the cardava recipe of rirayee-sama and roiroi-san

Anyone wants some cardava dishes fresh from the oven?

I did just make a food offer ayt?

No and Yes

No. Im not really offering you food, but Yes, i am indeed offering one.

Now, don't get me wrong.

Technically, what i got is really not the warm food, but the procedures how to make a good one, of course out from our own banana native plantain, Musa sapientum, better known locally as cardaba or saba. And its not just one recipe, but lots of them. Just recently, my Cardava Recipe Book has passed its last editing stage and is in the printing process!

Oi, it might seem that I'm bragging about having one book done, but its definitely worth blogging. Whew! What Ive been through to accomplish that wasn't a good road, mind you.

During the early months of 2007, i pretty got excited when this minor project under our 3-year project with B-ACE was designated to me, and in particular, that is to urge cardava communities, students and professional cooks to develop, and/or create, invent, then consolidate into a book all of the possible recipes, may be existing, indigent or new, cardava recipes. All my life, Ive only known ginanggang, bananacue, pinaypay, nilaga and niluyang as the recipes that can be made out of cardava. And it was astonishing to know that we can even prepare a good drink from that fruit. And much amazing upon knowing that its an everyday drink in South American countries like Ecuador. Its pretty much like as bagoong in the Philippines in terms of popularity.

My boss has already prepared his own Ecuadorian plantain recipes. But of course, its much different from our local plantain, which made the team decide to create a more Pinoy version of the recipe book. There was no difficulty in collecting recipes, as dozens of them were presented and tasted during cardava festivals hosted by municipalities and provinces. All of the recipe entries made from cardava were photo-documented and the winners made it into the recipe book as it is right now.

The part where i almost lost all of my patience was during the editing stage. Good Lord! Its a recipe book, right? Full of graphics and designs, and each should be detailed with proper lighting, positioning and spacing. With just the thoughts of these things, Im having headaches already. Its pretty hard editing materials in corel. im not gifted in that section. i cant even understand what are the icons for, though i really tried practicing using one. Swear! Sadly, my attempt didnt actually went succesful. Guess, im not for graphic designing stuff.

So the next best thing to do was to let somebody do the job, someone who was born with eyes that first saw things in its pixelized form. But that was the worst idea. That decision even made me understand things more vividly: that not all born with talents are useful. Especially those lazy ones, they should be burned in hell, then earth should settle for those hardworking ones. Grrrr! Reminds me of that, though undeniably talented with graphics, is the laziest monkey on earth.

Uneven color tones, crashing font sizes and styles, messy layout; Gahd! the first draft of the recipe book was a trash!But of course, there were pages that were so, so, yet i spent almost half a day coaching the artist on what to do on that page, on this page, and so on and so forth. Di ba, artist should technically know all of these stuff? like with just one set of instructions or two, he should get a picture of how the customer wanted his product done? Grrr, that monkey better look for some other job. He's not the worker type. So apart from the wasted time, money and effort, i did get bonus comments from the bosses.

The good thing is I had this friend who is a superfriend of a close friend, who is superb in editing graphics. And, yes, she was heaven's sent. I didnt mind sending the copy in Cebu, for as long as Id get a good service. She worked on the draft so good that every little correction was meticulously followed. There were times that i really got mad and was annoyed with those I thought were not 'so cool' comments, yet, eventually, she was indeed heaven's sent. XD

And we got that what we have planned a year ago: the release of the the first issue of the Cardava Recipe Book.

The book contains 36 cardava recipes, which are really good and can be served in a wide range of market: from rolling stores in front of schools or public markets, to small karinderyas, to elegant restaurants and five class hotels. The recipes are a mixture of Pinoy and Latin America flavors, which can definitely satisfy every race' taste buds. XD

Whew!Thank you Reerayee-sama for the editing.

Cheers to me and to all the people who made that project concrete!