I am ringing in 2011 with a decision. A decision, mind you, not a resolution. Resolutions are for plebeians. Of course the five of you who are still (but most probably are no longer) reading this blog may argue that I am, in fact, one of you, common folks. You may well be, technically, objectively, right. But not if you factor in narcissism as an increasingly universal value. So factoring in my narcissistic mindset, I would be perfectly right in assuming that I am not plebeian and am, in fact, ultra unique and stellar. Ergo, you would be wrong. Entirely, massively. Wrong.
But this musicless ditty is not about narcissism and its grandchild, ungratefulness (its child being, of course, entitlement). This, instead, is about the conceptual opposite, gratitude.
I decided that at least for this year, I will adopt a more grateful, thankful, mindset. Why? Because, frankly, sometimes when you don't decide--deliberately, forcefully--to be thankful, you forget. And I don't want to forget. My memory's bad enough as it is.
So I'm starting my year of being grateful with the easiest thing in the world to be thankful about. This here is my fit of gastronomic gratitude.
Cyma's Roka Salata. Best salad ever. My mom thinks so too. We order this every time we eat at Cyma, along with the Solomos pasta (with salmon, feta cheese, and angel hair pasta in a tomato cream sauce). I also love...
Cyma's generous portions. Even if the dishes seem pricey, if you are a party of at least 3, Cyma turns out to be affordable, but fine, dining. Lovely.
Abe's. My friend, Ange, treated me and our friends to this wonderful place that serves Kapampangan dishes. We had sauteed crickets, lamb adobo, kare-kare, and bamboo rice (white rice steamed inside a piece of bamboo). As Ange described the experience, everything was Just Right. Just enough salty, just enough sweet, and a lot savory.
Pulled Pork Sandwich at Charlie's Carwash and Grill. The new Charlie's branch in Greenhills opened last year. Ditchie and I ate there during their soft opening. She had the burger while I had the pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw. We also shared some buffalo wings. The pork sandwich was good, tender and moist, drenched in sweet and tangy barbecue sauce. Ditchie also liked her burger. We didn't care much for the wings, though. For the best wings we ate last year, my thanks go to...
Buffalo Wings and Things. Which, alas, has closed its doors in the Greenhills mall. I had some good times in this place, with Ditchie and with my friend, Lee. The Garlic Parmesan wings are killer, great paired with dirty rice and blue cheese dip. Wings and Things, you will be missed, sorely. I hope to see you in another location soon.
Indonesian food. Last year, I got to visit Yogyakarta, Indonesia (for a conference). Three things I loved about that trip: a) we stayed at the house of one of Indonesia's most prominent contemporary artists, it was like living in a cozy art gallery; b) I got to see Borobudur! and c) I got to eat Indonesian food like Gado-gado (a mixed greens and beans salad with peanut dressing and topped with hard boiled eggs). Indonesian food is kind of like our food, but a lot spicier. Yum. An Indonesian guy I talked to told me that when he visited Manila and tried the food, he missed the spiciness and found our food bland. So someone told him to go to Bicol and try the spicy, gata based, dishes there. So I had to recommend Bicol Express and Pinangat. He said he'll try it when he visits next. Don't know when that will be. I was just making small talk and didn't really want to find out those details.
Kopiko 3-in-1 coffee, with brown sugar. Hands down, the best instant coffee mix. Ever. I know there's already an ad airing on TV but why isn't it more popular? It's not too strong and bitter but the taste of coffee is distinct. The white sugar version is fine as well, but for me, the brown sugar variant works best just because I prefer brown sugar as it has a rounder, butterscotch, flavor.
Baby Ruth MINT flavor. I love the American goods store in Greenhills Shopping Center, where most of the items sell for only 79 to 99 pesos. The Baby Ruth Mints sell for 99 pesos per 8-piece pack.
Kraft Caramels. I am always grateful for these. And for the fact that Unimart puts these on sale every now and then.
Smiley's Chocolate Covered Mint Cookies. See last post.
Athiporn's Bagoong Rice Maki. I got my first taste of these goodies at a Christmas get together in the home of my professor, Ma'am Bo. Athiporn, a grad student in our department, has caters Thai food. These tiny morsels of bagoong infused sticky rice, with chicken, scrambled egg, and onion bits, wrapped in seaweed are their bestseller, and rightly so. You can easily polish off seven of these babies in one sitting. I should know. That's what I did. I wish I could say, no worries, I didn't eat anything else that night. Some wishes shall remain unfulfilled.
Lomi at a Batangas roadside eatery. My family and I had emergency lunch on the way home from the resort we stayed at for our Christmas vacation. It was nearing 2pm, we were hungry, and there was no decent restaurant in sight. So we decided to get some "laman tiyan" (literally, stomach filler) to temporarily soothe hunger pangs while we looked for a place we wanted to eat at. Ate My, Ditchie, and Mama ordered Goto while I, Daddy, Kuya Levi, and Daya ordered Lomi. The Lomi was a hot bowl filled with fat, yellow, egg noodles in a thick, creamy, light brown gravy, topped with pork innards and fried meat rolls. It was delicious. No surprise there. The big surprise that day was the Goto. My sisters and Mama were expecting a savory rice porridge, because in Manila, that's what Goto is: a rice dish. Apparently, in Batangas, Goto is a bowl of hot bile over pork innards and liver. In Manila, that's called Papaitan. Lesson learned: don't assume that Goto is the same dish anywhere in the Philippines. It's not.
