EMPIRE OF THE SONS AND DAUGHTER

Sprouting from an alliance of the erudites and those helped by God, Scientia Dynastia now straddle a swath of territory from Almaguer to Artacho through Bakal 2, inconspicuous but protected by the Master of Rome who was murdered by his mistress' son to usher the ascension of Augustus the Adopted as the first emperor of the Roman Empire who ruled when the Messiah was born in Bethlehem to be crucified in the time of Tiberius the Reluctant, Rome's second potentate and precedent to The Mad Emperor who fornicated with his sisters, the empire intact until 14 emperors later when the Reign of Terror ended in the hands of Narcissus to signal its decline as our dynasty expanded to the third generation that was celebrated with a lunch of nilagang baka and ginataang paksiw na tuna between quarantined holidays, a pagan christmas tree and the Spanish farol and belen from the Phantom Biker's daily forage displayed as the coat of arms for the season.     

Like The Ripper of West Yorkshire and Manchester, the virus lurk to strike undetected which the Pugad Baboy branch of the dynasty fended with physical distancing, surgical masks and face shields as the Kingdom of Bakal 2 observed noched buena with a shabu-shabu hotpot, The Windsors parodized by the Thursday Club on Christmas Day with huge bottles of San Miguel Beer Grande in lieu of a Dubonnet Cocktail and a plateful of fried marinated tuna in lieu of dark chocolate while in Baloc the next day, Arisu and Usagi were surreptitiously initiated as Entered Apprentices having parted with Alice in Borderland, and were welcomed with a feast of pork barbecue, pinakbet, ensaladang talong, ginataang hipon and tinolang manok sans rice. 

Finally, the number one rule in The Fundamentals of Caring is to log at least 20 kilometers in the bike trails everyday, something Ben and Trevor missed as they search for the world's largest bovine and deepest pit while in Bakal 2, Jeronicus joined the rice planters in a chorus on the Jingle Jangle of A Christmas Journey as the Phantom Biker pass by to the market and back.  

PANCIT CANTON, ADOBO, CHICKEN WINGS atbp

It was the 20th of December and the feast day of St. Dominc of Silos, patron saint of prisoners and pregnant women, when the magic sleigh with 60,000 tons of gifts crash landed during a journey to Greenland, 118 kilos of Santa Claus tumbling into an arctic festival of raw seal liver and french pancakes in Kullorsuaq where Rabindranath Tagore is seducing Nukkanguaq's frozen libido with a sensual narration of the illicit affair between Sharmila's husband and sister, graphic illustrations of an intense cunnilungus between Mrinal the husband leaver and Kalyani who rejected a marriage proposal etched in snow to mark their liberation while a phantasm of  the horny widow Roopmatu played with herself and the northern lights, intoxicated with arsenic and envious of Kamala who thrived on a diet of an uncircumcised phallus that inspired Chandra to compose a poem for post-pubescent Amina's anticipated defloration to an enemy king as the men with funny caps assembled and feasted on chicken wings that were harvested from the puffin colony of Cape Farewell and done four ways, Madonna finally relinquishing the title of Material Girl to Manimala who was slaugthered by Hermogenes as commanded by El Patron, her meat mixed with beef from the holy cows of Kolkata, shipped to Buenos Aires and sold in Latuada's butcher shops where the goat meat for the Thursday Club originated and cooked into a dry but delectable adobo.

As Year 1 of the pandemic approach its conclusion, quarantined rats stirred when Psykhe squirted holy pee to bless an offering of silver-plated pancit canton, the hallucination of previous orgies bypassing Corylus as she preen before a sacrifice of reheated adobo to be reincarnated in a place of happiness where Psykhe was unbuttoned, her nipples torridly tounged to unmasked its pigment, frantic fingers feeling the countours of a wet honeypot where humans emerged before she was impaled on a huge erection, her infertile gonads sprayed with gallons of lust while the Phantom Bikers devoured fried chicken wings to compensate for a rained out Saturday.     

LAST WEEK

We called it our Thursday Club but since we see each other almost everyday, our bouts with ice cold Red Horse extra strong beer can be any other day like Wednesday after two from our group finally received their largesse from a local politician, or Saturday to drive away the unseen spirits of the night, and of course our usual Thursday set where for this week, chicharong baboy, crispy mushroom, fried tilapia and pork barbecue accompanied the poison of our choice. 

