Lemongrass

Lemongrass is an essential ingredient in Thai cooking.

These are some of the flavors I love and that I link with American cuisine, but I also could not live without cumin, cardamom, lemongrass, dill, ginger and rosemary.

The salmon was seasoned with wild garlic and lemongrass.

The salmon was seasoned with ramsons and lemongrass.

These days, I am wearing my red touque with orange letters in Tagalog, "MGA AWSTRALYA ANG MGA ESTRELYA," alluding to space colonization and the cold and hot deserts of other worlds. These days, I talk with Greg, my religious Filipino friend, at Starbucks café. We talk about travelling, anthropology, international food, and religion. This morning, I played in the midst of dense fog in a neighbourhood grassy field. At Starbucks café, in the foggy morning, I was drinking my reddish Passion Tango iced tea, which contained hibiscus, lemongrass, cinnamon, passion fruit, pineapple, and so forth. Greg gifted me a chocolate croissant. At Starbucks café, in the grey-sky afternoon, I was drinking the seasonal Oat Nog Latte. (Incidentally, Nog is a dwarf-like Ferengi alien character in the Star Trek franchise.) Kristina, part-Inuit part-Norwegian, was my barista. She has a handsome face, and her mannerisms and style reflect some things about her Inuit ancestors. "Viktor, it's like you're part-Inuit," she told me. She knows that I am from the Philippines. At my table, I exercised with my hand grip strengthener, which I carried in my army jacket pocket. At the café, I greeted Don the alluring white man and Květa the solitary Czech lady, as I exited. It is the 4th of December of 2024.

After 9 in the sunny, blue-sky morning, I walked to Starbucks café, there to drink Passion Tango iced tea, which contained hibiscus, lemongrass, cinnamon, passion fruit, pineapple, and so forth. Mark, Pepe, and Jason dropped by, and I greeted them. Mark is a second-generation Japanese-Canadian. Pepe is from Chile. And Jason is an Anglo whom I call "Mr. Sci-fi." In fact, we call each other "Mr. Sci-fi," despite that he claims that I am more "sci-fi" than he is. I mentioned today the book, The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien, but it is really more of a fantasy-genre book. Homebound, I wandered through Dunoon Drive to view the big pink magnolia blossoms. Later in the day, I will venture again to St. Albans Road to wander through the bloom-fall of sakura, the pink cherry-blossom trees.

It's a grey cloudy morning this summer day of the 22nd of June of 2025. Before dawn, I had a snack of two tofu fish cuttlefish corn potato tangerine pork rolls with strawberries. Around 8, I was at Starbucks café, there to drink Passion Tango iced tea, which contained hibiscus, lemongrass, cinnamon, passion fruit, pineapple, and so forth. I waited for my religious Baptist Filipino friend, Greg, who was there usually on Sundays at that time, but he didn't show up. Then, I walked to Tim Hortons café to drink an iced coffee with oat milk and eat a sausage English muffin. There were families. There were several ex-Soviet bachelors who spoke Russian. Before 10, I trekked towards the Roman Catholic church at St. Albans Road. I admired the bamboo grove and the Emerald Tree on the way. At the church, there were already some worshippers in the nave: many Filipinos, and some Hispanics and Cantonese. The Filipina nun in her habit was talking to some Filipinas in the lobby area. They were admiring someone's blue skirt, which cost 80 dollars. Today, this morning, many blue hydrangeas adorned the front of the nave, inside. (There is interest in Interlingua.) Yesterday and today counted as my 50th and 51st visits to that church, the "Clam Temple" as I call it because of its architecture. Some people wore beige, an interest in Chabacano. When I walk outside, I usually talk to rabbits in Lojban: "coico'o ractu" (Hello-bye rabbits!). I'm often like Dr. Dolittle.

You could just use ordinary shop-bought kecap manis to marinade the meat, but making your own is easy, has a far more elegant fragrance and is, above all, such a great brag! Flavouring kecap manis is an intensely personal thing, so try this version now and next time cook the sauce down with crushed, split lemongrass and a shredded lime leaf.