That concludes my fit of gastronomic gratitude. Goodbye, 2010. My tummy shall surely miss you. 2011, meet my tummy. Tummy, 2011.
Showing posts with label Ditchie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ditchie. Show all posts
Monday, January 03, 2011
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Speaking of Cake...
... (see previous post), last weekend was Ditchie's birthday, and her boss gave her a mocha cake from Hizon's as a birthday present. It was a huge cake. Two dense layers of chocolate chiffon with custard filling in between and a thick layer of butter icing covering the whole thing. It was huge.
Anyway, Ditchie brought home only little more than half of the cake but that was more than enough for me. In fact, there's still some left over even though I've been eating 1 to 2 hefty slices of cake everyday since Friday night. Another co-worker gave Ditchie a Mango Torte from Dulcelin Gourmet, and it was also family size. It's supposed to be kept frozen but it doesn't fit in our freezer. I was going to help it along by, you know, eating some (and by "some" I mean "a whole lot") just to reduce the size so it can fit in our refrigerator's small freezer. Except, I didn't like it much. I'm not a huge fan of mango--which I know is sacrilege for a Filipino to even think, let alone articulate--but I really can't get behind it. I like green mangoes (the indian variety) with alamang and dried mangoes as well but, the truth is, my tongue doesn't generally like interacting with mangoes. It likes to keep its distance from kind of cloying fruits. So I ate maybe a couple of slices of the torte, mostly because I liked the crust and the cream, but I removed the huge slices of ripe mango and put them on Ditchie's plate. She can have the whole torte, for all I care. I just don't like mango.
But back to that Hizon's cake. It actually isn't all that phenomenal. I still prefer Estrel's caramel cake (which Ditchie doesn't like. Oh well, whatever ices your chiffon.), although, frankly, from stories I've heard from Ate My and also a friend of mine, Estrel's service leaves much to be desired. Appartently, the people in that not-so-cult-anymore bakeshop sometimes have an air of haughtiness around them, so arrogant just because people virtually line up to buy and eat their cake. Which reminds me of the French during Marie Antoinette's ignoble reign. Except, of course, they didn't actually have money to buy and eat cake and were, in fact, being thrown scraps. So I don't really know why I remembered that.
Anyway, the point is that Hizon's mocha cake, tastewise, isn't really rocking. But I've been eating blocks of it. And yesterday, I went 5 hours without eating anything after I ate cake. Which made me realize why I love cake. I love cake because it fills you up and leaves no space for anything else. You eat cake and you're set--at least until the next meal. You don't get this feeling that you should have something else, something to finish up the meal you just had, like a small piece of Max's caramel bar. Cake is appetizer, entree, and dessert, all in one. It doesn't even have to be tasty. It just has to be cake, just two layers of chiffon, preferably with custard in between, and loads of icing.
Maybe Marie Antoinette was onto something when she said, let them eat cake.
Anyway, Ditchie brought home only little more than half of the cake but that was more than enough for me. In fact, there's still some left over even though I've been eating 1 to 2 hefty slices of cake everyday since Friday night. Another co-worker gave Ditchie a Mango Torte from Dulcelin Gourmet, and it was also family size. It's supposed to be kept frozen but it doesn't fit in our freezer. I was going to help it along by, you know, eating some (and by "some" I mean "a whole lot") just to reduce the size so it can fit in our refrigerator's small freezer. Except, I didn't like it much. I'm not a huge fan of mango--which I know is sacrilege for a Filipino to even think, let alone articulate--but I really can't get behind it. I like green mangoes (the indian variety) with alamang and dried mangoes as well but, the truth is, my tongue doesn't generally like interacting with mangoes. It likes to keep its distance from kind of cloying fruits. So I ate maybe a couple of slices of the torte, mostly because I liked the crust and the cream, but I removed the huge slices of ripe mango and put them on Ditchie's plate. She can have the whole torte, for all I care. I just don't like mango.
But back to that Hizon's cake. It actually isn't all that phenomenal. I still prefer Estrel's caramel cake (which Ditchie doesn't like. Oh well, whatever ices your chiffon.), although, frankly, from stories I've heard from Ate My and also a friend of mine, Estrel's service leaves much to be desired. Appartently, the people in that not-so-cult-anymore bakeshop sometimes have an air of haughtiness around them, so arrogant just because people virtually line up to buy and eat their cake. Which reminds me of the French during Marie Antoinette's ignoble reign. Except, of course, they didn't actually have money to buy and eat cake and were, in fact, being thrown scraps. So I don't really know why I remembered that.