And for the second week in a row, the great Rabindranath Tagore came to enthrall us with the story of Mini, a young bride with a Rene Imperial chin who was unjustly convicted to death after a sensational trial that was chronicled by Bhupati as his lonely wife was being banged by his own brother because Raicharan lost his little master and the tomboyish Mriyani finally succumbed to wife duty so Phatik ran away to Hemant who defied family and tradition for love which made the miser Kundu mad. 

In the same week, the terrace and front yard of the house in Bakal 2 was finally improved where Commander Martin Servaz and Capt. Irene Ziegler laid down the frozen dead of St. Martin for Dr. Zeyolo Zantoko, the African doctor of Marly-Gormont, to perform an autopsy under the watchful guard of the Nineveh SWAT Team who retrieve the cadavers from Mosul. 

But it was a lazy week for the Phantom Bikers who opted to focus on harvesting the minimum weekly Vitality reward because finding Agnes in Marrakech would have been a lot easier for Brix in 2016, at Hotel Amani's rooftop restobar where she would often watch the sun set in the Atlas mountains with Cathy and Oxfam's team to CoP 22 while in Vancouver, first love was redefined by Nick's gift of life to Ali which is actually a much used storyline.

SAVVATOPHOBIA

The most anticipated day of the month is when those who labored were rewarded with "chines of beef, venison in Brew'z, pestelles of reede deer and carpes of young veale" that were prepared in the castle kitchens of York, Lancaster, Leeds and Arundel for the temple in Bakal 2. 

This is among the best kept secrets of great British castles and The Gaffer too who made sure of an ample fellowship despite being in the line of duty until he was implicated in the murder of DS John Corbett. 

Then the pandemic exploded to complicate the usual arrangements and since then, the life ahead shifted to every Saturday and Thursday of the month where the Phantom Biker rides with the Bakal 2 Bikers and get drunk with some of them, a change of routine remotely acknowledged from Bari by Madame Rosa and Momo. 

I am imagining a roasted pork belly for the noche buena but Roy Goode said Christmas is as godless as Frank Griffin and the festival of Saturnalia in La Belle, New Mexico to which German and Sara begged me to don't listen because it was the Spaniards who introduced farol for the Simbang Gabi and Panunuluyan until them Americans came with the five-pointed Star of Bethlehem.

And that was how Sunday's illness reunited Chiara and Anabel.

Somewhere in India, Mahen and Behari lusted after Binodini, a young childless and widowed MILF who seduced Tarabodho, a teenage adventurer who run away from copulating with his pubescent bride-to-be only to succumb to Giribala, a sex-starved housewife turned stage actress whom Detective Mohim suspected of being a nymphomaniac until he himself was sexually perverted by Harimati.

The Phantom Biker carried the stories by Rabindranath Tagore in his hydration bag to vanish the plague of the black cubes and be able to once again enjoy the corn of nourishment, the wine of refreshment and the oil of joy in the company of his brothers.  

THE THURSDAY CLUB

The first meetings were held in a pungent dark space between the toilet and a duck pen to comfort quarantined souls with blackmarket liquor in the days of the MECQ, and Jan de Liche and the thieves of the woods were the first guests, joining from Aalst to plot his death and Marieke's revenge on Baru.

After them came Robert Redford from the west when the meetings were moved to the veranda under the cover of drying towels, the resistance of Jesse James, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull narrated over bottles of extra strong beer while Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp hatch their revenge.

MGCQ lifted the secrecy and enabled meetings in other places which attracted Piotr and Witold from the mire of a small Polish town, the gardeners of Alice Springs who emerged through a pine gap, and representatives of the American Broadcasting Company and People Magazine that tried to sell the castles of Edinburgh and Cardiff with the story of Diana.

It was then that Zambrano and Combate of the 4th Company shared how Palafox died from drinking too much tequila after their Friday football games in Mexico so right there, the Phantom Bikers agreed to move their meetings to Thursday nights. 

They've had enough of chasing hangover cures which took them to as far as Lanzhou for the magic of its stir fried lilies, firecracker beef noodles and Gaodan niangpi before side stepping to Jiayuguan to pick up pre-ordered grilled lamb and then to Linxia for some fat wrapped liver that will be paired with Wuwei's flaxseed yellow rice. 

