Nastasha: Welcome to Exploring Filipino Kitchens. I'm your host, Nastasha Alli.
It is the middle of February now, and the snow has been falling pretty steadily the last couple of days for us here in Toronto. It's the kind of weather that, I guess makes me really grateful to have a home, not something I take for granted for sure. And in that extended downtime at home, that means a lot of reading time for me.
It means cozying up under a blanket, having a lot of coffee and tea, kind of shutting out the world for a little bit, not a bad thing to do in a snowstorm, I guess. But, yeah, it's been a nice couple of days. I've been reading, one of these books on my little travelogue shelf.
And I'm in the final chapters of this book called Lands of Lost Borders, which is by Kate Harris. She's a Canadian writer. And the book's about her travels through Central Asia, mostly, on a bike. And I've always been really fascinated about these kinds of stories. You know, I'm a big armchair traveller. Reading about other people's travel experiences has always been a form of escapism for me. And yeah, the book's really well done. So I've been cozying up to that.
And the other thing that I've been spending a lot of time doing the last little while is delving back into the world of Shady Palms, which, for people who are not familiar with either the name or the series, is the fictional town in the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery Series books.
These are the creation of author Mia Manansala, who I'm super excited to talk to today. There are five books so far in the series. They're called Arsenic and Adobo, Homicide and Halo Halo, Blackmail and Bibingka, Murder and Mamon, and Guilt and Ginataan.
I mean, granted, I am the kind of person too, who, loves a good murder mystery podcast, so I'm kind of predisposed to liking the genre.
If these titles don't make you hungry and, like, curious to find out what the hell is happening in this town…There’s a lot to chew on, in the books. So, super excited. Let's get to it.
About Mia
Mia: I'm Mia P. Manansala. I use she, her pronouns. And I am the author of the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery Series. And I'm based in Chicago.
Nastasha: As I'll probably say at the start of the episode too, I'm a huge fan of the books and I really love obviously the little world you've created for us, and the characters in your books and your novels. But before I get into all that, I always like to kind of start off by asking if you could tell us a little bit about your background in terms of where you were raised and where you live now. I think that'd be really interesting.
Mia: So I was born and raised in Chicago and I currently live just outside the city. But both of my parents are originally from the Philippines and I grew up in, well, actually I grew up in my maternal grandparents home. So I grew up in a multi generational household. Like my protagonist Lila and for I guess like, you know, it'd probably be a not unusual experience, but we were kind of like the way station.
So it was like my maternal grandparents, my parents, me, my two younger brothers, , for, many, many years, my two cousins also lived with us, sometimes an aunt or an uncle or, you know, something you would refer to as like a tita or tita who are not actually blood related, but they were coming over from the Philippines and needed a place to kind of stay and become a little bit more stable before they were able to move on on their own.
Like, that's the kind of household I grew up in. So I did not grow up in a large Filipino community. I grew up in a rather lower income, industrial working class, majority Latina neighborhood of Chicago. So for me, my, Filipino community was my family. So my idea of like Filipino identity and heritage and culture and family and food are all very intertwined with each other.
Nastasha: I was speaking with someone, some time ago about how growing up in a multi generational household, like, really kind of sets the tone for you, obviously, moving forward later in life. And interesting that even here in Canada, I'm going to say, like, I moved to, Vancouver first and then I moved to Toronto with my family, but I didn't move here until I was in my late teens, like 19, 20. And so I also didn't grow up, like, in, a Filipino community once I got to Canada, because it was kind of once I got here, like, you started working right away, and you kind of keep working non stop. So family really is kind of that, like, glue. And, yeah, it just goes to show that, you know, there's different ways that you can define family and community, and it's not always definitely blood
Mia: Hmm. Yeah. And it was also interesting because like my mom moved to the States when she was young. She was only 12 years old, but my dad didn't move until he was an adult in his late 20s. He moved over to marry my mom. They knew each other in the Philippines. Our families knew each other. So even growing up multi generationally, even within how the parents, you know, my mom and my dad, how they viewed things, their idea of the connection to the community and their culture is also very different. My father passed away in 2018 before I was able to, or I started writing Arsenic and Dope in 2018, but I didn’t finish it, didn't sell it until 2020.