Anyway, the point is that Hizon's mocha cake, tastewise, isn't really rocking. But I've been eating blocks of it. And yesterday, I went 5 hours without eating anything after I ate cake. Which made me realize why I love cake. I love cake because it fills you up and leaves no space for anything else. You eat cake and you're set--at least until the next meal. You don't get this feeling that you should have something else, something to finish up the meal you just had, like a small piece of Max's caramel bar. Cake is appetizer, entree, and dessert, all in one. It doesn't even have to be tasty. It just has to be cake, just two layers of chiffon, preferably with custard in between, and loads of icing.
Maybe Marie Antoinette was onto something when she said, let them eat cake.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Death by Ate My
Note: I unwittingly made this photo series during dinner to celebrate my older sister, Ditchie's passing the Bar exams in April 2005, almost 3 years ago. When I looked at the pictures I took with my mobile phone, this story popped out because of 2 things: 1) Daddy looked positively dead in one photo, and 2) my eldest sister, Ate My, looked like she had something to do with Daddy's so called death. I suppose it's a bit morbid, some might say even disrespectful of my dad. But he loved it when I showed the series to him. I made a comic in my Macbook but the software I used doesn't translate to PC. So I just made a low-tech version to finally share my little gem of morbid serendipity to anyone who likes some black comedy with their bogchi. Dead straight.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
My Sweet 16th
“Marami-rami rin akong nakain dahil pinilit ko talaga…”
This sentence appears in a journal entry dated May 18, 1994. I wrote it a day after my 16th birthday, perhaps my most memorable birthday to date. (And when I say ‘perhaps,’ I really mean ‘certainly’). It’s a difficult sentence to translate in English. How do you translate marami-rami, for instance? The root word, madami, means ample, plentiful, copious. The word form marami-rami denotes a quantity less than ample but still more than enough and certainly not lacking or scarce. The phrase “marami-rami rin akong nakain,” roughly translated, means “I ate quite a bit too,” while the phrase “dahil pinilit ko talaga” literally means “because I forced it.”
The whole sentence, in English, reads thus: I ate quite a bit too because I forced it. It doesn’t make sense in the way the Tagalog one does. Perhaps a better translation, at least one that approximates the flavor of the original sentence, would be: I was able to eat quite a bit but only because I forced myself.
This, as well as the original, sentence begs the question: Under what circumstances did I have to force myself to eat a lot? Don’t I do it, ie eat a lot, often enough, willingly enough, under no duress, and gladly even? Why did I have to force myself to do it?
The answer is in the story behind the sentence. It is the same story that made my 16th birthday a truly sweet one.
Thirteen years ago, in 1994, I had sore throat on my 16th birthday. It started, like all sore throats do, as just a tickle at the back of my throat. I paid the tickling sensation no mind because it was my birthday and I was spending it with my sisters. Our parents were both in the States at that time, leaving us three kids gloriously alone, joyfully parentless, and ecstatically independent. Our independence showed up in the brilliant gastronomic scheme we had devised for ourselves: breakfast at McDonald’s, lunch at Tokyo-Tokyo, and dinner at Barrio Fiesta. We shunned cooking and any form of food preparation. At least, at the start. Pretty soon, we realized the folly of blowing the budget on burgers, fries, potato balls, ika fry, tempura, all-you-can-eat dinners, and cakes at Sugar House. The weekly remittance was usually gone in a few days and we would have to starve for the rest of the week until the next trip to the ATM.
But back to my birthday. My sisters and I spent it at SM City, the mall we grew up prowling. My first birthday meal consisted of Chicken McNuggets, French Fries, and a Chocolate Shake, which we bought to go from McDonalds. I munched on the nuggets while I laughed at Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. It was starting to get difficult to swallow, but I ignored the twinge of pain and polished off my McDonald’s birthday meal.
I don’t remember what we did after the movie. But I remember dinner at Barrio Fiesta. We ordered Bouillabaise, Kare-kare, and Crispy Pata. By this time, my throat was already sore and hurting. Every swallow was hellish labor. Still, I persevered through the meal. I sampled everything. The thick, creamy soup. The oily, nutty ox tripe. The crunchy fried pig thigh that scratched my throat with every swallow. I forced them all down my poor, violated throat. Nothing was going to keep me from enjoying my birthday, not even streptococcus.
I went home with a pleased stomach and an angry throat. By all accounts, I enjoyed myself. I laughed at the movie and concluded, rightly, that Jim Carrey was comic genius. I enjoyed my sisters’ company (as I usually do). And most importantly, I ate well. Really well, in fact, considering I had strep throat.
It was a simple birthday for a simple girl, and I went to bed glad. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up to the most excruciating pain in the history of sore throats. My throat was raw and I was burning from my jaw up to my ears. My sisters had to rub me down with a face towel soaked in cold water because I was already running a fever.
It was not a good end to my birthday, and the next day I would question the wisdom of shoving, forcing all that good food down my abused throat.
In my journal, I would write:
“Marami-rami rin akong nakain dahil pinilit ko talaga…Kaya lang lumala sore throat ko… Ngayon, hilo ako sa antibiotics at kamumumog…” (“I was able to eat quite a bit but only because I forced myself… Except my sore throat has gotten worse… I am now lightheaded from the antibiotics and having to gargle all the time…”)
Pain renders people short sighted, unable to take the long view. In my pain, I would call the whole day a “bad trip.” Thirteen years later, I can actually say it was a good day. The sore throat was just the price I had to pay, the ticket I had to buy for a good trip.