It was almost a tour of Gansu Province where the Phantom Bikers also fueled on guagua in Xiguan and stir fried potato noodles with pork in Dingxi to prelude a roadside lunch of chicken gluten stew in Jiuquan before realizing that the best hangover antidote is the souherb hot pot of Tianshui. 

But the flavorful origins of the Thursday Club will only emanate from the tokwa't baboy and reheated refrigerated leftovers that somehow painted colors in the black pages of the quarantine.

THE MAN WHO COULD NOT GET AWAY

He who could not stay cannot get away, exiled by a nanometer-sized virion and surviving on biking, Netflix and a Thursday club with the neighbors.

His was in a suspended state of "buro", which sounds like Boru, which refers to a wolf pack or a tense and perennially angry special police squad from Ankara, almost a madhouse of misfits, which is like serving sashimi, oysters and sinigang na lechon for a Sunday breakfast. 

Cooking somehow tamed the ennui of the long hours of the quarantine with bowls of cocido-style stew and pochero served to fete the triumph of Sis. Irene, Fr. Burke and Frenchie over the nun of of Transylvania.

Chen and Chewing Gum's tragedy in Macau and the mayhem in Busan were also memorialized with a pot of kansi that is as temptuous as Yenical while what was left of the thieves gather in Hong Kong to reflect on their betrayal with a feast of gotong Batangas. 

Such is the fate of a globetrotter in the time of COVID-19, imperious among the mortals of Bakal 2 but trapped in the gilded cage of working-from-home where resentment against the Duke of Edinburgh transformed to admiration in Episode 4 as The Outsider mentored the British monarchy through the naivety of the Prince of Wales and his obsession with the Duchess of Cornwall, and the scandalous affairs of the Countess of Snowdon and Princess Royal for the sake of the crown and the Royal House of Windsor's survival.

So the frequent flyer drunk more than usual, starting with leftover brandy on Monday followed by whiskey on Wednesday then an extra-strong lager on Thursday and finally a pale golden lager on Friday in a week that the Phantom Bikers dedicated in finding the title lost to Diana, Princess of Wales, in the trails of Munoz, Talugtug and Guimba.

LOVE AND ANARCHY

Sophie is one horny cougar who fornicated with an equally lustful post-teenage Max to push Lund & Lagerstedt to the edge and burn her forest with episodes of quick masturbation.

She reminds me of someone from Bangkok and Siem Reap, not asexual Friedrich and the lesbian Denise but more like our hosts at Rana Slott and the multitude of Gamla Stan who stoked the Stockhom Syndrome's fixation to a well-behaved and modest Grecian princess whose pent-up horniness was breached by the accidental brushing of erogenous zones to ignite a wild orgy amidst smashed cakes and everywhere in every position conceivable when she is not masturbating in the bathroom. 

Bizzare, like Zeina's sudden urge to fuck Tony under the bombs in Southern Lebanon.

Macabre, like Xandra's double life and obvious preference for Martina's pussy rather than Ralp's dick, Anne's sideline as a high end merchandise as enigmatic as Sylvia and dense like Michiel and the old empty churches in De Wallen where the free cheese of Amsterdam tasted like the women of the night and perhaps the corylus too who would be a lovely fuck.

It will take 58 days to bike through the Blues Highway at 40 kms/day so I would rather start in Memphis and fry chicken in Clarksdale, smoke some ribs in Cleveland and do a barbecue in Greenville on the way to New Orleans where I once crossed the Missisippi River to Maturanoc for Kuya A's goat kaldereta and pinapaitan that turned out to be a huge letdown.

We always take the BART but next time, I will ride a bike through Mission Street from Daly City to San Francisco and back twice to notch 40 kilometers that will deserve a pierna enchilada from La Torta Gorda and would not mind adding four more kilometers for an apple fritter at Bob's Donut and Pastry Shop and perhaps a clam chowder too at the Swan Oyster Depot. 

It was always the MRT in Singapore but a meal of chicken rice at the Maxwell Hawker Center powered me by foot to the Raffles Hotel where the famous Singapore Sling was created, and enough for a side trip to pick up a tub of chwee kue, one or two shiok dishes and a peranakan cuisine sampler for the pulutan to feed the Bakal 2 Bikers in Delaen.