So he passed before he could see me become a published author, but so much of it is based on him and his love of food because he was the cook in the family. But when I was including things in the book, you know, I would ask my mom because it was like, I understand Tagalog, but I cannot speak it.
If you speak to me like in a very basic conversational way I can respond to you in English. But there were certain phrases I wanted to make sure I got right or just certain, you know, just cultural elements where I wasn't sure like, oh, is this…is this a general Filipino thing or is this my family thing? And I'm, you know, I'm generalizing.
So I'd ask my mom and sometimes she’d have to be like, you know, Mia, I came here when I was 12. And so, you know, even though she's fluent in Tagalog, she's like fluent, you know, the way she was when she left home. So even she would have to be like, hold on, let me ask someone, right. And so again, it's just, it's very interesting, the ways I've had to access, you know, certain parts of the culture.
Nastasha: And it's so different, like, I'm gonna be honest too, when I first moved here, I didn't care very much about my Filipino heritage, because, you know, obviously you kind of have other, like, you're trying to fit in when you first arrive, and trying to get work, and get settled, and that kind of thing.
Mia: Yeah. A lot of it's survival mode, right?
Nastasha: Yeah, exactly. But kind of as, as time passes, there's that, you really do develop that personal and deeper connection to it. And obviously my connection to it is very strong through food and a lot of people's gateway too, I think, into understanding the culture. That's going to lead into my favourite question, which is if you could tell us a little bit about your favourite memory or experience around Filipino food.
Mia: So, thank you first of all for sending the questions ahead of time. I was like, oh, that's a good question. And even as I thought about it, it was really hard to pinpoint one thing, so I think I don't know what if I'm going to say is my favourite, but it's the one that immediately came to mind.
I mentioned before that my father was the cook in the family, right? He was a very old school cook, didn't really use measurements, so the recipes in the book are not his recipes, sadly. They are me researching. and tweaking the recipes until they taste the way I remember his food tasting, because for me that's the taste of Filipino food.
But they are not his actual recipes, because he didn't really leave them behind, except for one, which I found out a few years later.
Favourite food memory
Mia: I've always been after him to teach me how to cook, because me and my brothers, we did a lot of like, we helped with the prep work, like rolling lpia and, you know, like really simple things because we had a small kitchen and, you know, he's like, Oh, you're, you're in the way. You know. But like when I would try to watch him, I'd be like, okay, show me. And he'd be making adobo and he would just like open a bottle of soy sauce and start pouring. I'm like, how much is that? And he's like, Oh, you know, it's just, it's just one of these, like taste, Oh, okay.
This is okay. This is hard. , and so, you know, after he passed and I was really missing the food, I can't remember how it came up, but then, I'm the oldest, I have two younger brothers. My middle brother told us that my dad had left him a recipe for his picadillo. Because my brother's then girlfriend, now wife, who's also Filipino, she like, she realized, you know, because it was after my father had passed, and she realized how precious this was.
So she made a special photocopy and print and framed it for him, and she gave, like, the printed versions to me and our other brother. And I was like, he wrote you a recipe? Like, I've been, like, you don't even cook. I've been after him for years to give me anything. And, you know, and I was like, I was like really salty.
Like, it was really emotional, just seeing his writing again. But I was also, like, really salty about it. I was like, why? But, like, to be fair…I spent some years teaching English in South Korea. So I lived abroad between 2010 and 2014 and it was during that time that my brother received that recipe.
And he's like, look, it's not what you think. He gave this to me when I first moved out of the house because he knew I couldn't cook and he was worried. About how I was going to feed myself. And so he's like, this was a kind of a reasonable, you know, with my skills and nutrition and things like that.