This sentence appears in a journal entry dated May 18, 1994. I wrote it a day after my 16th birthday, perhaps my most memorable birthday to date. (And when I say ‘perhaps,’ I really mean ‘certainly’). It’s a difficult sentence to translate in English. How do you translate marami-rami, for instance? The root word, madami, means ample, plentiful, copious. The word form marami-rami denotes a quantity less than ample but still more than enough and certainly not lacking or scarce. The phrase “marami-rami rin akong nakain,” roughly translated, means “I ate quite a bit too,” while the phrase “dahil pinilit ko talaga” literally means “because I forced it.”
The whole sentence, in English, reads thus: I ate quite a bit too because I forced it. It doesn’t make sense in the way the Tagalog one does. Perhaps a better translation, at least one that approximates the flavor of the original sentence, would be: I was able to eat quite a bit but only because I forced myself.
This, as well as the original, sentence begs the question: Under what circumstances did I have to force myself to eat a lot? Don’t I do it, ie eat a lot, often enough, willingly enough, under no duress, and gladly even? Why did I have to force myself to do it?
The answer is in the story behind the sentence. It is the same story that made my 16th birthday a truly sweet one.
Thirteen years ago, in 1994, I had sore throat on my 16th birthday. It started, like all sore throats do, as just a tickle at the back of my throat. I paid the tickling sensation no mind because it was my birthday and I was spending it with my sisters. Our parents were both in the States at that time, leaving us three kids gloriously alone, joyfully parentless, and ecstatically independent. Our independence showed up in the brilliant gastronomic scheme we had devised for ourselves: breakfast at McDonald’s, lunch at Tokyo-Tokyo, and dinner at Barrio Fiesta. We shunned cooking and any form of food preparation. At least, at the start. Pretty soon, we realized the folly of blowing the budget on burgers, fries, potato balls, ika fry, tempura, all-you-can-eat dinners, and cakes at Sugar House. The weekly remittance was usually gone in a few days and we would have to starve for the rest of the week until the next trip to the ATM.
But back to my birthday. My sisters and I spent it at SM City, the mall we grew up prowling. My first birthday meal consisted of Chicken McNuggets, French Fries, and a Chocolate Shake, which we bought to go from McDonalds. I munched on the nuggets while I laughed at Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. It was starting to get difficult to swallow, but I ignored the twinge of pain and polished off my McDonald’s birthday meal.
I don’t remember what we did after the movie. But I remember dinner at Barrio Fiesta. We ordered Bouillabaise, Kare-kare, and Crispy Pata. By this time, my throat was already sore and hurting. Every swallow was hellish labor. Still, I persevered through the meal. I sampled everything. The thick, creamy soup. The oily, nutty ox tripe. The crunchy fried pig thigh that scratched my throat with every swallow. I forced them all down my poor, violated throat. Nothing was going to keep me from enjoying my birthday, not even streptococcus.
I went home with a pleased stomach and an angry throat. By all accounts, I enjoyed myself. I laughed at the movie and concluded, rightly, that Jim Carrey was comic genius. I enjoyed my sisters’ company (as I usually do). And most importantly, I ate well. Really well, in fact, considering I had strep throat.
It was a simple birthday for a simple girl, and I went to bed glad. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up to the most excruciating pain in the history of sore throats. My throat was raw and I was burning from my jaw up to my ears. My sisters had to rub me down with a face towel soaked in cold water because I was already running a fever.
It was not a good end to my birthday, and the next day I would question the wisdom of shoving, forcing all that good food down my abused throat.
In my journal, I would write:
“Marami-rami rin akong nakain dahil pinilit ko talaga…Kaya lang lumala sore throat ko… Ngayon, hilo ako sa antibiotics at kamumumog…” (“I was able to eat quite a bit but only because I forced myself… Except my sore throat has gotten worse… I am now lightheaded from the antibiotics and having to gargle all the time…”)
Pain renders people short sighted, unable to take the long view. In my pain, I would call the whole day a “bad trip.” Thirteen years later, I can actually say it was a good day. The sore throat was just the price I had to pay, the ticket I had to buy for a good trip.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
The Definition of S.I.N.
Sin is… slices of lechon (roast pig) in a hoisin-mayonnaise sauce, with one celery leaf to lessen the guilt a bit, all wrapped in soft pita, tied with a green onion stalk...
Last Saturday, 28th of April, my sister and now brother-in-law got married on their 10th anniversary as a couple. It was a simple affair—short, solemn, sweet. The reception was modern, forgoing the usual trite traditions like the bouquet and garter toss and couple’s dance. Instead, it was a night of music and words, songs and poetry, sweet tribute and sour wit..
