WC Y A29BTHE BAY AREATHE NEW YORK TIMES FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2009
By KIM SEVERSON
It was disconcerting to hearone of the top chefs in the BayArea squeal like a child over apackage of Filipino cheese cup-cakes. But squeal Jennie Lorenzodid.
Never mind that Ms. Lorenzo,the chef at the Fifth Floor in SanFrancisco, was about to win a Mi-chelin star. Or that in a few hoursshe would be back at the stoveturning out tea-smoked duckbreast with mushroom-leekcrepes and foie gras with orange-cardamom gel.
All that mattered at this mo-ment were the pale, spongy cup-cakes at Valerio’s Tropical Bake-shop in King Plaza shopping cen-ter in Daly City.
Ms. Lorenzo grew up on themin Manila. “They have thiscreamy, milky flavor that con-trasts with the soft, salty cheese,”she said. “I just love them.”
Ms. Lorenzo ventured toAmerica a decade ago, when shewas 24, and worked in Chicago.Then she spent time in London,training under Marco PierreWhite and Gordon Ramsay. In2001, she started cooking in SanFrancisco, first at La Folie andthen at Fifth Floor under LaurentGras. After a spin at Ryugin inTokyo, she returned to run theFifth Floor.
Although Ms. Lorenzo spendsher days surrounded by some ofthe best food in the country, sheoften longs for the food she grewup with. One mention of freshfried fish balls or the embryo-filled duck eggs called balut andshe is right back in Manila.
So she jumped at the chance tospend an early fall day exploringFilipino food in San Mateo Coun-ty, where the concentration ofFilipinos is the highest in the BayArea. Daly City is at the center,with about 38 percent of the pop-ulation identifying itself as Filipi-no, according to 2008 Census in-formation.
In the Daly City bakery, Ms.Lorenzo was thrilled to see somany Filipino treats. There weresoft buns stuffed with the brightpurple yam called ube, savorychicken empanadas, crisp lumpiawrappers filled with sweet ba-nana and warm pan de sal.
And then there were thosecheese cupcakes. She poppedopen their plastic container,pulled one out and took a bite.Disappointment would be an un-derstatement. The flavors ofhome, it turns out, can be elusive.
“It looks the same but it tastesdifferent,” she said. “Everythinghere is like that. It looks so famil-iar but it just doesn’t taste thesame.”
Undaunted, we headed acrossthe parking lot to the Manila Ori-ental Market, where little bags ofMuncher brand fried green peas,tubs of coagulated pork bloodand halo-halo flavored Magnoliaice cream fed her nostalgia.
Farther south, in San Bruno,we ducked into Kuya’s Asian Cui-sine, a cozy diner on San MateoAvenue. Ms. Lorenzo startedwith a glass of hot, yellow cala-
mansi juice. The sweet-sour fruitlooks like a lime and is essentiallythe national citrus of the Philip-pines.
She ordered big and expertly.Since drinks play an importantrole on the Filipino table, oftenstanding in as dessert, she hadthe waiter bring a tall sago’t gula-man. The icy drink was sweet-ened with brown sugar and stud-ded with tapioca balls and chewyagar-agar cubes. She added anorder of ginumis, another chunkyicy drink that came to the tablewith a thick layer of coconut milkand a handful of crispy rice puffson top.
Ms. Lorenzo was particularlyexcited when the palabok ar-rived. This steaming dish of ricenoodles smothered in a sauce fla-vored with shrimp paste and col-ored golden with annatto seeds isa favorite takeout dish in the Phil-ippines. As it does there, the dishcame atop banana leaves.
“This looks so authentic,” shesaid. But the shrimp paste wasn’tlike her mother’s, and the taste ofMaggi, the ubiquitous seasoningsauce that is a favorite in herhome country, was overwhelm-ing.
Still hopeful, Ms. Lorenzo hadanother restaurant on her list. Sowe headed to the Tribu Grill onbusy El Camino Real in San Bru-no.
Within a few minutes it wasclear Ms. Lorenzo was going toget the taste of home she craved.Our enthusiastic young waiterfirst delivered a tall glass filledwith a slush made from thesweet-tart juice of the dalandan,an aromatic green-skinned or-ange. “This has a wonderfulnose,” Ms. Lorenzo said.
Next came a sizzling plate ofrich pork sisig made from thepig’s head, including some nicechewy bits of ear. The meat wasbraised, chopped, grilled andthen pan-fried with onion. A scat-tering of scallion and crispy skintopped it off.
As good as it was, true blisscame when the waiter set down aplate loaded with crispy pata.The dish is built from a pig’s fore-leg that has been slow-roasted,then deep-fried. The result is vel-vety soft meat encased in crack-ling skin. We tore off pieces withour fingers and dipped them intoa mixture of soy sauce and whitevinegar spiked with slices ofgreen chili and red onion.