He's like, this is something he gave to me, because he wanted me to be able to take care of myself, and he knew you were fine. And I was like, I guess. And so, you know, being able to cook the picadillo based on his recipe, had a lot of conflicting emotions, but just, I mean, as you know, smell is probably one of the strongest senses. And so just smelling my father's picadillo again, seeing his handwriting, was a very emotional experience.
Nastasha: I can imagine. Just for listeners who may not be familiar, picadillo, as you're talking about, is the ground beef, picadillo?
Mia: Yeah, it was ground beef and then chopped potatoes, usually cooked like a tomato sauce, onions. I'm trying to think if there’s…
Nastasha: Do you put peas in it?
Mia: No, so my mom…
Nastasha: This is a controversial question.
Mia: My mom has the palate of a child. She really does not like vegetables very much. Like, even now she still refuses, like she'll pick vegetables out of the things that I cook. So like he would not add green things. The picadillo was very popular because it's literally meat and potatoes, you know, in a tomato sauce.
Nastasha: Comfort food.
Mia: Yeah. Very delicious comfort food over a big old pile of white rice. Like it's excellent.
Nastasha: Aw, man. Comfort food is like, it is what it is, right? It's that thing that, like, will immediately transport you to whatever time and place you most associate with it.
So you said both your parents grew up in the Philippines. Do you know what part of the Philippines they're from?
Mia: My mom said she was from Quezon City and my dad was from Imus, Cavite, I believe.
Nastasha: So kind of like Manila, Luzon.
Mia: Yeah.
Nastasha: Have you ever had the chance to go visit the areas where they grew up?
Mia: I went there as a child with my middle brother, and then, as I said before, I spent a few years teaching English in South Korea, and since it's so much closer than Chicago, you know, it's no longer a 20 hour flight, it's only maybe like six. I visited, I want to say, two or three times as an adult while I was there.
And it would split, I'd spend half the time with my maternal grandparents side and the other half of my paternal grandmother's side.
Nastasha: How was that experience as a grownup? Have you always been fairly heavy into cooking, like yourself?
Mia: I was really big into eating.
Cooking at home
Mia: So my dad, like I said before, my dad didn't really like us being in the kitchen with him just because like, it was easier and faster for him to kind of handle the main parts of it himself. But what he didn't really do were desserts.
So I liked baking. I would, you know, I was usually in charge of baking and making sweets for the family and for celebrations and things like that. And so like, that was like kind of like, you know, everyone kind of had like their own little niche and like that was my thing. And then, you know, I had to learn, I could do like very basic cooking, of course, because my parents worked long hours.
I was taking care of my brothers. I was the one who made like their after school snacks. And like, sometimes I'd have to cook dinner for us. If my grandparents were, like, usually my grandmother would do like the day to day during the week and my father would handle the weekend cooking.
But sometimes they were busy and as the oldest, you know, it falls to me as well to do some of that. But yeah, I mostly cooked when I was living alone abroad because I had to and you learn real fast you are on your own. But, I'm still relatively new to making Filipino food because there's something about Filipino food that I feel like you can't really make in small sizes, like it's always like a giant pot of something.
Like I can't, you know, make it for one or even two, it's just really hard. So I reserve that for, and I'm like, okay, I'm either going to freeze half and save it for something else. Or like, I'm going to bring this over to a friend's house because this is way too much.
Nastasha: Yeah, I can relate to that. The whole thing, both the part where you're learning how to cook as an adult and then the, Oh my God, what am I going to do with this gigantic pot of sinigang that I'm not going to eat myself for like the next two weeks?
Visiting the Philippines as an adult
Mia: And also your original question was about like what it's like to go there as an adult. It's a little bit strange because some of them, so like some cousins and uncles and my grandparents…my paternal grandparents used to live in New York so I would visit them every smer but they moved back when I was a child, after they retired and so it had been a while since I really reconnected with my grandparents who had been close to cousins who I'd met as a child, but it's also very strange because it's such a huge family and everyone, you know, I'm meeting people for the first time in my twenties.
