Pea and her friend Jessie, the "cowgirl" from a provincial girls interview five years earlier, cook law-oy over a rock-and-coconut-leaf fire in Negros Oriental. It's a vegetable soup made almost entirely from backyard plants. While it simmers, Pea grills Jessie about her dating standards, why she now thinks Filipino men lack emotional intelligence, and her call center job taking Chinese food orders from Americans.
Intro: Filipino food doesn't have to be fried and fatty
- Pea says people imagine Filipino food as fried or fatty, but in the provinces they make healthy food and grow it themselves
- Jessie was interviewed about 5 years ago for the provincial girls video, where she brought her cow, hence "the cowgirl"
- The cow is no longer around (Pea: "Oh no")
- Jessie was 19 turning 20 then and just turned 24. She's now working in Dumaguete City
- Pea still loves her provincial vibe and love of dresses, though her hair has changed
What law-oy is
- A Filipino term for green leafy vegetables turned into a soup
- Very healthy if you want to stay slim, and vegan friendly since it's all vegetables
- Everything can be grown in a backyard. Their garden has lemongrass, mint, eggplant, a banana tree, a moringa tree, and a coconut tree
- "Basically guys, you can live and eat for free if you're here in the provinces"
Ingredients
- Squash (a big one), scallions, eggplant (one shaped like a hook), tomato, very long string beans, sweet potato leaves, sayote (chayote), moringa leaves, okra, onions, ginger, green chilies
- Moringa notes: very healthy, used in moringa pandesal bread and turned into daily supplements
- Vegetables were pre-chopped before filming
Building the fire
- Big rocks as a makeshift stove, dried coconut leaves as fuel
- "I'm not going to use the flint. This is not Survivor." She uses a lighter
- "Now I feel like a smoked pea." Says it's like camping
- Naked and Afraid tangent: she thinks she and Jessie would do well on it, and Jessie doesn't mind being naked. She floats a "Pea and Jessie Naked and Afraid" segment but notes "the bazongas" would be blurred and it might get boring. Asks viewers in the comments if they'd watch
Cooking steps
- Water in the pot, then ginger and onion first so they infuse the taste and aroma (the smoky fire adds to it)
- Green chilies because "we are spicy"
- Cover and wait for the boil
- Squash goes in first because it's the toughest vegetable and takes longest to soften
- Then chayote, eggplant, okra, and string beans together, about 5 more minutes
- Pea reveals she's allergic to eggplant but loves law-oy, so she has cetirizine ready
- Smoke makes her eyes water: "I am crying. Who hurt me?"
- Last: tomatoes, scallions, sweet potato leaves, and moringa leaves
- Season simply with salt and pepper and optional MSG
- Taste before adding more salt. She ends up using about two spoonfuls
- On MSG: she knows some viewers object, but US takeout uses lots of it, and "a tiny bit of MSG won't kill you"
- Her mom gave her this soup as a kid to recover faster when sick
- Some Filipinos pair it with fried or grilled fish, but it's fine on its own
Jessie on the hot seat (during the cooking)
- Relationship status: still single and looking. At 24 she feels old enough to start dating for a long-term relationship, not necessarily to marry yet
- Body type: not Brad Pitt, not a "big boy." She's fine with a natural dad bod
- Number one standard: goal oriented. Pea jokes, "Okay, a gold digger"
- Money: Pea demands a number with no cop-out answer. Jessie says 50,000 pesos a month, enough for her lifestyle and "comfort zone"
- Age: she's fine with men 30 and above
- The loyalty question:
- 5 years ago Pea asked the provincial girls who they owe loyalty to first, family or future husband. Almost all said family, and it was one of the most talked-about topics in the comments
- Jessie's answer has changed to husband ("for now"), because she's learned a lot and is a grown woman now
- Asked whether she feels she was brainwashed before: "A bit." Pea: "Well, it's not too late"
- Would she date a foreigner? "Yes, of course. Why not?" She's heard they're very caring and responsible
- Filipino men vs. foreigners: she's only dated Filipinos. In her experience most Filipino guys lack emotional intelligence, and she calls them a "man child"
- Pea says she keeps hearing this, and can attest to it because one of her three brothers is a man child ("but I love them all")
Jessie's job: call center food order taking
- She takes phone orders for US-based Chinese restaurants, over 5,000 of them
- Customers sometimes ask if she's in the US. She used to say she was in the back of the restaurant making their food. Now they have a script saying they take orders remotely for the restaurant
- She's never tasted most of the dishes. If someone asks for the most delicious thing, she suggests general tso chicken, egg foo young, or sweet and sour dishes, or asks beef or pork and offers pepper steak with onion or pork with broccoli
- Does she push the most expensive item? Yes, and the spicy ones like kung pao chicken. Other specialties: happy family, dragon and phoenix. Pea says she'd "kill for a kung pao chicken"
- She deals with "hangry" Americans constantly
- She thinks being replaced by AI is possible because AI is "the thing" now
The taste test
- Pea took her cetirizine first. Jessie has no allergies. Pea: "I have allergic reactions to... liars"
- As devoted Filipinas they eat it with a portion of rice. This is a complete meal for an average provincial Filipino
- Her dog Puchi begs for food, and Pea promises him the leftovers
- Verdict: it's hot and has a kick. Pea likes the sweet squash, string beans, and okra ("lady finger")
- Why provincial women stay slim: they eat healthy and walk a lot "because we are out in the boonies"
- Closing banter: "No more Jollibees for Jessie." Jessie: "For now"
Outro
- Pocahontas bit: she bridges two very different cultures while dating a foreigner. If you want to be part of her tribe, check out Patreon. "And no, you can't poke my hontas"
