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Fernanda De Guia, 71 years old – Manila, Philippines
Fernanda was born in Manila 71 years ago and she has spent there all her life. She has got 3 sons and 5 grandchildren, two grandsons and three granddaughters. She lives with her husband, who is two years older than her. All of her sons live in her neighbourhood with their families, or rather, they live in the same street. The house of the son who lives the farthest is not more than one km away from hers. “I really love the fact that my sons and my grandchildren are nearby, I never have a moment of rest”, she giggles, “they are always here: lunch, dinner, tea time. We could say I’m a full time cook, but without salary”.

Sinigang – (tamarind soup with pork and vegetables)
Difficulty: medium (maybe the difficulty is in finding all the ingredients)
Time: one hour and a half
Ingredients for 4 people:
— 1 kilo of pork in chunks
— two bunches of kangkong (water spinach)
— 10 okras
— 3 taro corms
— 4 tomatoes
— 10 spring beans
— 6 tamarinds
— 3 big green finger pepper
— salt
Boil the pork in some water with salt. After about 20 minutes, add 6 tamarinds (without peeling or chopping them), 3 taro corms, peeled and chopped, and 4 tomatoes.
After 15 minutes the tamarind gets tender (the shell shows cracks). Drain it from the soup, open it and take the seeds off. Crush them with a wooden spoon in order to obtain their juice. Pour the juice into the soup using a strainer.
After 10 minutes, take the tomatoes off the soup, peel and mash them and then put them back into the soup.
When everything has boiled for about 50 minutes in total, add the water spinach, okras, spring beans and green finger pepper in big pieces. Salt to your taste and let boil for other 10 minutes.
Turn off the cooker and serve the soup.