The best thing about my sister and bro-in-law’s wedding was not the gowns—although the bride was radiant in ecru and, if I may brag, my other sister and I were hopelessly cute in our funky gray-blue and magenta dresses. (The designer, Mitzi Quilendrino, is all about the quirky, and it worked out really well. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find our photos in wedding magazines. In fact, I’d be surprised if we didn’t). It was not the brilliant hosting I did, at turns innocent and scathing. (Obviously, I don’t suffer from that illness called modesty and obviously, I’m my own publicist). Or the brilliant sarcasm that spewed forth from my mother’s mouth… “Levi, you are very fortunate to now be a member of our family… My daughter will love you even if you are unlovable…”
No, the best thing about last Saturday’s wedding was the food prepared by Kaye Cunanan. Below are various definitions of S.I.N…
Appetizer
Salmon Blinis: coin-sized pita circles topped with slivers of smoked salmon on a bed of wasabi mayo and garnished with herbs
Lechon Wrap: slices of Cebu Lechon (roast pig) in a hoisin-mayo sauce and celery leaves wrapped in soft pita
Salad
Pan-seared fois gras, scallops, and mandarin orange segments on a bed of fresh greens, drizzled with balsamic dressing
Rice
White Rice with herbs and nuts
Carrot Rice: buttered white rice with flecks of carrots
Main Course
Grilled Tiger Prawns, served with roasted vegetables
Red Snapper baked in smooth, creamy sauce and mashed potatoes, topped with almond slivers
Osso Buco: braised beef shank with soft, melting bone marrow, aka Swiss bulalo
Dessert
Fresh yoghurt drizzled with honey and sprinkled with chopped nuts
Tangy Orange Sorbet
Last Saturday, 28th of April, my sister and now brother-in-law got married on their 10th anniversary as a couple. It was a simple affair—short, solemn, sweet. The reception was modern, forgoing the usual trite traditions like the bouquet and garter toss and couple’s dance. Instead, it was a night of music and words, songs and poetry, sweet tribute and sour wit..
The best thing about my sister and bro-in-law’s wedding was not the gowns—although the bride was radiant in ecru and, if I may brag, my other sister and I were hopelessly cute in our funky gray-blue and magenta dresses. (The designer, Mitzi Quilendrino, is all about the quirky, and it worked out really well. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find our photos in wedding magazines. In fact, I’d be surprised if we didn’t). It was not the brilliant hosting I did, at turns innocent and scathing. (Obviously, I don’t suffer from that illness called modesty and obviously, I’m my own publicist). Or the brilliant sarcasm that spewed forth from my mother’s mouth… “Levi, you are very fortunate to now be a member of our family… My daughter will love you even if you are unlovable…”
No, the best thing about last Saturday’s wedding was the food prepared by Kaye Cunanan. Below are various definitions of S.I.N…
Appetizer
Salmon Blinis: coin-sized pita circles topped with slivers of smoked salmon on a bed of wasabi mayo and garnished with herbs
Lechon Wrap: slices of Cebu Lechon (roast pig) in a hoisin-mayo sauce and celery leaves wrapped in soft pita
Salad
Pan-seared fois gras, scallops, and mandarin orange segments on a bed of fresh greens, drizzled with balsamic dressing
Rice
White Rice with herbs and nuts
Carrot Rice: buttered white rice with flecks of carrots
Main Course
Grilled Tiger Prawns, served with roasted vegetables
Red Snapper baked in smooth, creamy sauce and mashed potatoes, topped with almond slivers
Osso Buco: braised beef shank with soft, melting bone marrow, aka Swiss bulalo
Dessert
Fresh yoghurt drizzled with honey and sprinkled with chopped nuts
Tangy Orange Sorbet
Monday, February 12, 2007
Tawilis at Terry's
Last Sunday, Ate My treated me, Ditchie, and Kuya Levi (bro-in-law to be) to dinner at Terry’s Selection Gourmet Store at The Podium. Dinner was nice. This sentence, by the way, is my first understatement for 2007. I plan to make more understatements as the year progresses. It’s all part of my new year’s bid to be droll, fastidious, and ironic because that’s the closest I’ll ever get to being British. Bugger.
Anyway, last Sunday’s dinner was breaded, butterflied, fried tawilis and gambas in garlicky olive oil that we ate with crispy slices of flattened bread. And, because one can never have too much carbo, we also had some silky potatoes with peppers and bits of Spanish sausage. Like I said, dinner was nice. My stomach loved everything. The fried tawilis, with balsamic vinegar for dipping, was a precious discovery, much like Magellan’s discovery of our islands for Spain’s King Philip. Shrimps are always a good thing, even better when they’re shelled and de-veined for no-fuss eating, and best when they’re drowning in a sea of olive oil with about 5,000 garlic cloves and 1,000 siling labuyo. My liver made its protest known a bit later in the evening but I’d gladly live the rest of my life burping like a wee babe just so my tummy can have these gorgeous gastronomic moments.
And the potatoes? Well, I love potatoes. Any way I can eat them is fine by me. I like them fried, boiled and mashed, baked, slathered with mayonnaise, or like last Sunday, sautéed with tomatoes, peppers, and red sausage. It was home food from a home I’ve never been in, of a friend I haven’t met. That last statement didn’t make any sense, did it? That’s another one of my new year’s resolutions, to be glib, and smooth, and suave, because that’s the closest I’ll ever get to being Spanish. Merde.