And I know this is a podcast, so the viewers can't see me, but if they ever just like Google my author photo, a lot of people asse I'm mixed, which I'm not. Or I mean, as not mixed as you can be from like a multiply colonized country. Right. But like my parents were born and raised in the Philippines. My grandparents, I think I might have a great grandparent who's mestizo, but other than like, I'm pretty, I'm relatively…
Nastasha: The impression, though, that people there kind of get…
Mia: The impression when people see me are that I'm not Filipino at all, or that I'm at least half, you know. I’m tall, I'm a big girl. I'm somewhat like, you know, and so there is a weird feeling of not belonging. In many ways, you know, like I would meet one side of the family and they'll be like, Oh, this is, you know, so and so's daughter. Like, Oh, what's the other parent, you know? But everyone was very kind, you know, lots of sightseeing, so much good food. I was very well taken care of every time I went to visit. But yeah, it is a very strange disconnect, like to meet your own family and be like, who are you?
You don't look like us. And I'm like, Ooh, what'd I do?
Nastasha: And the truth is, it's such a universal feeling, like, it happens to, I'm gonna say, like, a good chunk of, like, people who I've met or talked to. That’s kind of why I like asking that, too, when I get the chance, because it is, yeah, very rare that when you come, like, there's always that warmth of the family, so you know you're always welcome, but there's just another kind of, like, there's a different level of acceptance almost sometimes.
Mia: Yeah. And it was funny because, you know, when we would go out, we'd go to the shopping mall or out to eat, like my cousins would be like, Oh, don't, don't speak in public. People will know you're American. I'm like, look at me. I'm five eight. I'm taller than like half the people, like everyone knows…. just look at me. But they were trying, they're like, oh, you know, try not to speak too much in public.Well, you know, stay safe and close to us. You know, they're trying to take care of me, but I was like, guys…
Nastasha: Yeah.
Mia: Thank you.
Nastasha: Heart is always in the right place. I have lots of thoughts and feelings about going to the Philippines, but I will try to stay on track, too.
Writing the world of Shady Palms
Nastasha: I'd like to get into the books, because I could ask a lot of questions about the books, but, I also really like to write. I'm actually part of a writer's collective here in Toronto. It's been very interesting for me to kind of more professionally hear about and learn about these other authors who identify as Filipino, Filipina, Filipinx, Canadian, because I never really thought I would see that.
I think for me, when I was growing up in the Philippines, like, I loved to read, I've always loved to read. That was always something that I was like, oh my god, like, can you imagine if you'd actually see Filipino authors and stories at some point. So like to me growing up that was always kind of like a dream, and it feels a little weird now that like, oh, you know, like, we're actually in the thick of it, like, we have these opportunities to be able to, you know, tell our stories in the ways that we want to.
And yeah, so what I'd like to ask from you, as the author, is, what's been the most memorable part so far for you, in terms of how you created the world of Shady Palms and the characters in it?
Mia: So with my world of Shady Palms, what I write, you know, is lighthearted, humorous mysteries centred around a Filipino family restaurant in a fictional town outside of Chicago.
And so for me, what I write are called cozy mysteries. And for people who are not familiar with that subgenre, I like to jokingly call them like Hallmark movies with dead bodies or like rom coms with dead bodies because I have like that vibe, right? I'm like, they really like the small town where everyone kind of knows each other's business, and you know, there's going to be a happy ending, even though there's murders.
And like that’s kind of what I write. And so, part of being able to create the town of Shady Palms, which is obviously fictional, was really great in multiple ways. One was that because I knew it was a series, but I didn't know how many books they were going to be, I got to make the world however I wanted or however I needed it, according to each book's needs, right?
