Concoctions

published 17 March 2008 - MST

‘Home” was the theme of my lunch meeting with a friend two Fridays ago.

My buddy Jenny Ortuoste and I agreed that beginning this year, we would choose the venue of our quarterly four-hour lunches (or dinners) more deliberately. The conversation was always rewarding— she and I shared strikingly similar family backgrounds, relationship patterns and literary interests. We figured a novel dining experience would be a nice backdrop to the girl talk.

That day, my friend said she had a surprise. She asked me to meet her in front of the Mile Long Center, at the ground floor of the Amorsolo Mansions. “I know Germany meant a lot to you since your trip there inspired you to make some crucial decisions. Today you might want to feel a little nostalgic,” she said, leading me to the door of Donau Gourmet.

An hour later, there was another surprise: The food, it turned out, went with an equally good story from the chef/owner.

That Marietta Sager personally concocted her guests’ orders was a dead giveaway. She was the only one among the staff who was foreign-looking—and she still had her apron on. She greeted us with a smile. With that, Jenny engaged her in conversation. We were correct to have assumed the restaurant was newly opened.

What we did not expect to hear was Marietta’s crisp Tagalog as she gave instructions to the waitresses. “My father is Dutch. My mother is Indonesian. My husband is German. I have an Indonesian passport. But I count myself a Filipino. This is my home,” she said.

Before long, Marietta was alternating between preparing the other guests’ meals in her kitchen and sitting at our table, happily watching us wolf down our goulash soup, Donau house salad, curry sausage and sauerkraut (my friend opted for the white spiral sausage) and telling us her story and why she would always choose to stay in the Philippines.

According to Marietta, it was in 1964 when her father, an insurance executive in Jakarta, moved the whole family to the Philippines because of the volatile business and political climate in Indonesia. She was then nine years old. She grew up here and attended Philippine schools. She went to St. Scholastica’s College and finished tourism at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. But dancing was Marietta’s first love. After college, she became part of the dance group called Pacifica, competitor of the Bayanihan Dancers. Her group performed Filipino folk and Polynesian dances, going all over the country and dancing even for the Marcoses, in the early ’80s, aboard the presidential yacht. Then she went into hotel sales, and met her German husband, Roland Sager, at the InterCon, where he was working as chef.

The professional dancer then became a homemaker who dutifully tried to keep house for somebody who was a master of food preparation. She was at first insecure about making her husband happy with the dishes she served at home. She took cooking lessons on every type of cuisine. But soon enough, she discovered that he was not difficult to please after all. While he was professionally more inclined to prepare Western food, he was charmed by the flavors of Asia. Roland’s job took them to Hong Kong and South Korea, but they ended up coming back to Manila.

Now, their two grown sons are living in Berlin, pursuing lives of their own.

And Marietta is more confident of her cooking. “Practice makes perfect might be a cliché, but it’s true nonetheless,” she says.

This restaurant carries sausages and cold cuts made by the Sagers’ butchery, Donau Deli, which they also distribute to various supermarkets in Metro Manila. On the shelves are wines, sauces, condiments and other German grocery items. There is also a bread section; pretty soon there will be a stand for various cheeses.

Marietta is banking on Filipinos’ openness and natural willingness to accept the practices and preference of other cultures. Donau Gourmet’s clientele is composed of expatriates and German nationals (“the embassy people know we’re here”) but she’s hoping more Filipinos would also take notice.

Actually, this receptiveness is one Filipino trait that stands out for Marietta. “Filipinos are friendly to everyone. Color, race, clothing and all the rest do not matter. They take you for who you are, without question, and that’s enough to make you feel like you belong.”

***

What makes columnists write about certain topics?

The most common reason would be to comment on the most pressing political issues of the day. Writers are in a position to sway public opinion. They can also act as a mouthpiece of the greater lot who would otherwise have no means to make their voices heard.

It may also be to further an advocacy. Issues on the environment, women’s rights, gay rights, corporate governance or accountability of public officials are discussed and analyzed in several square inches of column space. The writer hopes that his or her piece will be able to push authorities to act in one way or another to advance the cause.

Sharing an inspiring story is also a good reason. There’s a lot of bad news going around nowadays. It is thus refreshing to read about a person who overcame all odds to succeed or who mustered enough courage to rise above his or her adverse situation. Stories like these make you feel all is not lost. Optimism is crucial to nation-building.

Yet another reason would be to bring to fore stories of real injustice done to real people.

For example, somebody hears of unfair labor practices or malicious accusations hurled at one’s friends and former colleagues. It’s one thing to listen as a matter of conversation, to appreciate the details of the story as disinterested third party or friend would.

It’s another thing to write about the matter in a newspaper column. This would mean due diligence. The writer has to make sure the story did not come from one person only. He or she refers to affidavits, counter-affidavits, and actual decisions rendered by courts. Financial statements also tell their own story—no matter what the official yarn is.

The point of the exercise is to highlight the unjust acts being done so that steps would be taken to correct them. The aim is not to destroy anybody. On the contrary, it’s the what (the acts that go against public interest) and not the who (the institution or the personalities, even if they carried a prominent last name) that matters.

The point, too, is to make available a means for the other party to make its side of the story known. That’s why letters to the editor are there in the first place. In the interest of fairness, one could refute, point by point, any accusations one feels is thrown his way.

But what is truly jarring is an assault on the writer’s motives coupled with a brazen threat of a lawsuit – never mind, indeed, if the fundamental elements of the supposed crime are absent. Intimidation denigrates press freedom.