Food and Culture



Carla and Audri and I ate the other evening at a packed Cendrillon restaurant in Soho, where the owners had hosted a book party for my translation of Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere in August. Amy and Romy, who have to be the most well-read and educated restaurateurs in America, have just published a cookbook based on Cendrillon's recipes from the Philippines, called, appropriately enough, Memories of Philippine Kitchens. More than a cookbook, though the recipes are very clear and easy to follow (try the chicken adobo recipe--Romy makes the best adobo I've ever eaten), Memories of Philippine Kitchens is also part family memoir and cultural guide to The Philippines, a highly eclectic culture of many islands and influences, including Chinese and Spanish. This year marks the centennial of Filipino immigration to the United States, which the Asian American Writers Workshop and New York University are commemorating through a week-long series of programs called "Moving Archipelago: A Century of Writing Filipino America," so the publication of the cookbook is timely. For more information on this week's events, visit the Asian American Writers Workshop web site http://aaww.org/aaww_events.html.