So like by book three there’s space for a winery. And then, you know, at the end of book five, I'm like, suddenly there's an area where we have a corn maze, you know, because there's no map and because it's not a real place, I was not beholden to actual geography. I got to just imagine what I wanted.
Nastasha: I have to say with that corn maze it's kind of funny, because I don't know if you have ever watched the Gilmore Girls or were ever a fan of the show. I love the series. When I first came across the corn maze in Guilt and Ginataan, I somehow kind of thought there was this episode where they have like a hay bale maze.
Mia: Yeah. I mean, was it Stars Hollow? You know, it's very much like, if a murder happened in Stars Hollow, that's what cozy mysteries are, right? That really, like, quirky, the town is almost its own character, right? It almost feels like, this isn't a real place, but it kind of, it still makes sense in the world of the story, you know. So much of the Simpsons and Springfield, which is like a really ridiculous place, but it makes sense within that world. And that's kind of what Shady Palms is like, being able to be ridiculous, but have it make sense within the logic of that world, because like, how many dead bodies could there possibly be in this tiny town without it being a problem?
And so, you know, having fun with that. And then also, when people think Hallmark movies or rom coms or even mysteries or small towns, it's very white, right? It's very, like, cis het white, it's very, you know, a specific idea when people think of small town mysteries.
And so being able to show, like, hey, we exist in small towns, you know, brown people exist and queer people exist and people with different abilities and all these different things, I get to populate this fictional world with the way that my world actually looks and I don't actually usually see in books.
I was born and raised in Chicago, which is a hugely diverse city, and so that was also part of like the fun. With Arsenic and Adobo, the first one, I specifically made it so that, you know, in that book, she is accused of murdering her ex boyfriend who is the food critic. And as part of the investigations, she’s researching all the other people who also receive bad reviews from him, so she has to travel from restaurant to restaurant within the town. I was using that as a way to show the town, it's demographic, the kind of people that reside there, through its food, I was also able to show you who and what resided in the town.
Because Chicago is a city of neighbourhoods, as I said it's hugely diverse, but it's also very segregated. And so I wanted to show that, like, okay, this is the area where you can get this. This is the area where this exists. This is where we find these kinds of people in cuisines or this kind of grocery store.
And so being able to just very quickly establish a world where that happens, but also kind of showing there's these little divides, basically.
Nastasha: I've been nodding my head, like, basically the past five minutes because you touched on something that I, as a reader, I loved about the series, is that it became very normal for me to expect that Lila and Adeena and Elena, like I said in my email, it kind of made me feel like I'm almost an occasional resident or like a fairly regular visitor to the town.
Narratives that shape you
Nastasha: Because the way you've written about the characters and the food, of course, and their experiences as it relates to the story has become very, like, normalized, quote unquote, and as we're saying when you're talking about, like, the hallmark small towns, that's one of the biggest things I really appreciated is that because of the success of the series, and maybe a little bit of the genre too, being able to introduce it to people who may not be familiar with Filipino culture or food necessarily, through the genre.
That's one thing I super appreciated is that it just wasn't strange to kind of like, there's Filipino characters and we're talking about, you know, these dishes that I have like a personal connection to, in some ways too.
So, yeah, I think that kind of just goes back to what I was saying earlier that when I was growing up, back home, it would be like, there's always this big look to the West, right? Like everything from the West, it's like better mindset, growing up there. But a big part of it too, is now seeing that, you know, here, and in this environment, like, there is this way for us to connect and make it so that we show other people, you know, this is who we are, and this is how we relate to the world. Our physical features are not what defines us entirely by any stretch. Here, you know, have some of our food, hang outwith us, come to the cafe.
Mia: Mm hmm. It's interesting, you know, because as someone who was born and raised in the States, it was like very different for me, where I was like, I never got to see myself in media. I never got to see myself in the books that I loved so much. I never got to see myself in TV and movies and things like that.
