Planet Panic

by Pam Pastor

  “Ikaw din, niligawan?” I asked.

  “Oo naman, ’di ko lang pinapansin,” she said.

  Lola added that they didn’t learn about the massacres until later. The Japanese had destroyed bridges and getting around was hard.

  I asked her how they escaped from being killed. It was just luck, she said. If they had lived in a different area of Manila, she said, “Malamang, patay kami lahat.”

  It’s easy to think that things that happened in the distant past have nothing to do with you. But I was hit with the realization that if my grandparents had been at the wrong place (or if Lola Charit responded to an American solider’s advances instead of marrying Lolo Osing), I wouldn’t be here today.

  History. I hated it as a kid, but now, I want to know everything.

  February 16, 2014

  Diary of a dengue kid

  It’s still not funny.

  That was one of the thoughts I tried comforting myself with—that one day this whole dengue thing would be funny to me—but it’s still not funny.

  I woke up one Wednesday with an insane fever, and I thought I could Paracetamol it off. Amazingly, I still managed to drag myself to a movie that night, and I realized something was really wrong because one, I was so focused on my aching body that the movie, which was about people trapped in an elevator with the devil, did not scare me at all. I repeat. People. Trapped. Elevator. Devil. Did. Not. Scare. Me. Two, I ended up sleeping early for the first time in years. Three, I felt no desire to go online or even touch my phone at all.

  Oh yes, I really was sick.

  My fever remained consistently high on Thursday. I skipped work, stayed in bed the whole day, sleeping and thinking, “Shit, something is wrong with me.”

  I had zero appetite. When I say zero, I mean zero. My stomach would protest in hunger, and I would find it a struggle to force even one tiny piece of cracker down. I ordered pizza, and it tasted horrible.

  That’s when I knew something was really wrong. Pizza never tastes bad.

  Even drinking water was a struggle. And that was tricky because all day long, people kept telling me I needed fluids, fluids, fluids.

  I tried to pray, bargain, Ibuprofen and Paracetamol my way to feeling better on Friday. It worked, for about twenty hours. And then the blasted fever was back again. I felt like screaming but I had no energy.

  Because my fever just wouldn’t go down, Jill forced me to go the hospital. It wasn’t easy but she did it.

  Six a.m. on Saturday found me crying in the emergency room. I was crying so hard that the blood girl had a difficult time finding a working vein to get my sample. I ended up with two pricks instead of one.

  Yes, shut up, I have a problem with needles.

  My platelet count was down so the doctor wanted to do a dengue test. It was negative. I was sent home. “But you have to come back tomorrow,” the doctor said. The dengue test is only eighty percent accurate. Ve vant more blood.

  I spent the entire day sleeping and watching Everybody Loves Raymond.

  And, because I am a stubborn workhorse, the next day, I got up very early to do an interview. At eight in the morning. On a Sunday.

  Yes, yes, I am stubborn.

  And after my interview, I puked in the hotel bathrooom.

  And after I puked in the bathroom, I went back to the hospital for another blood test.

  I had the perfect vision of how my Sunday night would play out—blood test, drive to restaurant for some hand-pulled noodles, drive back to hospital to get results, platelet count normal, woohoo, let’s go home and party!

  But that’s not what happened.

  Instead, it was: blood test, drive to restaurant for some hand-pulled noodles, drive back to hospital to get results, platelet count lower than ever, wail like a spoiled, teething baby and scare Jill, Giff and Jolo in the process.

  I needed to stay in the hospital, Jill said. They won’t let me leave.

  I don’t want, I said.

  You have to, she said.

  Okay, I said. But no IV.

  I can’t promise you that, she said.

  What happened next?

  I was hooked up to an IV, naturally.

  And for the first time in my life, I was hospitalized.

  I was in the hospital with dengue—exactly a week after I wrote two articles on protecting yourself and your family from that blasted disease.

  I hated the blood tests. They took my blood every twelve hours. 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.

  And then, on my second night in the hospital, the old man in the hospital room next to mine died.

  Jill, Jason and I were in my room. I was on the phone with my grandma when I heard Jason and Jill go, “Oh my god, what was that?”

  They heard a strange sound coming from the next room—a moaning, groaning, gurgling sound.

  And then, a few minutes later, the wailing and the screaming started. It was the old man’s daughter, and she was screaming at the nurse for help.

  The screaming and wailing and crying lasted for hours. The woman was sitting right outside my door, waiting to hear if the doctors were able to revive her father. She wouldn’t stop crying. At one point, Jill stepped out of the room and handed her a cup of water. Soon, their relatives arrived and there was more crying. The noise stopped at about five in the morning and at that point, I was a mess.

  But the truth is, despite my self-pity, my stay at the hospital wasn’t all that horrible.

  My nurses were wonderful. I especially loved Becky Nurse, who would come to my room in the middle of the night to talk to me about love and life.

