[Pinkman]

I actually get more meat than is good for me in this climate. I get sick around fiesta time if I am not careful about how much meat I eat. Filipinos are big on hospitality, especially during fiesta, and try to put as much meat on the table as they can afford (often much more than they can afford) when they have visitors. Given that there is a municipal fiesta one or two times a year, and a barangay (neighborhood) fiesta as well, then even a fiesta for the purok (kinda like "street" but not so linear)... there's a whole lot of fiestas going on. People go house to house and eat their fill at each house. Everyone here raises pigs, cows, chickens, and carabao. One of my workers bought a horse, but no one's eating them AFAIK. In the cities they get much less meat I'd assume, since they can't raise their own livestock/poultry.

I had chicken and pork yesterday. I haven't had any chicken-fried steak, but some somewhat similar dishes with breaded chicken, pork, or beef. Probably once or twice a week for meat on average. Usually chicken (the type we have in US, but special occasions the native chicken), with beef (very lean), pork (not lean at all), and carabao (on special occasions and when the particular carabao is no longer able to work) being less regular dishes. That's not including fish, fish being an almost every day or as-much-as-you-can-afford it part of the Filipino diet. The native chicken here is very tasty indeed, just have to watch out for the bones because of the way they prepare the carcass. That being hacking away at it with a machete, bolo, or otherwise biggest knife they can find it seems.

Once the major things are taken care of I'll be getting a grill... the beans/chili are in short supply, other than the god-awful canned "pork" and beans they have in the supermarket. But beans are pretty easy to grow here, so we can fix that. They just are eaten green in the pod for the most part. Which is a bit weird given that they were a Spanish colony... not many Spanish influences in the cuisine here. But perhaps it's different in other provinces.

Real cheese is rather expensive here. Sells for about 3 to 4 times what it does in the US (at least for common types). So I haven't had much real cheese, or dairy in general for that matter. That's about the only thing I really miss other than specific fruits (peaches, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, ect) that aren't available here except canned, or very high price. They have strawberries in another province that I know of, and I'm going to grow some later on for sure. Can also grow grapes here.

But overall, my diet here is better than I ever ate in the US.