On the Way

When I had my first job I told myself that I want to reach towns, cities and tourist spots boasted by my country. Of the 7,107 islands that we have I do need lots of money to travel: see, visit and experience each one of it. I am even encouraging my friends to travel locally first before we head out internationally.

There is always something unique in our diversity, the micro cultures that we share as Filipinos. Come to think of it, we do have different versions of our Adobo. Be it pork, poultry, fish or beef we all share the same basic of ingredients to arrive on the savory, sour, sweet and salty flavor.

Adobo is a dish I always suggest in bringing to potluck whenever our family or my friends travel. A travel that is usually headed to a nearby beach or some short trek to the mountains. It is a go-to dish because it so easy to prepare. You can just put all the ingredients in a pot, or a slow cooker and wait for the meat to be tender and has absorbed all those flavors of the vinegar, soy sauce, herbs and seasoning.

While you are letting it sit on the pot you can pack your essentials and put it on your bag. After that, you can prepare some Ziploc bags or any plastic air tight containers to transfer that cooked adobo and you’re ready to go. Just don’t forget the steamed rice at the cooker. Yes, the steamed white rice. After turning on the gas stove for that adobo to cook, you should have washed and poured cups of grains of rice on the cooker as well.

It is all about waiting time for this easy and quick to-do travel menu.

Now, you’re packed and that adobo and rice combo is perfectly secured for the trip, you can also buy and bring peanuts, hard-boiled eggs, biscuits, sandwiches and chips for everyone to munch and snack in while on the way to the destination.

I am a sucker in eating chips–corn or potato–while perched on my window seat. And a soda or a bottled iced tea is good to quench my thirst.

This travel menu and snacks mentioned in my trip together with family or friends is a reflection that indeed sharing food with your dear ones while on travel is what makes the trip all the more meaningful and memorable. When sometimes finding ourselves in traveling could be more so of finding that what matters to us is just near and an arm’s away.

Fleeting moments like riding the boat over the dark blue, a bit rough sea or seated by the window in a budget airbus or walking on grassy trails on the way to the summit, it is but the thoughts and company shared that contribute more to the happiness, laughter, closeness and then unimaginably touches our spirit along, without us noticing it. Or we might, even when the trip’s over and when we think about it, it urges us to do, laugh, have fun and repeat the experience all over. Realizing after that it will be never be same.