And so I always wanted to see myself on the page. But like, just as I am, as you said, right, you know, being Filipino. Filipino American specifically, right? Filipino American in the Midwest, which is, you know, regions matter. I'm sure, you know, there's also like you being in Toronto is very different than people in Vancouver, et cetera. I’m sure you don't need me to explain that.
And so I just wanted to show where it's just like, okay, being Filipino American shapes a lot of who I am and the way I think and it very specifically shapes the way the world sees me, but that's not all that I am. And same thing with my character, right? The fact that Lila is Filipino American and she's born and raised in the Midwest shapes her experiences. It shapes the way she was brought up. It shapes the way that she sees the world and it shapes the way the world sees her, which is very important when you are involved in murder mystery cases because the way that, you know.
Nastasha: Perception matters.
Mia: Particularly how the police department sees you will, you know, shape that, especially in the media.
And so I want to be cognizant of that in writing a cozy mystery. Like the fact that my protagonist is a woman of colour in a majority white town in the Midwest. Matters in various ways, but it also doesn't matter in other ways because at its heart, you know, especially the first book, it's more of a coming of age story.
She is a young woman whose dreams were crushed and she's trying to rebuild her life and help her family the best way that she can, and learn a lot about herself and she just happens to have to solve a murder along the way. You know, it's about more than just, you know, her identity. There's just, yeah, so many other things at play. And again, it's, it shapes her, but it's not all that she is. And I really wanted that. That's why I find genre so important because it's just like, yeah, we are just solving. Filipino food is just kind of like the gimmick to be like, Oh, what's this? You know.
Nastasha: I just wanted to ask, what was the most interesting thing you learned about the food of the Philippines? During your research, you know, maybe not, not necessarily that's gone into the books specifically. But yeah, anything you can share, interesting facts?
Mia: Like, unfortunately, the first things that come to mind, and I need to like preface this to the listeners is like, remember I write murder mysteries. So the things that I find in my research are obviously things that I'm trying to use in my books. So like, don't let that deter you based on the things I'm going to say.
But the two things that immediately popped to mind with that question is one that I learned, like in Arsenic and Adobo, that rice contains quite a bit of arsenic. If it's not like treated properly, and I was like, oh I mean, obviously we're fine. But it could be a problem and it came up in the case for a particular reason. And then also for the third book, Blackmail and Bibingka, I got the idea for that book years before I ever wrote it.
So another thing about being a writer, which I'm sure you’ve stumbled across this, where maybe you've heard a story or you saw something, or you read something in the news where you're like, Oh, I need to use this someday. I don't know for what. And you kind of like file it somewhere. So I had read and like saved the link, you know, in a Google doc like years ago, I think it was from CNN Asia. And it was reporting about dozens of people in the Philippines being rushed to the hospital and some dying because of poorly made lambanog. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but the coconut liquor, the coconut wine. And I was like, Oh, that's so sad. What is this about? And it's like, you know, in the news report, it was like, this is an alcoholic drink that's, you know, popularly, drunk around Christmas time in the Philippines.
It's kind of like moonshine, but it can be very dangerous because if not properly distilled, it contains large amounts of methanol. And so like, even if you buy it from a reputable source, again, if your source is not being very careful in their distillation, if they're trying to rush it for like the Christmas supply bump, it can contain lethal amounts of methanol.
And so like every year it's being reported, like this number of people being rushed to the hospital on Christmas day because of this coconut wine that they're drinking. And I was like, Oh, that's grim and fascinating.
Upcoming work
Nastasha: I know that you have an upcoming YA novel coming up, anything else that you're interested in sharing?
Mia: So I actually have two books coming out this year. So the first, as you mentioned, is my YA. It's titled Death in the Cards. I call it, it's like my queer brown Veronica Mars, if anyone's familiar with that older TV show. It is a young queer Philippine American teen, whose mother is a private investigator and her father is a mystery author.