The menu is in Spanish and I don’t quite remember the actual names of the food I ate. I just remember textures and emotions. We didn’t stay long enough for me to browse through the stacks of gourmet items so I can’t say anything about the store itself, except that it looked like what I imagined Lawson’s store to be. What is Lawson’s store, you ask? Well, it’s the general goods store described in one of Ate My’s historical romance novels, this one set in early 1900s America, around the time of the San Francisco earthquake. I enjoyed reading that book. It was cheesy and sweet, like Pom-Poms and Chiz Curls. Anyway, Terry’s Selection looks like that, only newer and more modern. So I guess it’s retro Lawson’s. Whatever.
The verdict, as if it weren’t obvious, is 4 fishballs and a kwek-kwek* for Terry’s Selection Gourmet Store.
*Rating System:
4 fishballs and a kwek-kwek – Excellent! I could eat this forever!
4 fishballs, no kwek-kwek – V.G.!
3 fishballs – Good.
2 fishballs – Fair. Pwede na.
1 Fishball – Poor. Laman tiyan ka lang.
No Fishball, no kwek-kwek – Pwe! I’d rather go hungry for the rest of my life!
Anyway, last Sunday’s dinner was breaded, butterflied, fried tawilis and gambas in garlicky olive oil that we ate with crispy slices of flattened bread. And, because one can never have too much carbo, we also had some silky potatoes with peppers and bits of Spanish sausage. Like I said, dinner was nice. My stomach loved everything. The fried tawilis, with balsamic vinegar for dipping, was a precious discovery, much like Magellan’s discovery of our islands for Spain’s King Philip. Shrimps are always a good thing, even better when they’re shelled and de-veined for no-fuss eating, and best when they’re drowning in a sea of olive oil with about 5,000 garlic cloves and 1,000 siling labuyo. My liver made its protest known a bit later in the evening but I’d gladly live the rest of my life burping like a wee babe just so my tummy can have these gorgeous gastronomic moments.
And the potatoes? Well, I love potatoes. Any way I can eat them is fine by me. I like them fried, boiled and mashed, baked, slathered with mayonnaise, or like last Sunday, sautéed with tomatoes, peppers, and red sausage. It was home food from a home I’ve never been in, of a friend I haven’t met. That last statement didn’t make any sense, did it? That’s another one of my new year’s resolutions, to be glib, and smooth, and suave, because that’s the closest I’ll ever get to being Spanish. Merde.
The menu is in Spanish and I don’t quite remember the actual names of the food I ate. I just remember textures and emotions. We didn’t stay long enough for me to browse through the stacks of gourmet items so I can’t say anything about the store itself, except that it looked like what I imagined Lawson’s store to be. What is Lawson’s store, you ask? Well, it’s the general goods store described in one of Ate My’s historical romance novels, this one set in early 1900s America, around the time of the San Francisco earthquake. I enjoyed reading that book. It was cheesy and sweet, like Pom-Poms and Chiz Curls. Anyway, Terry’s Selection looks like that, only newer and more modern. So I guess it’s retro Lawson’s. Whatever.
The verdict, as if it weren’t obvious, is 4 fishballs and a kwek-kwek* for Terry’s Selection Gourmet Store.
*Rating System:
4 fishballs and a kwek-kwek – Excellent! I could eat this forever!
4 fishballs, no kwek-kwek – V.G.!
3 fishballs – Good.
2 fishballs – Fair. Pwede na.
1 Fishball – Poor. Laman tiyan ka lang.
No Fishball, no kwek-kwek – Pwe! I’d rather go hungry for the rest of my life!
Monday, December 18, 2006
This Just In... No More Meat, Rice, Pasta for Bochog!
It is a testament to my sad, sorry, defensive state that I am referring to myself in the 3rd person. As we all know, no one of sound mind does this. Let me amend that, no non-celebrity of sound mind refers to herself in the 3rd person. (I make this necessary amendment because I have heard through the grapevine that Ate Vi, bless her, calls herself "Vilma Santos." When asked to endorse a laundry bar, she apparently said, "Parang hindi naglalaba si Vilma Santos gamit ang kamay. Kung maglalaba si Vilma Santos, siguro gagamit siya ng washing machine." Let me take a moment to, in internet speak, ROTFLMAO. I don't know if this is true, and I don't particularly care. It's a hilarious story.).
But back to more serious matters, the kind that make people ponder metaphysical questions. In particular, what is identity? How is one's identity connected to the container one is housed in, ie one's body?
I ask these questions because I have just been told by the doctor to lose weight. Now, this is not a rare occurence. I have been told all my life to lose weight by doctors and non-doctors alike, by people I know and virtual strangers, by people who truly care and those who only care to expound on the virtues of being... not fat (in sum, that one would be more attractive and that from this increase in attractiveness, everything else will follow: boyfriend, husband, family, success, great life--hell, maybe even a spot in heaven!).