Somebody feed Phil too and for that, a meal of feijoada and picanha with a pitcher of caipirinha at one of Rio de Janeiro's botecas would be best after a downhill ride from Sugarloaf Mountain to Copacabana Beach; or maybe poke, poi and huli-huli chicken after crossing Hawaii's Big Island from Waikiki Beach to the North Shore which is only 65 kilometers by bike, more than half of which was recorded in Munoz by the welcome committee for Typhoon Ulysses.

    

RANDOM LINES FOR RICHARD CARAPAZ

Lata was Soni in 2018 Calcutta and Soni was Lata of 1951 Delhi who shared a feminist definition of a suitable boy, not Maan who was obsessed with an MILF nor Kabri who owns a BSA/Hercules bicycle. 

The doomsday virus spared the 75th Vuelta a Espana and was traced by Maj. Eden Sinclair from Scotland to Wahtye, high priest to King Neferirkare, keeper of the most guarded secrets of the Saqqara Tomb in Egypt including the ghosts of Dakar who haunted Ada in the Senegal side of the Atlantics and perhaps Cedric and Leni too who lost nine lives to "Pagpag" in the Philippines.

In Marseille, Capt. Richard Vronski was dying to tell his story of the Rogue City to Arminius and Thusnelda, barbarians and rulers of the Teutoburg Forest, patrons of aproned, masked and shielded men who fraternize and get drunk in Baloc every first Saturday of the month.

And finally, the 3-week old frozen pork ribs was transformed into Quezon's sinantomas as the Vuelta arrived in Aramon Formigal, the 2-week old frozen chicken was cooked into a tiim after Angliru, much like the retouched leftovers and light brandy from Tata Pito's birthday or Pare Charlie's samgyupsal-ed frozen beef strips and extra strong beer on Thursday night.

Omar was memorialized with Nora's barbecue and Smirnoff vodka while two bowls of sinigang na ulo ng salmon and light beer sobered me up from an earlier bout with pale pilsen and dinakdakan to therefore entertain Kuya Bob's birthday with eclectic bluetoothed music.

Primos Roglic narrowly won the 2020 Vuelta due to time bonuses and a weak Ineos Grenadier team, and perhaps with help from Movistar in the last three kilometers to  Alto de la Covatilla, but the Phantom Bikers will ride with Richard Carapaz as they did with him through the ricefields of Munoz, San Jose, Sto. Domingo and Lupao with a single feed stop at Thelma's Pancit Malabon during the last week of the Vuelta.    

HIS LORDSHIP, THE EARL OF SANDWICH

Meat wrapped in bread has been around since the time of the ancients.

But the sandwich as we know it now is attributed to the 4th Earl of Sandwich who, because of his fondness for gambling, dined on beef "sandwiched" between two pieces of bread while he played.

That was in 1762 and spawned the creation of various forms of the sandwich like chicken salad from Rhode Island in 1863, banh mi from Vietnam in the 1830s, steak that was first served in Connecticut, Sloppy Joes from Iowa in 1930, and medianoche which originated from Cuba.

With gratitude to Google, I was able to recreate a grilled chicken salad sandwich from refrigerated leftovers that choked the prejudiced throath of Judge Julius Hoffman during the trial of the Chicago 7, a Vietnamese sandwich from thinly sliced soy sauce-marinated pork chops to gag SS Col. Hans Landa somewhere in France as he is being marked by the inglorious bestards, a steak sandwich from simmered sirloin strips to sustain Arnau Estanyul as he preached from the pulpit of the Cathedral of the Sea in Barcelona on why Aledis is his Alpha and Joan his Omega, Sloppy Joes with withered raisins to celebrate La Revolution against the blue bloods of Montargis and commerate the betrayal of Elise and the rise of Joseph Ignace Guillotin, and a pickle-less Cuban midnight sandwich to help me endure Copenhagen and 6 episodes of CC the warrior.  

The sandwich maker is also the Phantom Biker who checkmated both Beth Harmon and Vasily Borgov, the Queen's Gambit allowing him and Richard Carapaz to escape a Sicilian defense and scholar's mate, navigate through the Levenfish and Najdorf variations from a Reti opening to take back the maillot rojo in the steep slopes of the Angliru and once again scorch the trails on a day when the saints hide from the trick-or-treat of Super Typhoon Goni/Rolly.  