  At 6 a.m. the following Wednesday, someone came to take my blood and I was amazed because I did not feel the needle. It was the best blood test ever not just because of the lack of pain but also because it was the test that told my doctor I was ready to go home.

  In 2010, I wrote two articles about dengue. “A parent’s anti-mosquito arsenal” and “Dengue-proof your home.” And where was I exactly a week after my stories came out in the newspaper? In the hospital with dengue.

  And that is why I will not be writing about Ebola.

  December 2, 2014

  Carbs

  and

  calories

  Donuts

  Important lesson learned about buying donuts: Never panic and ask the guy behind the counter what he recommends because he will pause and think and say, “Hmm. For you? Passion fruit.” Then you will feel obligated to order it even though you’re pretty sure you hate passion fruit. This is confirmed the minute you sink your teeth into the donut and the tangy, fruity, fragrant frosting hits your tongue. Your whole body rebels and curses at you. “There was chocolate, there was dulce de leche, you idiot! Why didn’t you buy that?” And you will feel like kicking yourself because chocolate and dulce de leche do sound way better than the gunk still stuck on your tongue. Then you will spend the rest of the day walking around with a soggy unloved half-eaten donut in your bag.

  June 10, 2013

  Vocabulary lessons from Potato Corner

  Tragedy

  ’tra-j-dē

  noun

  Buying a tub of Potato Corner, heading back to the car and spilling its contents onto the floor after you’ve eaten only one fry. One fucking fry.

  Tragedy.

  The next day:

  Victory

  ’vik-t(-)rē

  noun

  Buying a tub of Potato Corner, heading back to the car and spilling its contents onto your lap after you’ve eaten only one fry. Your lap, not the floor. (Fuck you, floor.)

  Victory.

  May 9, 2015

  How to make Garlic Parmesan Chicken Wings

  I swear, there’s a real recipe in here somewhere.

  What you need:

  a computer

  Internet connection

  Google

  nail polish

  top coat

  4 kilos of chicken wings

  flour for dredging

  1 cup of salted butt
er

  8 cloves of garlic, crushed

  powdered parmesan

  grated parmesan

  Italian seasoning

  onion salt

  onion powder

  garlic granules or powder

  paprika

  salt

  pepper

  Directions:

  Realize that spicy pasta and Mexican corn aren’t enough. Your dinner party menu needs chicken.

  Briefly consider making your soy garlic chicken wings but drop the idea because, admit it, you have done soy garlic chicken to death.

  Think about making buffalo wings and then roll your eyes at your stupidity. The pasta is spicy, the corn is spicy, what are you trying to do—set someone’s mouth on fire? (If that’s the plan, target Giff.)

  Have your lightbulb moment. Garlic parmesan wings! Delicious! And not spicy! Yes!

  Google “garlic parmesan wings recipe.”

  Look at photos of garlic parmesan wings and try—and fail—to decide which plate of wings looks the most delicious.

  Google “best garlic parmesan wings recipe.”

  Google “perfect garlic parmesan wings recipe.”

  Google “garlic parmesan wings recipe so good your guests will want to dry hump them.”

  Stop googling.

  Watch old episodes of Dateline and 48 Hours on YouTube for hours.

  Stop watching when you realize that you still haven’t found a recipe for garlic parmesan wings.

  Google “best garlic parmesan wings recipe” again.

  Read about twenty different recipes and find yourself completely confused, like the Bachelorette in the first episode of, uh, The Bachelorette.

  And, just like the Bachelorette, think, “They all look meaty. And delicious. How will I choose?”

  Say to yourself, hopefully unlike the Bachelorette: “Screw choosing. I will use them all at the same time.”

  Use your phone to grab screenshots of the ingredients list of all the different recipes.

  Go to the supermarket.

  Ignore your ingredients list and head to the chocolates section first.

  Go to the dairy section and look for a block of parmesan cheese because you want to grate your own.

  Be left disappointed by the measly cheese selection and walk to the pasta section to grab a can of powder masquerading as parmesan.

  Return to the dairy section for one more attempt at finding decent parmesan. Find real grated parmesan hiding in a black box. It comes with a free pot holder! Score!

  Resist the urge to pump your fist in the air.

  Grab three blocks of salted butter.

  Head to the produce section and grab a bag of garlic.

  Stand in front of the spice racks and scroll through your many screenshots. Feel a little overwhelmed. Make the quick decision to just get all the spices listed in all the recipes and figure out which ones to use later.

  Grab dried basil, Italian seasoning, onion salt, onion powder, garlic granules.

  Scan the shelf for garlic salt and find nothing. Wonder: if you can’t buy garlic salt, can you just use garlic granules and salt?

  Look at all the spices in your cart and convince yourself that even if you don’t get to use all of them, you’ll find a way to use them later.

  Ask Jill how much chicken you should buy.

  Wait as she calls their cook and listen as the cook recommends that you get 2 kilos of chicken.