Most times, I am able to shrug these things off. I just tell people that I'm happy with myself and they are free to make of it what they will. This time, I couldn't dismiss the doctor telling me to lose weight because it wasn't so much being told to lose weight that bothered me, it was being told to, ahem, cut portions. Specifically, cut rice and pasta portions. And no pork, he said. Fish and chicken and veggies and fruits (except the ones that are too sweet) are all right. But no meat. No meat.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present... the Devil in a White Coat. Fancying telling me not to eat meat anymore. Not to cook pasta. The horror! Telling me to find another hobby besides food and cooking and eating. Que barbaridad! Even asking me if I have an eating disorder (his exact words were, "hindi ka ba yung tipong kumakain ng marami tapos isusuka?" Uh, you mean, am I bulimic? A great, big DUH!!! to you, Doc. If I were bulimic, that would suck 'cause, basically, all that purging obviously doesn't work and I'm still fat. A fat bulimic. That's a funny oxymoron right there. I'd be laughing my lardy ass off if it weren't my gastronomic future on the line). I told Doc Devil that I'm very well-adjusted, thank you. To which he said, "Mukha ngang masaya ka sa sarili mo." I don't know if he was being sarcastic but I take that as a compliment because I am happy with myself. It's just other people who sometimes aren't happy with me.
Don't get me wrong. Doc Devil wasn't mean. In fact, he seemed genuinely concerned. It's just that I feel that the minute he saw me, he automatically went on a crusade to get me to lose weight and virtually reduced my health issues to the fact of being big. And while I do think his dietary suggestions are valid (in fact, since Friday I have been eating no more than 1 cup of rice every meal instead of my usual, uh, 2 plates . I feel--quite rightly--self-congratulatory.), I think it was simplistic of him to blame my weight for my stuffy nose and scratchy throat. Another great, big DUHHH!!! Ever heard of a viral infection, Doc? No? Maybe you should go back to med school then.
I do know that I get very defensive when people comment and ask about my bigness. I get especially prickly when people tell me maybe I should lose weight. It's classical conditioning. People tell me I'm too big, which elicits a conditioned response of bristling resentment. People often talk about finding it hard to like and love themselves. I've never found it hard. I've always liked me, enjoyed my own company, thought myself deserving of anything I seek and work to have, and loved me. That hasn't been hard at all. It also hasn't been hard accepting the reality that not many people will probably like and love me to the same extent that I do myself. I have been ok with that fact. What I am not ok with and probably will never be ok with is the cavalier way with which people seek to impose their standards of beauty, sometimes disguised as concern for my health, on me when I take great pains to let them be. Be beautiful, be ugly. Be smart, be stupid. Be anything. (To illustrate: I don't tell people, "maybe you should try to be smarter." Or, "you'd be more attractive if you changed your face." That would be downright mean. What people don't get is that it's the same kind of mean to tell someone she'd be more attractive if she lost weight. Because then you assume that the person you're concerned about holds the same views about herself that you hold, ie that she is not smart enough, not pretty enough, not anything enough. Why would anyone make, let alone articulate, such harsh assumptions?).
I don't like being told what to do and how to be. I know this. It is almost pathological. My professor told me that things "told" me should be couched in egalitarian terms, terms that speak nothing of power imbalances, hierarchical relationships, and societal standards of being and worth.
I am trying to be pragmatic (for once in my life) and reasonable about it. Which means I have to take off my political/ideological lenses and view the matter from a more, er, neutral health perspective. (And no, I won't question the assumption that a health perspective is politically neutral. 'Cause this post is never going to end if I do that). I have a particular health concern, ie kabag (which is going away now, thank you). It may be an acute reaction to something (a virus or whatever) or it may be a symptom of an underlying digestive problem brought about by my fondness for food that's not, shall we say, optimal for health. What to do then? It pains me to say it but Food and I? We're gonna have to COMPROMISE.
So I will try to cut my rice portions to 1 cup per meal and my pasta portions to a single serving (around 100 grams, according to most cookbooks). Our bi-monthly menu only includes 2-3 pork dishes, of which I hope to limit myself again to only one serving. (When I say single serving, I mean a normal-sized portion and not my usual family-sized portions.). I've actually been eating more fish, veggies, and fruits so that's not really a problem. As for exercise, I'm going to continue strutting my beautiful bum around my village, maybe just more regularly.
But I say this now, I don't plan to ever swear off pork and rice and pizza and pasta. Doing so would guarantee the failure of this compromise agreement. I love food and I'll never force myself to stop loving food. That's non-negotiable. Maybe it's a matter of loving not just with my heart and gut but also with my head.
Like I told my Ditchie and Claire, though, I see hard times ahead. I see possible bouts of anger and depression. I see philosophical railings and metaphysical meanderings all in the name of food and weight and identity and love. Such is the nature of a committed relationship, I guess. It evolves, and you have to make certain changes to keep it going. Of course, just writing this makes me sad all over again. Reminds me of Shakespeare's idea of love:
Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! It is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
But back to more serious matters, the kind that make people ponder metaphysical questions. In particular, what is identity? How is one's identity connected to the container one is housed in, ie one's body?
I ask these questions because I have just been told by the doctor to lose weight. Now, this is not a rare occurence. I have been told all my life to lose weight by doctors and non-doctors alike, by people I know and virtual strangers, by people who truly care and those who only care to expound on the virtues of being... not fat (in sum, that one would be more attractive and that from this increase in attractiveness, everything else will follow: boyfriend, husband, family, success, great life--hell, maybe even a spot in heaven!).