THE PANSITING

All the world's a pansit.

Birthdays and funerals, weddings and baptismals, fiestas and reunions, anniversaries, breakfast, lunch, dinner, merienda and lockdown food packs.

Mula Mavulis hanggang Saluag. 

Pansit, the original Pinoy fast food, has come a long way from the "pian e sit" sold by the panciteros and panciterias of old.

And I was the Pansit Man on sabbatical, shooting churches and eating noodles who in the time of the quarantine was called on to cook sotanghon with pork meat balls on Sunday, prep up for the wife's pancit canton on Monday, experiment on pasta with ragu on Tuesday, dare for a miki Abra on Wednesday, finally landed bihon guisado on Thursday, reinvent La Paz batchoy on Friday and ride for pansit-kanin on Saturday.

All for breakfast and to honor the last week of the 103rd Giro d'Italia and the first week of the 75th La Vuelta a Espana.

Tao Geoghengan Hart ITT-ied to pink at the last stage of the Giro so I asked Enola Holmes in England if Tao is indeed the next generation of British cycling.

"Shut the fuck up!" retorted Manuel and Driss who firmly believe that Wout van Aert will rule not just Belgium but the world.

They will be close enemies, the Ineos Grenadier versus a yellow bird from Jumbo-Visma, intense but mute like Siva and Regatta's dark drama because football is preferred over cycling in the slums of Singapore and Egypt, an enigma as tragic as the treasure and forbidden love stories of Hatshepsut and Senenmut during the 18th Dynasty, Ali and Zainab in the Ottoman period, and General Bishr and Naemat before the Revolution of 1952.

Ramkant played cricket in the hills of Jitvapur and dreamed of Umrika in Mumbai where he was smuggled in a cargo ship but ended up in Taichung, toiling with A-Ho under a sun in the sprawling grounds of the world's largest bike manufacturer whose Giant Revel will bring uncertain glory to the future of Spanish cycling: Max Soler who is a progeny of Luis through Trini, and Enric Mas who was descended from Soleras through the Carlana. 

I am the Phantom Biker and these are my stories in the time of Covid-19.

ABNORMAL

My normal is now abnormal. 

Like Inspector Danladi Waziri commemorating October 1 by baptizing Prince Aderopo with the blood of Akote's virgins.

Kurt Prank being pickled in a barrel of the Hoflingers' beer to be served as the main course for Munich's Oktoberfest.

A craving for raw human tapas setting off the vengeful fury of a patient man called Jose in Madrid.

The Hezbollah creating Ziad Haddad as a very big short project to infiltrate Beirut's film industry and politics.

Aviv becaming uncircumcised as heroes fly from Tel Aviv to Bogota to honor the tender love of Benda and Maria.

Because abnormal is now the norm in Bakal 2. 

The Phantom Bikers withdrew from 220th Oktoberfest and the 103rd edition of the Giro d'Italia to race in Season 2 of the Taco Chronicles for the prize of a birria in Jalisco, a pescado in Ensenada, suadero in Mexico City, cochinita in the Yucatan, cabrito in Santiago, American Taco in Orange County and burrito in Ciudad Juarez.

But they took a wrong turn and ended with siopao and Mountain Dew from a 7-11 store in Abar 2nd.  

OKTOBERFEST

Whatever virus we brought with us from my first trip to Manila in 7 months was fried by a liter of Johnny Walker Black in Cabanatuan, instantly I pray and not like a slow death from hunger in the camps of the Khmer Rouge who killed Loung Ung's father, Matt and Alejandro blown on the day of the soldado and I with J&B Rare that hopefully neutralized possible contamination during Kuya Boy's birthday bash in Bagong Sikat, Kabir triumphant in his duel with Tanveer to emerge as the sole bard of blood in Balochistan which culminated in a fellowship of fried meat and Double Black after we were handed our Past Master's jackets and before the pandemic finally descended in Bakal 2. 

I wonder if Sylvie's 5-layer sandwich and wild game barbecue of seared elk or Rasheed's barbecue combo and Argentinian asado are compatible with whiskey, or if Tina's 4th of July lamb kebab and ribs will go well with the extra strong beer of our Thursday Club. 

