Pairings

Pairing Leche Flan and Spirits: On Desserts and Libations

Posted on by Josh

I’m tempted to say I’ve never been a huge dessert person, but almost every week in high school involved at least one large bubble tea, my cravings a pendulum swinging between green tea and mango – there may have been a taro phase. Bubble tea in hand along with cheap (and good!) sushi found at what seemed like every block in that Vancouver neighbourhood, and with homework tucked in our backpacks: a past vision of our version of the Central Perk couch from Friends. That one month we became obsessed with High School Musical, which started with a bootleg CD passed among the student body, was a good one.

My dad was always the one known for making and bringing Filipino leche flan to parties, but his version was always a little too rich for me.… read more

Pairings

Pairing Adobong Pula Achuete and Wine: On What Inspired Me to Get Into Wine

Posted on by Josh

I often hear stories told by wine professionals about how their earliest exposure to wine involved a grandparent who let them taste a spoonful when they were young, which maybe planted a seed that they would eventually revisit later in their life. Others involve stories of someone’s “aha” wine, or the wine so profound that it inspired them to get into wine, whether it be a simple Chardonnay or a rare Puligny-Montrachet. Neither of these have sparked that beginning for me, to be honest, partly because wine culture never seriously permeated my family’s traditions, but more so because it was the idea of wine itself that I gravitated towards: the fact that wine was a drinkable intersection between art, science, culture, and gastronomy was one that soothed my overly curious mind – the stereotypical mind that switched courses and majors way too many times.… read more

Pairings

Pairing Afritada Manok and Wine: on Start-ups, Songs, and Scents

Posted on by Josh

Looking at a timeline of top Billboard hits is such an absolute trip because the journey back to seemingly vapid bops aligns perfectly with particular stages of my life, bringing back such vivid memories. Rihanna’s Only Girl in the World always sends a jolt down my spine as I recall how it woke me up on the radio alarm during my first year of university; the rise of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face brings back that mandatory intro to info tech course we took in high school, where a classmate introduced me to the song as we did our dreadfully easy typing assignments; and Rihanna’s Work immediately became my theme song during that first month in San Francisco when I co-founded a company.… read more

Pairings

Pairing Adobong Manok Dilaw and Wine: on Last Names and Journal Entries

Posted on by Josh

I used to hate having such a difficult last name to pronounce, from gawkily laughing along as my high school vice principal failed to even attempt to say my last name on the graduation stage, to grimacing every time I saw the only red squiggly line under my last name on an electronic assignment in elementary school. Only recently have I really appreciated the fact that Decolongon autocorrects to decolonize, a word that didn’t really mean anything to me while growing up, but one that’s become part of a personal manifesto. I still don’t know exactly where the name comes from, but I like this as a start.

Along with many other Filipino name clichés, my middle name is my mom’s maiden name, and despite the fact that I don’t exactly know where it comes from either, theories of its origins seem slightly easier to theorize: Canaria might denote origins from Spain’s Canary Islands, it could derive from the Filipino word kanaryo which describes a lighter shade of yellow, or it could simply be a less common Spanish-inflected surname from the history of Spanish conquest – or perhaps a combination of these.… read more

Pairings

Pairing Piaparan Manok and Wine: on Some Men I’ve Dated and the Libations I Chose

Posted on by Josh

The shier period in my life when I refused to download any of the dating apps was certainly a stubbornly hesitant one. It’s still a bit of a proud moment for me to recall that the first guy I ever asked out on a date was during an in-person interaction just before a shift at work, despite the fact that I was visibly shaking while entering his number into my phone. It ended better than it could have, but let it be known that I, this human-shaped bundle of nerves, initiated a cheesy romantic comedy scheme by “casually” bringing some sheet music to the shop, knowing he studied music, just for him to accidentally see what I was holding and start a conversation – which was, on the theme of annoying film plots – interrupted by a woman who had just come from a yoga class.… read more

Pairings

Pairing Longganisa and Beer: on Moving to San Francisco from Vancouver

Posted on by Josh

Back home in Vancouver, I did what every sugary motivational image told me to do and followed what truly interested me, so I became a sommelier instead of finishing university: perhaps my way of taking an alcoholic stress response all the way into a career (which I honestly don’t regret). You might call it a feeling of unsettling equilibrium, privileged restlessness, or the beginning of every stupid film where the main character needs a change in their life, but there was this prickle that rubbed against my insides every time the possibility of diving into the deep end – of whatever else – presented itself. Immigrants like my parents may have this survival instinct to plant themselves in a city that they can call home, but as a queer child of immigrants getting to know himself, I needed something else that wasn’t where I was, no matter how great everyone I met made it out to be.… read more

Pairings

Pairing Pinakbet and Wine: on Limp Wrists and Verb Forms

Posted on by Josh

With all of the American high school drama and college rivalries that we saw on TV which left something to be desired in real life for us Canadians (but that I no longer crave for particular reasons), there were some moments of tension between some local schools when I was a kid. There might’ve been the school labeled as the “artsy” one, or there might’ve been that one school who thought they were hot shit because they had that one famous actor who was in that one show for a hot second. Compared to a lot of my friends’ parents, my mom and dad immigrated to Canada a little earlier in their lives, so they ended up attending high school in Vancouver and became familiar with its networks and stereotypes.… read more

Pairings

Pairing Lumpia and Pancit with Wine: on Journeys through Filipinx Identity

Posted on by Josh

Sometime during my childhood, some Filipinos I knew started identifying as “Pacific Islander” along with “Asian”. I didn’t think anything of it. In the present day – probably some time in 2018 – I go on a persistent Scruff date with a native Hawaiian. A bingo card for gay first date topics might include burned family connections or sexual shenanigans, but for me, a square always includes identity – which easily glided from an identity-driven blind wine tasting game at this wine bar. He comments: yes, why do Filipinos like to check the Pacific Islander box? I don’t get it. I don’t disagree. The rest of the date is fine, but I feel bad about partially wondering how to escape this date unscathed because I’m in the mood for accelerated drunkenness with my friends and this wine just isn’t doing it.… read more

Pairings

Pairing Adobo with Wine: on Shame and Chardonnay

Posted on by Josh

This is a weird confession as I approach 10 years in the wine industry, but I’ve never felt completely at home in the world of food and drink.

In the 2nd grade, we used to have morning magnet polls as we gathered on the carpet in front of the chalkboard. How did you travel to school: car, van, bus, or on foot? What’s your favourite season: spring, summer, autumn, or winter? And then, this question – what did you have for breakfast: fruit, toast, cereal, or yoghurt? I hesitated and looked around the room. I was confused, but no one else seemed to be, unless they were hiding it well. I shrunk back, unlike my vampire-repelling breath that morning: I had garlic fried rice and part of an omelette for breakfast, including the extra garlic pieces my brother very carefully picked out of his serving.… read more

Pairings

On Filipino Food and Wine Pairings: an Experiment

Posted on by Josh

I never thought it would feel this quick, but I’ve spent almost 10 years in the wine industry, accompanied by all types of grapey gripes. They range from folks who think red wines are served too warm (which is a perfectly reasonable thought that I also vibe with), to those who decry Chardonnay as if it was Satan manifested into a liquid. Some are oddly offended by the slightest hint of sugar to the point where anything remotely sweeter than battery acid is considered a flaw. I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum (even when said yum yucks other yums), but damn. Let’s loosen our sommelier pins just a smidgen.

Onto what Lagrein-ds my gears: I fucking hate pairing suggestions that generalize off-dry wines into super generic categories for particular cuisines, like this line: “try this German Riesling with Asian food”.… read more