The Chronicles of Malunggay Part I

Or "How Turning into Cow Helped Me Discover my Hidden Kitchen Goddess"

Tabitha, is a callous, voracious, heartless little parasite.  She is demanding, loud and impatient.  In full throttle, her cries of outrage can be heard two locks down the street and have been known to set-off the car alarm on our neighbor's fancy porsche.   She has the temper of John MacEnroe on speed and when crying, has the endurance of Lance Armstrong on the Tour de France (we actually timed her once and she didn't stop crying -- loudly -- for 48 minutes straight). 

Do NOT be fooled by the engaging grin.  Do NOT allow yourself to be hypnotized by her twinkly eyes.  Do NOT make eye contact at all lest you be unwittingly drawn into an "Awwwww...." moment.

Tabitha is the annihilator. 

She's also six months old and happens to be the world's most adorable baby -- or so I  like to think (...and many people agree with me on this, like ROn, and my parents, and Jazel Calvo - who would know because she's smart and a lawyer;  and my sister and my best friend Rutchie who would also know because she's a pediatrician and therefore, has seen gazillions of babies.)

After Tempest abdicated her throne and has gone on to greater things (i.e. single-handedly bossing around her kindergarten class as opposed to just bossing around her parents and family), did I also mention that Tabitha is the new dictator of our household? 

Yes folks. She rules her father and myself with an iron mitten -- embroidered with pink bunnies no less.   

And she's perfect!

An angel.

As long as you feed her when she's hungry.

Or else...

And did I mention I'm breastfeeding?  

(Insert sounds of my unenlightened  male readers -- there are like, two of them probably, -- gagging with disgust and frantically clicking the mouse to navigate away from this page here).

So what do being chased by an irate little dog (who thinks it's a rottweiler but actually looks like a small, dirty, furry rat); our next door neighbor and spaghetti have to do with this blog?  

Everything.

Since it has been a constant struggle to satisfy Miss Tabitha's seemingly insatiable appetite, I have been on a six month quest to discover the holy grail of...well...milk.  Luckily for me, my mother, my OB GYN and Tabitha's pediatrician all agree that  Malunggay will do the trick and that ingesting enough of it will make me a veritable fountain of milk. 

The discovery that I wouldn't actually have to EAT (shudder,shudder) this vegetable threw me over the moon -- they apparently come in capsule fomr now!!  Great.  I'd just need to pop a few pills every now and then, and voila! Gallons of milk.  Fat baby.  Skinny Miscen.

Unfortunately, this did not work out the way I had envisioned.  Apparently ingesting enough capsules to make Pepe Smith proud (if they were drugs) was not enough.

I had to actually EAT the malunggay (shudder shudder shudder).

Which is why on a lovely Tuesday morning (i.e. today), bright and early (i.e. before the stupid dog next door wakes up and notices I'm in their yard) I was helping myself to the neighbor's malunggay leaves.   

To assuage the outrage of my readers (and because you need to know that I am NOT a criminal), the "yard" in question is actually a shared space that neither our neighbor or we own.  The village actually owns it.  My neighbor just decided it was a good place to recreate Tarzan's home jungle and plant twenty gazillion plants in there. 

Everyone knows that mosquitoes just love plants.  Ergo, the fact that by having all those plants around, my neighbor exposes me to dengue fever on a daily basis -- leads me to conclude that I am, at the very least, entitled to help myself to the malunggay. 

(Also, said neighbors are still asleep at this time and hopefully will not notice that half the foliage of their tree is missing).

But then there's the stupid dog.  He has other ideas. And by the way, the delusional (thinks he's a rottweiler remember?) mongrel doesn't even belong to the same neighbor who planted the malunggay tree!

Luckily, I managed to escape with my booty -- a big bilao of malunggay leaves before mop-with-feet (a.k.a. "The Dog") caught up with me. 

 (Note to self : Next time, send yaya for the malunggay leaves.  Or carry big stick --- hmmm...but would need to have free hands for bilao and also, for climbing tree. Hmmm... dilemma.)

Malunggay in hand, and dignity intact (not having fallen out of tree in my pajamas with cats on them or gotten attacked or injured by the mangy rat-dog I fondly refer to as "He-who-must-be-spayed"). 

Upon my arrival, I was met by Ron the Skeptic, whose utter lack of faith in my culinary abilities is insulting considering that:

a) I have NEVER actually poisoned him by accident (...and believe me 
    if I wanted to actually poison anyone, I could do it and make it look like 
    an "accident");

b) It's HIS spawn of a child (aka the cutest baby since Tempest grew up)
    that I'm doing all this hard work for; 

c) The malunggay mixture I concocted (while admittedly strange looking) was
    NOT all THAT bad; and

d) He NEEDS to get over malunggay/orange juice smoothie I made because
   that was ages and ages ago and I'm sure he's had worse stuff to eat
   or drink since then.

So in the face of such (UNDESERVED) skepticism I channeled my inner Nigella Lawson (did I mention that as a fringe benefit of breastfeeding, your ahem "assets" assume Nigella-like proportions).

Et voila ----  "Monster Meatballs From Mars"

(Recipe tomorrow. I promise.  I would type it now but the dictator is awake and the neighbor won't be pleased if his stupid car alarm goes off again.)