I'm sure Kuya Aztec's lamay-fare of kalderetang kambing and inihaw na tilapia easily upended Rasheed and Tina's old school barbecue of smoked salmon and goat leg one alcohol-free night in Pantabangan, although Tina's whole hog and brisket would be judged as the best in the finale of the American barbecue showdown in Georgia as the Phantom Bikers endured a goto in San Felipe that is as bland as the Giro d' Italia after Miguel Angel Lopez and Geraint Thomas crashed out and Simon Yates fell to Covid-19. 

SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT

The FAT of Liguria (olive oil, prosciutto, parmesan) makes food delicious, SALT from Kama-kamagari (moshio, miso, soy sauce) brings life to food, ACID sourced in Oxkutzcab (sour oranges, lime, Melipona) balances the flavors, and the HEAT of  Chez Penisse in California (grill, roast, simmer) transform food from raw to cooked. 

Yes indeed although Samin Nosrat's tahdig is actually glorified tutong and I have doubts if it will go well with the acidic flavor of sinigang and papaitan or the sugar-tempered saltiness of tiim, all glistening with meat fat, all cooked in a mild simmering heat including the grilled liempo for the tokwa't baboy, all prepared by Jayson to celebrate the resumption of our labors, albeit sanitized, masked, shielded and gloved.   

In another part of the world, DCP Vatika Chaturvedi's task force was rewarded with ice creams for solving a heinous Delhi crime while in Pretoria, Solomon Mahangu (aka Kalushi) was forced fed with apples and tomatoes just for being black. 

But it was too early for lomi so The Phantom Bikers retreated to the usual aroskaldo as Kalifa's rap danced in Jinn's beat, Sara's forsaken cop life etched in alcohol bottles that adorn the Skylines of Frankfurt as Filippo Ganna and Diego Ulissi won the first two stages of the 103rd Giro d'Italia in Palermo and Agrigento, respectively.

FIRE, WATER, AIR, EARTH

It was with FIRE where we first learned to cook by roasting meat before WATER enabled pot cooking to usher the emergence of cuisine, perhaps at the same time that we discovered to make use of AIR in baking and EARTH for fermentation.

Thus was how Michael Pollan explained cheese on bread to Ada and Trela as they finally kissed amidst the mysterious deaths in Sowie Doly, and a bowl of raw egg on hot rice to Akira and Dr. Masamatsu who were lovestruck in Tokyo but won't say so. 

Meanwhile, Tere and Celso waited for Bene's sunset while boiling Pampanga quail eggs to pair with Agu and Strika's smoked beasts from 17 West African nations as Alvin Russel who is with the devil all the time maraude Knockemstiff for a porch pie, Memo getting bigger with Marta's beans and sausages because nobody knows they're in Llanquihue which is 15,557 kilometers from Singapore where Johnny the Mee Pok Man consumated a necrophilic affair with Bunny the dead hooker.

In Nueva Ecija, the Phantom Bikers welcomed a new era as they shift gears from aroskaldo and mami to Thelma's pinapaitan.

THE MISFORTUNE OF PRIMOZ ROGLIC

For 11 days, the maillot jaune was firmly riveted on Primoz Roglic's back until that fateful day in La Planche des belles filles when it was yanked off by Tadej Pogacar, skin and all, who would triumphantly wear it in Paris as drops of bitter blood etch a nightmare to be long remembered in the cobblestones of Champs-Elysees, to be be told and retold in the manner of Greg Lemond's conquest of an overconfident Laurent Fignon in 1989 and the ousting of Carlo Guieb by tech-savvy Bernardo Llentada in 1991.

Meanwhile in Bakal 2, the harvest from a successful cholecsystectomy garnished a samgyeopsal spread.

Nario Quintana fell first, then Egan Bernal and Rigoberto Uran, with Miguel Angel Lopez and Richard Carapaz providing flickers of inspiration until they too succumbed to Stage 20 despite Tootsie Tomanetz's brisket, Rodney Scott's whole hog barbecue and Rosalia Chay Chuch's cochinita pibil that were offered generously to appease the gods.

It might be that Lennox Hastie's fancy grilled caviar and smoked burrata are just too much that even DCI Roz Huntley was not spared from the curse of the Balaclava Man whose striking similarity to the masked Phanthom Bikers will definitely justify the lynching of PLDT's Customer Service for crimes against humanity.

US AT THE END OF THE WEEK

I am Sam.