  Go to the poultry guy and ask for 4 kilos of wings, just to be sure. You don’t want to run out of chicken wings—it has happened to you once before and it wasn’t pretty.

  Ask them to chop the wings between the flat and the drumette.

  Pay for your purchases.

  Leave the supermarket.

  Paint your nails.

  Seriously, paint your nails. You can’t have horribly chipped nails when you’re co-hosting a dinner.

  Go to the kitchen and ignore the chicken.

  Make hot fudge.

  While you’re making hot fudge, find someone who will peel and crush the garlic cloves for you.

  Spend so much time working on the hot fudge that by the time you finish, it’s almost time for dinner.

  Season the raw chicken with salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. Really rub those flavors in, like you are giving the wings a creepy, pervy massage.

  Deep-fry the chicken. If you are lucky, find someone to deep-fry them for you.

  Panic when the first guest arrives and the food isn’t ready yet.

  Chit-chat as the chicken wings are frying and the pasta is being served and the corn is being grilled.

  Panic again when you realize that everyone is waiting for the chicken.

  Panic even more when you realize that you need to throw the sauce together now and you have no time to consult your twenty recipes.

  Take a deep breath and remind yourself that if you can ace your El Filibusterismo exam in high school without ever reading the book, you can throw together a garlic parmesan sauce without rereading a recipe.

  Melt a few spoonfuls of butter.

  Add the crushed garlic and sauté it.

  Just before it turns brown, add the rest of the butter.

  When the butter is completely melted, add the parmesan. Start with the powder.

  If you have enough grated parmesan, add some of it to the butter mixture, too. If not, don’t. You will need it later.

  Add the spices liberally. Onion salt, onion powder, garlic granules, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper—throw them in.

  Try not to look surprised when your butter mixture actually starts looking like garlic parmesan sauce.

  Grab one of the freshly fried wings, put it on a plate and drizzle it with your sauce.

  Take a bite and chew.

  Resist the urge to shout, “Holy shit, it really tastes like garlic parmesan wings!”

  Make Jill take a bite and pretend to be nonchalant when she says, “Sarap!”

  Grab a sturdy container, put a few wings in, drizzle the wings with sauce, close the Tupperware and shake it until the wings are coated with sauce.

  Open the container, add some grated parmesan, close and shake.

  Serve.

  Repeat steps 60 to 62 until your guests are too full to eat another wing.

  The next day, realize that you still have about a kilo of wings left and that you will need to make more sauce.

  Repeat steps 49 to 62.

  July 3, 2013

  Chasing cronuts

  Last year, while looking for a breakfast place in Soho, my friend Joel and I stumbled into Dominique Ansel’s bakery and ate “perfect little egg sandwiches.”

  A week after that, Dominique launched the now-legendary cronut. In the short amount of time that it took me to fly home to Manila, unpack and repack my suitcase and fly back to New York with Jill, the bakery had become world-famous, spawning copycats all over the world.

  We resisted the pull of the cronut, not wanting to make the trek from Brooklyn to Soho so early in the morning just to join the hordes of people lining up for fried pastry.

  But I couldn’t escape it. When I returned to Manila weeks later, my editor asked me to review local cronut knockoffs. I did, trying twelve of them in two days with Lola Charit.

  I swore never to eat another cronut again.

  But it’s almost a year later, I’m back in New York and yesterday, while looking at Time Out, I saw that Dominique was giving away cronuts and cookie shots at different locations in the city.

  In a marketing ploy to announce his upcoming book, sugar seekers were supposed to hunt for a balloon-tethered stuffed rabbit at secret spots that were to be announced on Dominique’s Instagram and Twitter.

  Fun, I thought. It was even more fun because I didn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn. And, more than the cronut, I was excited to try the cookie shot, which was Dominique’s latest creation.

  The first three locations were the Flatiron District, Chinatown and Union Square, and I was convinced t
hat the next stop would be the West Village, where we were. “Bleecker please!” I tweeted to Dominique, as if my little shout-out could dictate his next move.

  I was ignored. The next locations were Washington Square Park, the Meatpacking District and Columbus Circle.

  I grumbled. They were about to announce the last location but I didn’t care anymore. We left the West Village and headed to Soho to go to the Dr. Martens store. But when we got off the subway, I looked up and there it was—Dominique Ansel’s bakery.

  “Let’s go buy some cookie shots,” I told Janna. We walked in and there was a line of people waiting to order. I was looking at the menu boards and when I glanced down, I saw them. Two trays of cronuts, freshly glazed and within my reach. Holy shit.

  And then it hit me: What if the bakery was the final location?

  A tall man squeezed past me. Dominique Ansel. Holy shit! The bakery was the final location!

  I shoved cash into Janna’s hands, telling her to place our order so I could search for the stuffed rabbit.

  In the tiny hallway, I ran into Jill, who was standing about five inches from Dominique and looking just as excited as me.