For several long minutes, noone spoke. We just ate. Then Ms.Lorenzo spoke up.
“That’s it,” she said. “That’sthe flavor I remember.”
It was time to head back to SanFrancisco, where a kitchen filledwith foie gras and duck breastwas waiting.
A Tour of Childhood Flavors, Then a Michelin Star
JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES
The chef Jennie Lorenzo, who grew up in Manila, with Filipino dishes at Tribu Grill in San Bruno.
Allard recalled. Reading came first. “My focus
then,” Mr. Ishiwata said, “was onhow early literacy should betaught.”
Previously, reading “was main-ly textbook driven, the teacher infront of the whole class,” saidMrs. Ortega, now 32.
“We said the first two hours ofthe day with the kids needed tobe focused on literacy,” she con-tinued, and that it include work-ing in small groups.
On a recent day in MarthaBorg’s third-grade classroom,she asked three students to joinher at a small semicircular table.While the other students workedin their notebooks or with tu-toring programs on computers,the three sounded out some newwords — like “natural,” “envi-ronment” and “tortoise” — andthen read aloud as Mrs. Borgmoved from one to the next.
Small groups are a part of allclasses at Anderson, and stu-dents get small-group time withthe teacher. “The teachers helpme a lot,” said Brizia Arce, a fifthgrader, “and I understand more.”
The groupings cluster studentsof similar skills, as determined byanother practice the new leader-ship introduced: continual as-sessment. The assessments thenguide individual instruction.
Anderson is not alone. Onecharter school with a similar stu-dent body, Rocketship MateoSheedy in central San Jose,scored 926. John Danner, thechief executive of RocketshipEducation, said: “The key is notthe collection of data. It’s howyou translate that data into theway that teachers’ classroom in-struction changes.”
Anderson also has put in placemore computer-based instructionin reading and math, allowingchildren to learn at their own lev-el and pace. “The kids love it,”said Terry Clavelli, a first-gradeteacher. She can monitor their
work not only by looking overtheir shoulders, but also througha report that the JiJi program, de-veloped by the MIND ResearchInstitute in Santa Ana, compiles.
BoardMath, the program Mrs.Martin uses, acquaints childrenwith formal mathematical termi-nology in the first grade and be-yond, but the familiar methodsremain. Holding up her fingers,she kept the tally as children add-ed five and three.
None of this works, Mrs. Orte-ga said, without “believing thatkids can and will learn.”
Maritza Lauriano, a fifth grad-er, said students used to be “ner-vous that we wouldn’t pass thetest” but now took exams withconfidence.
Anderson’s academic make-over proceeded with the supportof its teachers. “They allow quitea bit of flexibility for us to be goodteachers,” said Katrina Rumbold,a fifth-grade teacher. “At a schoollike this you work harder.” Manyteachers stay after school to tutorstudents needing extra help.
Anderson’s staff members alsowork to include parents and as-sist them. At a class that meetsthree mornings a week, the most-ly Spanish-speaking parentslearn English, life skills and howto talk to teachers about theirchildren.
One parent, Lucy Diaz, saidthrough an interpreter that sheattended “to help my child withhomework when he doesn’t un-derstand.”
In the meantime, optimism isin the air. Anderson has been in-vited to apply for the state’s Dis-tinguished School designation.
Peg Batista, the bilingual sec-retary in Anderson’s main office,reflected on her 16 years at theschool, many of them when“nothing was working.” Now,Mrs. Batista said, “the kids talkabout how well they are doing.”
As for parents, Eva Chesnut,the community liaison, said:“They feel more comfortable.They feel more pride.”
Learning to Teach to Bridge
Academic Achievement GapFrom Preceding Page
An article in the Bay Area re-port on Sunday about the 2005arson fire that destroyed $250million worth of wine misstatedthe given name of the communi-cations director of Napa Valley
Vintners, a winery trade associa-tion. He is Terry Hall, not Tom.The article also misstated thevintage of a $29,000 bottle of winedestroyed in the fire. It was a La-fitte Rothschild 1959, not 1969.
Corrections
KUYA’S ASIAN CUISINE 460San Mateo Avenue, SanBruno; (650) 952-5739.
MANILA ORIENTAL MARKET950 King Plaza, Daly City;(650) 878-3328.
TRIBU GRILL 235 El CaminoReal, San Bruno;(650) 872-8851.
VALERIO’S TROPICALBAKESHOP 109 King Plaza,Daly City; (650) 878-1611.
Local TastesOf the Philippines
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