Marg's Kitchen, Chalan Kanoa, Saipan

[Photo credit: Ash Sivils]

It's funny...
how one visit to a bakery could evoke a flashback
of that one humid, dusty school day - humdrum freshman year mid-semester
still getting used to our new MCS highsku uniforms
we wear those thick gray jackets 
just so it weighs down our skirts and the boys don't see our panties
well, because we're supposed to wear shorts underneath but that's too 
uncomfortable. So we wear those thick jackets in 98 degree weather instead.


We walk in a pack - on our way to the local library, class trip,
an important resource for our small island - our haole teacher leads the way
behind the buildings on the main road, back alleys of Chalan Kanoa


My friends and I, we take a detour, to Marg's Kitchen
who love us because we clean them out every morning before school starts
and we order tuna sandwiches, papaya koko and Hi-C. 


Some of us fight over the last empanada of the day.
We pay, run out to catch up to the others.
Fingers bright neon yellow from the papaya koko,
I shield my tea box straw when the cars go by,
dust flies. 

Titiyas.Kelaguen.Empanadas.

Titiyas = Tortillas

Kelaguen = Ceviche

Empanadas = Empanadillas

Ayuyu = Cangrejo

I'm fascinated with food. Especially Chamorro food, which bares a strong resemblence to Spanish food (there's a strong Spanish influence due to their 300+ year reign over Guam and the CNMI from 1565 to 1899), except it's jam-packed with carbs and sodium - why do the bad things taste sooo good? Here's an example of a chamorro dish - one which my brother and I were greeted with upon arriving in Saipan.

Fried reef fish, chicken, titiyas (or tortillas), rice, finadeni and starfruit ko'ko' (pickled starfruit). The little side dish is finadeni, a staple condiment in the CNMI. It's made of soy sauce, lemon juice (or sometimes made with vinegar, lime juice, lemon powder, etc.) and a red pepper paste (often called tinian pepper, made of crushed red peppers, garlic, water and salt).

My aunt ordered empanadas from a local mom and pop shop. They were so orange - it was blinding! Chamorros make good use of the achote seeds - we use it for seasoning rice, porridge (chalakilis) and as you can see in the photo above, sometimes the color from the rice bleeds onto the empanada wrapping.  

On my last night in the island, we had some of my favorite dishes: coconut crab, chicken kelaguen (similar to ceviche) and papaya ko'ko' (pickled papaya).

There's nothing like indulging in some island goodness in the sticky hot breeze with the dragging wail of an authentic Chamorro song playing in the background. Feels like I'm a kid again.