And Isa represents what I've been missing in the time of Covid-19 including a college reunion at Fred's Revolucion, lunch at the Original Pares Mami House, and the confrontation in Escolta (and Binondo).

A murderous week concluded in Moscow with the liberation of Rodion and the ascencion of Eseniya while in Marseille, Lucas and Robert regained city hall at the cost of their unborn progeny.  

In London, Superintendent Ted Hastings stood by his obligation to bring down DI Dot Cottan and the rot of London's finest that somehow involved Freemasons in high places, and for which the Kitchen in Bakal 2 laid out a fellowship of pan fried salmon, sinuglaw, chop suey and a quarter of Johnny Walker Black.   

On the second week of Le Tour, Egan Bernal and Nario Quintana cracked in the slopes of Grand Colombier where a feast of minced meat cutlet, pork-wrapped tomatoes, simmered taro and squid, pickled ginger tempura, vermicelli salad, stuffed cabbage, clam soup, sauteed burdock, liver and chives, and soba vanished with their podium aspirations.

The Phantom Bikers wept but they will keep on until the last drop of Mountain Dew, the last morsel of Skyflakes, and the last bowl of arroz caldo disappear from the face of quarantined earth.  

MIDNIGHT DINING IN FRANCE

In lieu of the pissaladiere and salade nicoise, Alexander Kristoff and Julian Alaphilippe celebrated their maillots jaunes in Nice with tako sausages and karaage.

Caleb Ewan sprinted for a neko manma and sake-steamed clams in Sisteron which Primoz Roglic countered with an ochazuke and nokogori a day later in Orcieres-Merlette.  

The flamme rouge in Privas and Lavaur were memorialized by Wout van Aert with offerings of potato salad, butter rice, cream stew and tuna mayo rice.

Katsudon and pickled Napa cabbage powered Alexey Lutsenko up Mont Aigoual but Ilnur Zakarin got lost in the descents because Tsvetkov, Malodementevsk and Zaslavsk apparently don't exist in Google Maps, the method in taming the curves left at the lockers of Nizhny Novgored and Serpukhov that is enough to deliver Loudenvielle to Nans Peters who was greeted with tamago sando and hiyashi chuka at the finish line.

Tadej Pogacar finally triumphed in Laruns which the Slovenians celebrated with yakisoba, nikujaga, light brandy from the poultry, mojito from the corner store and whiskey from the Craft.   

After the opening week and 4 days in the yellow, Adam Yates was briefed over saba shoyiaki, instant ramen and gyoza on the cases against DCI Tony Gates and DI Lindsay Denton, and of Robert Taro and Lucas Barres' revolt because Marseille was left out of the 2020 Tour de France route.

Yates ceded the maillot jaune but we will wear ours until the yellow from our 373 Bikers uniforms fade.

THE SERIAL CHEF'S APOCALYPSE

The confrontation in Marzahn and the showdown at Kaiserwarte finally unleashed the dogs of Berlin but not enough to qualify Erol Birkan and Kurt Grimmel for the 107th Tour de France which took off 1,351 kilometers away in Nice without Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas who, after being accosted in London as off-form by DS Steve Arnott and DI Kate Fleming, fell in the line of duty at Criterium du Dauphine while in Moscow, Ilrun Zakarin trained in the method of Rodion Meglin and Eseniya Steklova to beat Nario Quintana who might finally wear the maillot jaune in the way of Bhuvan's ragtag cricket team triumphing over the arrogance of Captain Russel in Champaner, and therefore justify a feast of ayam pansuh and palm wine from the Gawai Dayak with past and current Masters pitching in spicy tomato chicken and beef rendang from the Festival of Breaking the Fast in the time of quarantine to go with the chili con carne, tuna salpicao, tebasaki and Japanese potato salad from the Kitchen in Bakal 2.   

It was Dahling Nick who inspired me to write sentences in paragraph form to narrate the story of May Day Eve from the perspective of the woman with two navels who painted the portrait of the artist as a Filipino in the house on Zapote Street where the Phantom Bikers celebrated the climbing prowess of Lupo Alaba, Ariel Marana and Carlo Guieb with a Hakka banquet of braised pork with black fungus and taro, pork trotters with radish, fish maw soup, sauteed mixed vegetables and steamed chicken from the Tuan Pek Kong Mountain Festival.