This immersive journey through the flavors, ingredients, and influences in Filipino cooking is guided by none other than Nicole Ponseca and Miguel Trinidad, owner and chef of several Filipino restaurants. To eat -and cook- like a Filipino involves puckeringly sour adobos with meat so tender you can cut it with a fork, national favorites like kare kare (oxtail stew) and kinilaw (fresh seafood cured in vinegar), Chinese-influenced pansit (noodles), tamales by way of early Mexican immigrants, and Arab-inflected fare, with its layered spicy stews and flavors of burnt coconut. But it also entails beloved street snacks like ukoy (fritters) and empanadas and the array of sweets and treats called meryenda. Filled with riotously bold and bright photographs, I Am a Filipino is like a classic kamayan dinner-one long festive table piled high with food.