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When Anne Baxter cries, “Moses, Moses, Moses, you stubborn, adorable fool!” have an extra shot.

Plague 6: Boils
Cocktail: Bumpy Eruption

The go-to drink for when the afikomen* surprise at your sister’s seder** turns out to be the recently-divorced sweetheart you broke up with badly in high school and haven’t seen since. Swell for slow grudge-nursing throughout the evening, but for a truly memorable Passover meal you may want to down three in quick succession just before the partaking of the bitter herbs, all the better to bring to an explosive head every pustule of sibling rivalry, personal betrayal and unfulfilled promise that’s tormented your soul since the day you entered this vale of tears.

Especially satisfying with a big steaming pile of tsimmes* * * .

Ingredients:
2 oz Cognac
1/2 oz Crème de Cassis
1 oz tequila
1/2 oz Cointreau

Instructions: Shake all ingredients in ice. Strain into martini glass. Garnish won’t help.

10 Plague Cocktails. Thanks to Noel for the link.

* dessert
* * Passover family ritual
* * * sweet stew

Blue Kitchen was all out of Arrowroot (a.k.a. uraro) cookies. We were a little relieved, because once we start eating them we cannot stop. For snacking carbs, we bought a bag of thin square biscuits called Jacobina. They were a childhood merienda treat, like otap or rosquillos, but we never knew they were called jacobina. We just referred to them as biscuits.

Why are these biscuits called Jacobina? Jacobina, like Jacobin. What did they have to do with the Jacobins, Robespierre, the Terror which followed the French Revolution? Is it because they resemble blades and remind people of guillotines? The jacobina we bought are the exact size of a razor blade. Or were they simply named after a person?

So we asked a historian where Jacobina biscuits got their name. After all, he’s written about local bakeries and we always have a giggle over the bread known as pampam. He was no help at all: he said maybe they had something to do with Jacob’s crackers. But that’s probably why he’s a historian and we write fiction.

Belatedly it occurred to us to google, although we think one should always figure out an answer first before going to the Internet. We learned that Jacobina is a trademark of a bakery in Cavite (so we should’ve asked Ige). Their website doesn’t explain the name, either. For now we will eat our biscuits and imagine the screams of the aristocracy losing their heads.

Saffy and her stuffed toy sheep, with a box of the world’s greatest hopia. Delicately flaky crust, finely ground mung bean paste. Hopia that you have to get from Xiamen, since they invented it.

Read The Rich Tradition of Filipino Embutido in the New York Times.

After reading this piece we looked up Elvie’s Turo-Turo in the East Village and found out that it has closed. Nooooo!

Good, cheap embutido: Teresita’s of Guagua.

We haven’t been to New York in years. We should go this year.

Cuttlefish in ink and spicy cabbage at Le Servan. Credit Edouard Sepulchre

Restaurant Report: Le Servan, Iya’s daughter’s restaurant.

We liked the food at Cafe Provencal on the second floor of Shangri-La Mall (the old wing), so we were a little distressed to find that it was gone. In its place is a cafe called Duck and Buvette. We would’ve tried it sooner except that we thought everything on the menu had duck. It doesn’t.

As a devout meatatarian we hardly ever order salad of our own free will, but we had the weird urge to eat leaves. Maybe we had a roughage shortage, maybe our taste buds were just bored. So we ordered the grilled romaine salad with parmesan and anchovy garlic dressing. It was excellent, and we don’t even like vegetables. As you can see, they did not stint on the cheese.

For our main course we wanted the duck pie with foie gras, but they didn’t have it yesterday. Also we could feel the lettuce expanding so we decided to have something light. We had the brandade de bacalao dip—creamy cod and potato on grilled bread. Not only was it very good, but we could fool ourself that we had had a virtuous lunch.

A buvette is a food stall by the market, carinderia, basically. Duck and Buvette is bright and casual, reasonably-priced (mains are about Php390), and with an interesting wine list. We will be back to try the rest of the menu, with a glass or three of their bubbly. They also sell freshly-baked goods. Here’s their menu.