Isi has been in the food business for over ten years - creating recipes for dairy companies and restaurants, doing food styling and photography and selling spices online. She has recently started "Chili Asylum", an institution dedicated to marketing fresh chilies and chilli products sourced directly from Filipino farmers. Isi says she learned everything she knows about cooking from her Nanay (grandmother) who she watched cook fresh lunches and dinners everyday growing up. Isi loves cooking and serving the local, regional food she grew up eating. Isi enjoys collaborating with other chefs and food lovers in the food business to create new and delicious food.
Isi will take you through her small vegetable garden where she grows lemongrass and calamansi, a distinctive Filipino citrus fruit that she uses to flavor her food. Isi's food is redolent of flavors such as calamansi, garlic, chilies, coconut milk and fish sauce. In her kitchen she will teach you to prepare Filipino family recipes that have been passed down through the generations. You can choose between a hands-on lesson and a cooking demonstration during which you will watch her prepare the meal. Just let her know your preference!
Your menu might include dishes such as ensaladang pako (local fern salad in a calamansi and raw honey dressing), grilled shrimp in a cilantro chimichurri (an Isi creation), ginataang kalabasa at sitaw (squash and green beans in a coconut milk stew), mechado (soy marinated beef, cooked in an onion and tomato sauce), inihaw na baboy (grilled pork chops) followed by homemade calamansi pie for dessert made by her best friend Earnest.
Leave with new recipes, a new friend, and lifelong memories.
Please note, this is not a professional cooking class, rather this experience is a visit into an authentic, local home to meet a local person and share the culture and cuisine together.
