His cookbook was very telling. Tortang giniling (ground beef omelettes) stacked up like flapjacks, lumpia with the makings of a cheeseburger and bibingka (rice cake) lodged with a slice of cream cheese before its baked. These dishes are not quite traditional Filipino and not American, either, like the author himself.
“[Amboy] describes my cuisine, my lifestyle,” writes Cailan. “It’s how I cook. It’s how I talk…It’s about a Filipino-American kid trying to make it work in a world where everyone says no. About making it happen and being true to who I am. About just owning it.”
Strapped for cash, his parents moved from a Filipino town in California to a predominantly Mexican-American area in East LA, devoid of a community he
