vegetable salad

The lady tending her crops under the pouring cold rain 

                        

             I do love Caesar’s salad or any vegetable salad, for that matter. Yes, it is everyone’s favorite especially if he/she is a fitness buff, though Im not (I think so).  Most salads are not complete without  a piece of lettuce. It is used as platter lining, lone vegetable with a dressing or sauce, or one of the ingredients of a vegetable salad. It is good to munch if it is served fresh. The crunching inside the mouth is too much to savor for the sweetness of this leafy salad favorite.

Have you ever wondered how a single leaf of lettuce reached your platter? Well, you must have bought it.  But how it was raised, maintained, till harvested and been served in your meal.

I believed that any crop is been cultivated with labor of love.

her sons probably, stopped a while when rain poured heavily 

back to work after the rain stopped a while

Recently when I was in the strawberry field of Benguet, though it was raining hard, I still went there excited to see an actual strawberry fruit still attached to the plant. To my dismay, there was no strawberry for harvest that day.  Yet, I still went to the field, searching for red berries near the base of this green plant. Nearby, I observed this one old woman despite the heavy rain still clearing some weeds from her garden of lettuce.   Along with her, I guessed, are her sons. I say so, because they were able to rest a while when the rain fell hard some time while the old woman kept on weeding.

Hard labor is only the least description of the effort provided by farmers in cultivating their crop. It is not enough that you have the land and agricultural inputs to be able to produce food out of the land.  Come to think of this, in every grain, stalk, leaf, pod, fruit, herb you eat a labor of old women, out of school youths, frail old men, and other most disadvantaged bothers and sisters, and even children. I am not soliciting pity here, but let us acknowledge that without farmers; we may have enough money yet there will no food on our table. 

The next time we have a sumptuous salad with lettuce, may we remember that it may be raised by farmers that despite the uncooperative weather were out there tending this crop so we may continue enjoy our vegetable salad. 

jack's rice

            While visiting Benguet, Ate Yolly brought me to a restaurant that its existence is as old as Benguet. The restaurant has a touch of history adorned at their wall, showing its humble beginning.  Maybe that is what it should be. The food business would last as long as there is a unique menu that keeps your customer on coming back.

At the Jack Restaurant, their hit came from their most ordered Jack’s Rice. It is a complete food for people on the go and also those on tight budget that definitely will satisfy one’s palate.  It is a combination of Baguio’s chopsuey, a slice of chicken and a slice of pork with rice topped with a sunny side-up egg. You can request not to serve the pork if you are not a pork eater.  The mouth watering chopsuey enhanced the taste of the meats. It has a different taste, that I can say separates them from any chopsuey served from other restaurants.  This is best for breakfast and lunch. Less the egg, it is still good for dinner.  Filipinos, I supposed associate egg with breakfast so to speak.

One serve is very affordable with only Php75.00. Of course, they also serve other dishes that range from noodles to crispy pata and sinigang.

If you are in Baguio City, visit their place at Km.4, La Trinidad, Benguet, 15-20 minutes away from city. Though they also other branches in Benguet and Baguio which you can visit and unleash your dragon appetite in a very affordable price. This is best place for group of bakasyonistas looking for reasonable food trip in the locality especially if you wanted to visit strawberry farm. The place is along the way going to the farm.