And it's her dream to follow in her mother's footsteps. But her mom doesn't want that for her. Where she's like, no, I took this dangerous, unstable job because you know, I had to at the time, I want something different for you. I want something better for you.
But my teen detective is adamant, like, no, this is where I want to be. And so she is out to prove herself, that she, you know, is right to follow in her family's footsteps. And so her thing is that she is a tarot reader, she reads tarot cards as like a side hustle at her school, you know, for money. People come to her for advice and guidance and she uses the cards to give it to them. And one day she gives a rather ominous reading to an upperclassman at her school, and shortly after that reading, the girl she read for disappears. And the girl's younger sister, who is in the same grade as my protagonist, confronts her saying like, what did you say to make my sister run?
Because it's clear that the girl chose to leave for a reason, but we don't know what that reason is. And so, this is a chance for my protagonist to prove herself and to kind of take on her very first case, on her own. So that's been a lot of fun. That comes out May 13th. I'm nervous and excited.
It's very different writing for teens. But it's funny in a way, even though in the book she's 17, in many ways she's much more mature than Lila, who's in her like mid to late 20s. She’s like 25 when it starts and she does ages as it goes on, but in many ways, my protagonist is much wiser and more mature, due to her life circumstances and where she grew up.
And so that's the first book coming out, that’s May 13th. And then it's slated for end of November, but I don't have a specific date, I don't want to like put it out there in case it changes, but end of November is book six in the Tita Rosie's Kitchen series. And it's kind of bittersweet to say, but it's also the last book in the series.
It was the last book in my contract. So we were ending it here. That one's titled Death and Dinuguan. And it takes place around Valentine's Day. And the choice of dinuguan was me playing around with the idea of like calling it chocolate meat. I don't know if that was like something you've experienced growing up, but like, my mom and grandmother called it chocolate meat when we were younger.
And so I was like, ooh, Valentine's Day, chocolate meat, let me have some fun with this, and so, yeah, those are my two releases this year.
Nastasha: Amazing. I'm sure it's been a very busy few years for you.
Mia: Yeah, I debuted, May 4th, 2021.
Nastasha: And it’s been like one a year?
Mia: One or two, yeah, because I had books two and three come out the same year, and then after that it's like about a year apart, but yeah, it's basically seven books in four years. Including my YA.
Nastasha: Lots to choose from and pick up. I mean, definitely highly recommend starting from Arsenic and Adobo. To get to, you know, so you're on the right path, the same path and story as the characters. The last thing I want to ask is what are you excited to cook or eat next?
Mia: I've been trying to nail this recipe for a honey butter mochi, like Rice Krispie treats. So in the book, you know, I don't want to say too much, but there's a character named Dr. Jae Park, who loves like the honey butter flavoured Korean snacks. And so Lila is trying to come up with like a line of treats that utilize that honey butter flavour.
And so I've been like experimenting and I'm like, it sounds so simple, but getting those ratios and flavours right, or so that's not too sweet, or it's not too this or not, you can actually taste the honey. It's actually surprisingly difficult. And you know, I don't want to waste food. So I always have to wait until I'm meeting up with friends or family so I can kind of push my experiments out to them and be like, here, tell me what you think.
My mom and my brother's birthday is coming up. So I'm definitely going to make that. And I'm also going to make something for my mom, probably something ube flavoured. And then, we'll see.
Nastasha: So if you haven't had a chance to read the books yet, you can start with Arsenic and Adobo and move on from there. Consider saving a hold at your local library, if you live someplace where you can do that, or add it to your cart online, visit a bookstore, ask a friend if they have it. And then, of course, tell other people about it, too.
Thanks again to author Mia Manansala for making the time to chat with us for this episode, and you can head to the links in the show notes for her website and more information on the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mysteries series, including the release dates for her upcoming books, Death in the Cards and Death and Dinuguan.
Theme music for this episode, as before, is by David Szestay, with segment music by Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear. Until next time, maraming salamat, thank you for listening.