Asia’s Best Female Chef of 2016, Margarita Fores to feature Gensan’s Queen of Tuna Cuisine on her CNN Show, Harvest

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]lmost eight years ago, I wrote a blog post about a female tuna trader turned restaurateur in General Santos City  that encouraged a lot of people to change their ways of thinking about tuna, as a cuisine.  Soledad Manangquil, Sol to her friends has been experimenting with tuna dishes for a long time, using its entrails that are usually overlooked and thrown away since people mainly favor its meat.

The dishes became bestsellers and the generals have associated them with her. For that, I called her, The Queen of Tuna Cuisine. Eventually, even outsiders and visitors’ penchant for her dishes has grown.

Here is that blog post published on this blog on April 18, 2009 – http://www.gensantos.com/2009/04/queen-of-tuna-cuisine/

Below are some of the tuna dishes featured on that article.  Click on each photo for a larger view.

Now, fast forward to today.

A few weeks ago, somebody from CNN Philippines contacted me and informed me that they came upon the Queen of Tuna Cuisine article and that they were interested in featuring Sol and her dishes in an upcoming CNN Philippines TV show called, Harvest, hosted by no less than Chef Margarita Fores!

In case you have been living under a rock, Chef Margarita Fores, is Asia’s Best Female Chef in 2016, named by internationally recognized Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants.

According to a CNN Philippines report, “More than 300 restaurant industry experts in Asia voted for Forés to take this year’s title as Asia’s Best Female Chef. Voters were composed of chefs, restaurateurs, food writers, well-traveled gourmets, and restaurant experts.”

Here’s her CNN interview after the award was given to her.

Watch video!

So there! Chef Margarita has since been featured in a good number of projects, along with other international chefs by CNN and “Harvest” will be her own foray into discovering and sharing to the rest of the world, the best of what the Philippines has to offer in terms of food. She will work around the theme, “From Farm to Kitchen” in her various culinary adventures.  In Gensan’s case, it should be, “From the Sea to the Kitchen”.

So anytime soon, the Queen of Tuna Cuisine Sol Manangquil (who has since moved on to serving her famous tuna dishes at her sprawling Mt. Sabrina Panoramic View and Resort in Barangay Tambler) will be meeting up front and personal Asia’s Best Female Chef in 2016, Chef Margarita Fores.

I am excited about their meetup imagining the awesome tuna dishes they could jointly come up with. Will Sol be cooking her dishes for Chef Margarita? Will Chef Margarita be showing us her own take on tuna?

I am even doubly excited at the prospect of this CNN show, Harvest, helping promote the Tuna Capital of the Philippines and more!

And it is all because of an almost eight-year old blog post of Gensan News Online which incidentally is celebrating its 10th Year in November. 

Proud Sox blogger here! 🙂  Prouder General, too!  What an amazing way to celebrate my 55th! Yay!