Spanish and American colonial eras influenced the earlier Philippine breakfast. During those centuries, innovations in kitchen stoves and ovens occurred globally. Lighting the day’s first cooking fire in the predawn light was demanding. With wood or coconut husk as fuel, the kalan (woodfire stove) system was surely more time consuming than turning the knob on a recently invented gas or electric stove that even had an oven for baking built into it.

Cafe by the Ruins, located at the heart of Baguio City, is a great way to start the morning. The cafe’s interiors are embellished by wooden bamboo decorations that truly resemble it’s Benguet ethnicity. The cafe was literally built from the ruins left by the war. According the the cafe’s site, “The ruins we lay claim to are the remains of a garden theater which was later converted into the gracious home of Phelps Whitmarsh, the first civil governor of Benguet.

Juliet Lazo Rivera of Vigan made miki for me, the quintessential noodle soup of the Ilocos. There was boiling broth in a caldero (pot) that contained a rich mixture of chopped shrimps, beef and chicken flavored with juice from crushed chicken bones and bagoong isda (fish paste), then colored by achuete (annatto).