I'll make this quick because I've got a pile of term papers to check, and I also have to evaluate the album tracks before the recording session tonight.
People will do anything for food. They will jump through flaming hoops for hot rice, walk barefoot on hot coals for tasty "ulam", and sleep on cold concrete for refreshing beverages. OK, so I'm exaggerating a bit. But as most people involved in media production will tell you, the quality and speed of people's work markedly improves when they are fed well. I was talking with a television executive who was a former producer/director, and he said this is why people love working for stars like Dolphy. The food on their projects are always good, and the same for the stars and crew alike. Talk about social equality.
Back when I was working with the Eraserheads, while food wasn't one of my responsibilities, we were always reasonably well fed. There were times when we ordered out from fastfood places. Most studios have a folio filled with flyers from fastfood delivery places, so this is the fastest way to get food to hungry musicians and engineers. But one can only take so much of burgers or pizza before getting "sawa". Except for Raimund, who can't seem to get enough of fastfood, I noticed we had a tendency to order from places that had "lutong bahay" type stuff, like "Binalot". There were occasions however, when (the legendary) Tita Beth would send down some nice "sinigang na isda" or some other good old pinoy dish. We enjoyed this a lot, and hoped it would never end.
When I worked on Dong Abay's album, I decided not only to buy good food on the way to the studio, but when I had the time, my wife and I would actually cook at least once a week. This proved to be time consuming, because I had to plan and buy things in advance. But it was well worth it because I saw the smile on peoples faces from having had a nice meal before or during the session. Since Shinji, our engineer was Japanese, we even got a chance to make some quasi-Japanese dishes we had been practicing for years, like kani salad and fresh tofu sprinkled with with nori. Surprisingly, this costs about the same, or at most only marginally more than ordering out from Jolibee or McDonanld's.
For the Sugarfree sessions, I purposely built this into the production logistics and budget. Day 1 has been the only day I ordered for delivery, from "Rufo's" in particular. On day 2, which was Jal's birthday, he brought a kaldero of spectacular binagoongan. Since then, I've tried to buy food from "pinoy" food restaurants. like Ninang's, and a similar place near my house called Lola's. I have also made it a habit to have rice cooked fresh in the studio, either in my own, or the studio's rice cooker. This makes a big difference, so I just have to get something like a kaserola worth of adobo or kare-kare on the way to the studio, and let the hot rice warm everything up. Last Wednesday, Monch brought over a hugh pizza from Yellow Cab for our 4pm merienda (Wednesday sessions are 1-9pm). Although I thought the guys would still be too full for dinner at 7pm, I went ahead and cooked dinner in the studio anyway (yes, I know how to cook!). To my surprise, they finished everything. This kept them going until the end of the session, and presumably until their gig at 11pm.
I'm planning on bringing something Chinese on Tuesday if I have the time to pass by a nice restaurant, and a kaldero of my wife's special spare ribs soup on Wednesday. I don't know what I'll end up buying tonight though. Ironnically, it might be something "fastfoody" to contrast all the saucy food we've been having. Whatever it is, it will probably be something I myself would look forward to eating.
