Last Thursday my grandma called me up to drive her to the beach because she is almost paralyzed. I live in the Metro Manila so there are literally a lot of beaches to go to in whichever direction you want to go. My choice is anywhere clean. So I decided to head south to the Lucena Quezon / Batangas area.
Why that area? On the way in San Pablo city I can pass by the Honey House and by their absolutely pure and true honey. On the way I can pass by the healer Vander Gaditano in Candelaria and ask him to see my dear old grandmother. And Vander can suggest to me a beach where we could go to from his place.
That we did. We wound up in a new development in a beach one hour from Candelaria. The place was new. It was provincially run, so you 5-star types in the big city should not have any expectations. The beach we wound up with has a mangrove in front, muddy type. Not good. Sigh… it was getting late and that was where the signboards led.
How much dipping did my grandma really do? In the afternoon when we arrived she dipped some 10 minutes while me and the nannie walked her side by side only up to her knees. That’s it.
The best part was going there. On the way we bought rambutan and lanzones. The lanzones we ate was our first taste of this season. My grandma skipped lunch for lanzones and rambutan… hey, that is lunch.
The following morning all we did was eat and eat and eat. I found fresh fish from a nearby fishing village and I was eating it fully raw in front of my grandma. I asked her if she’d like some sashimi, she said no, but she was hungry and the nannie was taking a bath so no one there to cook her hot meal… I let her taste my super raw fish. Of course it tasted great… she wanted more and she wound up eating half my fish raw! Ha ha ha, and some of you think my grandma does not eat raw.
After the fish she wanted more, so I seared some beef steak. Top fatty sirloin steak 10 seconds per side. Of course raw inside. My grandma ate a lot of the seared steak. Score another one for almost bloody raw food. My grandma can be a raw foodist if you give her really fresh animal foods.
She did decline my raw oysters dipped in calamansi juice… maybe she was too full. She did eat rice with her beef. We asked from the neighbor. As you know, I don’t eat rice so I never bothered to bring some.