunately, we’d had a lot of brochures from our trip, so we used those as starter. I wanted to build a chimney, and she wanted to lay them out flat. Being the local expert, she won out, and after some fanning, produced a nice even bed of glowing coals.
Because we had no refrigerator, she cooked everything, including the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. There was so much food that we had to sit and eat each thing as it came off the grill. We put the crab on last, and both of us noted we had never heard of cooking crab on the grill before, but heat is heat, and it managed to steam the meat using the water inside the shell before popping, when we decided they were ready.
By the time we finished, we were both stuffed, and had a meal as good and much cheaper than the one we would have the next day. The best thing I like about traveling with my friend is that I discover there is very little that I know and much to learn. In addition to a great meal conjured out of a heap of scrap metal, she inspired a story out of a trip to the market to create our seaside dining experience.
