(This is the sixth installment of the seven-part series on “A Day in the Life of Peter Solis Nery”. Previously, the great PSN woke up with a big woody for life, explained why he continues to write for the reliable Panay News, meditated on cooking in the nude, stocked on six flavors of ice cream, and chatted with fans on Facebook.)
A FULL EXPERIENCE OF LIFE
Anyway, instead of napping, you watched Ron Fricke’s “Samsara” (2011).
You have seen, and enjoyed, his previous project of the similar vein called “Baraka” (1992).
You remember watching Samsara, this non-narrative documentary, on the big screen in L.A. during its limited release in August 2012.
But you have forgotten how the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) Dancing Inmates were featured in the film along with the Payatas dump site.
*
Because you can afford it, you have the knack for the rarest and most obscure films on the planet.
You smile.
Many people call you a weirdo for your taste which includes European and Chinese opera, anthropological and art museums, strip clubs and bathhouses, churches and cathedrals, New Age and classical baroque music, fine dining and street food.
In your heart, you are proud.
*
Because you open yourself to the complete experience of life, willing to try anything at least once.
You truly live a rich, satisfying, and wonderfully educated life.
You know you are smarter than most because you have heard, seen, tasted, smelled, and touched almost everything.
You’ve had sex with men, women, transvestites, transgenders, boys, and girls, horses, and camels, and goats.
*
Well, one of those on the list did not really happen as what most people expect sex to be.
Close, but no banana.
Still, you think it counts for sex.
And you would want people to keep guessing which one is largely fictitious.
Is it the camel?
Or the goats?
*
It’s almost five in the afternoon.
And you feel a craving for seafood.
You checked out the menu at CJ’s Crabhouse online.
You figured, you could spend $60 on dinner tonight.
Plus $12 tip, if the waiter is not very cute.
Are you ready to splurge after all the shopping and money transfer today?
*
You see your frozen mussel meat in the freezer of your ref.
You salivate.
You cannot get enough of that mussel adobo you made two days ago.
You get the chopping board.
You started crushing and cutting the usual suspects: garlic, ginger, onions, bell peppers.
You used butter to sauté everything this time.
*
Perhaps it is true: You cannot cook the same dish twice.
You are not a chemist.
You are a natural cook.
You are not doing an edible science.
Cooking is, for you, an art.
*
Something you feel in your gut.
In your tastebuds.
Something instinctual.
You mix everything until you feel it is just right.
Like your poetry and fiction, you add everything, every ingredient, until you feel you cannot add another word or punctuation to make it better.
*
Today, your mussel adobo was cooked with a lot of butter instead of corn oil.
In addition to freshly crushed garlic, you added a load of granulated garlic.
In addition to the purple onion rings, you added pickled pearl onions that needed to go.
Are they six months past their expiration date?
*
But if they are pickled, you reason, they should still be good.
Anyway, this stock need to go before the year is over.
So you start pouring them—pearl onions and its vinegar solution, in your saucepan.
You also remembered you got sliced hot jalapeño peppers pickled in vinegar.
And pitted salad manzanilla olives and pimiento (cherry peppers).
This is a culinary masterpiece.
*
Is it still mussel (tahong) adobo?
Who cares?
It is delicious.
You made it.
With much love.
You actually prepared it thinking you could be cooking this for someone special in your life.
*
Well, tonight, that someone special is nobody else but you.
You smile.
You are not unhappy.
You are not lonely.
Alone maybe, but not unhappy.
You have “learned to be lonely”.
*
You searched the song “Learn To Be Lonely” on your Amazon music.
This is an additional song made for the 2004 film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “The Phantom of the Opera”.
Minnie Driver sang it in the closing credits, and it’s in the film’s soundtrack.
Beyoncé performed the song at the 2005 Oscars. (To be continued) (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
