Wednesday, September 14, 2005

My Trip to the Philippine Store

I went to the Philippine store today. It's one of those pan-Asian grocery stores that are so unfortunately rare here in Indy. It's called Mekhong, but a couple from the Philippines bought it sometime late last year, so I call it the Philippine store, even though they focus mostly on south-east Asian ingredients. This is to distinguish it from the other pan-Asian store near my house that's focused mostly on Japanese stuff but is run by a black guy. I call that one "the Asian grocery store on Shadeland Ave."

Anyway, I went there to get some rice and some scallions. I got the last bag of jasmine rice in the place and brought it and the scallions up to the counter where the two Philippine ladies working there were chatting. They asked me what I was going to make with the rice, and I answered that I was going to be making coke chicken and was out of rice to eat with it. This didn't seem to register, as one of them asked me if I was planning on making adobo. I said no, though I'd like to try adobo sometime and was going to give it a shot with the other half of the chicken that I was using for my coke chicken. She looked really surpised and said "what's that??" I said it was a dish that I'd eaten in China a couple times that was chicken cooked in coke with ginger, star anise, and some other stuff. They asked me what I had done in China, and I answered that I had been and English teacher there. One of them told me that I should get a job in the Philippines teaching English to nursing students, since they are planning to export a bunch of RNs over here due to the lack of domestic ones. I said that I hadn't thought of that, but that I really wanted to visit the Philippines. They replied that I shouldn't visit the Philippines, because it wasn't as beautiful as Japan and I should go there to visit instead. On vacation from my job teaching nurses, I guess. Anyway, we talked for a while about flights to Hong Kong from the Philippines and how to cook adobo chicken for a while and then I left.

I guess the moral of this story is that the Philipines isn't a great place to visit, but a good place to teach English to aspiring nurses. The funny thing is, every person I've met from the Philippines has had impeccable English. I guess they'd need to learn medical terminology and stuff like that, but I'm not exactly qualified in that area. Anyway, that's my story. Alice thought I should let y'all hear about it. You can find out how my coke chicken turned out here. Have a nice day!

1 Comments:

Blogger goaskalice said...

Let's go teach the RNs so we can gets some BING in Manila. Stat!!

6:19 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home