The affair started when I went to Chinatown to have dim sum with my friend at Harbour City restaurant. Afterwards we stopped in the Chinese grocery. In the coconut milk aisle my eye was drawn to the Mama Sita brand Filipino spices. As a mama sita herself, my friend advised me on what meals to try out, and I bought the Adobo and Sinigang mixes. We made a dinner date for Tuesday.
Day of, I needed more ingredients. Safeway is boring so I went to Filipino Market on 37th st SW. The shelves were stocked with all kinds of sauces and spices and strange confections. I almost bought a bag of Egg Nog cookies, but instead was won over by the ingredient list on the Ube candies (condensed milk, purple yam, gelatinous mutant coconut, sugar and margarine).
In the sauce aisle I quickly found a neat little bottle of chili sauce, and looked for fish sauce in the same dimensions. I asked the lady working there for help, but there was only one size available: 750 ml. Now, I've eaten stinky tofu (smells like feet) on the streets of Taiwan, and liked it, but that's where it stayed--on the street. So I was wary of buying close to a liter of fish sauce, with its notes of ear wax and old shoes, and bringing it into my home. It was a commitment. But a cheap one ($3), so I took a chance.
Our relationship so far has been good. The Sinigang went over well with my friend. It's a distinctly sour and salty soup. My friend said her mother would be pleased to know I'd made it. Fish sauce and I got together later in the week for a red hot Thai curry. When we're not cooking something up together, fish sauce keeps to itself (I haven't caught any errant whiffs of it when walking through the kitchen). In its big bottle, fish sauce towers above all the other sauces in the cupboard: the hoisin, the Worchester, the Korean red pepper sauce, the soya. My friends like it, my mother does not approve. We haven't set any future dates, but I always know this tall, dark foreigner will be around whenever I have the urge.
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