Most times, I am able to shrug these things off. I just tell people that I'm happy with myself and they are free to make of it what they will. This time, I couldn't dismiss the doctor telling me to lose weight because it wasn't so much being told to lose weight that bothered me, it was being told to, ahem, cut portions. Specifically, cut rice and pasta portions. And no pork, he said. Fish and chicken and veggies and fruits (except the ones that are too sweet) are all right. But no meat. No meat.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present... the Devil in a White Coat. Fancying telling me not to eat meat anymore. Not to cook pasta. The horror! Telling me to find another hobby besides food and cooking and eating. Que barbaridad! Even asking me if I have an eating disorder (his exact words were, "hindi ka ba yung tipong kumakain ng marami tapos isusuka?" Uh, you mean, am I bulimic? A great, big DUH!!! to you, Doc. If I were bulimic, that would suck 'cause, basically, all that purging obviously doesn't work and I'm still fat. A fat bulimic. That's a funny oxymoron right there. I'd be laughing my lardy ass off if it weren't my gastronomic future on the line). I told Doc Devil that I'm very well-adjusted, thank you. To which he said, "Mukha ngang masaya ka sa sarili mo." I don't know if he was being sarcastic but I take that as a compliment because I am happy with myself. It's just other people who sometimes aren't happy with me.
Don't get me wrong. Doc Devil wasn't mean. In fact, he seemed genuinely concerned. It's just that I feel that the minute he saw me, he automatically went on a crusade to get me to lose weight and virtually reduced my health issues to the fact of being big. And while I do think his dietary suggestions are valid (in fact, since Friday I have been eating no more than 1 cup of rice every meal instead of my usual, uh, 2 plates . I feel--quite rightly--self-congratulatory.), I think it was simplistic of him to blame my weight for my stuffy nose and scratchy throat. Another great, big DUHHH!!! Ever heard of a viral infection, Doc? No? Maybe you should go back to med school then.
I do know that I get very defensive when people comment and ask about my bigness. I get especially prickly when people tell me maybe I should lose weight. It's classical conditioning. People tell me I'm too big, which elicits a conditioned response of bristling resentment. People often talk about finding it hard to like and love themselves. I've never found it hard. I've always liked me, enjoyed my own company, thought myself deserving of anything I seek and work to have, and loved me. That hasn't been hard at all. It also hasn't been hard accepting the reality that not many people will probably like and love me to the same extent that I do myself. I have been ok with that fact. What I am not ok with and probably will never be ok with is the cavalier way with which people seek to impose their standards of beauty, sometimes disguised as concern for my health, on me when I take great pains to let them be. Be beautiful, be ugly. Be smart, be stupid. Be anything. (To illustrate: I don't tell people, "maybe you should try to be smarter." Or, "you'd be more attractive if you changed your face." That would be downright mean. What people don't get is that it's the same kind of mean to tell someone she'd be more attractive if she lost weight. Because then you assume that the person you're concerned about holds the same views about herself that you hold, ie that she is not smart enough, not pretty enough, not anything enough. Why would anyone make, let alone articulate, such harsh assumptions?).
I don't like being told what to do and how to be. I know this. It is almost pathological. My professor told me that things "told" me should be couched in egalitarian terms, terms that speak nothing of power imbalances, hierarchical relationships, and societal standards of being and worth.
I am trying to be pragmatic (for once in my life) and reasonable about it. Which means I have to take off my political/ideological lenses and view the matter from a more, er, neutral health perspective. (And no, I won't question the assumption that a health perspective is politically neutral. 'Cause this post is never going to end if I do that). I have a particular health concern, ie kabag (which is going away now, thank you). It may be an acute reaction to something (a virus or whatever) or it may be a symptom of an underlying digestive problem brought about by my fondness for food that's not, shall we say, optimal for health. What to do then? It pains me to say it but Food and I? We're gonna have to COMPROMISE.
So I will try to cut my rice portions to 1 cup per meal and my pasta portions to a single serving (around 100 grams, according to most cookbooks). Our bi-monthly menu only includes 2-3 pork dishes, of which I hope to limit myself again to only one serving. (When I say single serving, I mean a normal-sized portion and not my usual family-sized portions.). I've actually been eating more fish, veggies, and fruits so that's not really a problem. As for exercise, I'm going to continue strutting my beautiful bum around my village, maybe just more regularly.
But I say this now, I don't plan to ever swear off pork and rice and pizza and pasta. Doing so would guarantee the failure of this compromise agreement. I love food and I'll never force myself to stop loving food. That's non-negotiable. Maybe it's a matter of loving not just with my heart and gut but also with my head.
Like I told my Ditchie and Claire, though, I see hard times ahead. I see possible bouts of anger and depression. I see philosophical railings and metaphysical meanderings all in the name of food and weight and identity and love. Such is the nature of a committed relationship, I guess. It evolves, and you have to make certain changes to keep it going. Of course, just writing this makes me sad all over again. Reminds me of Shakespeare's idea of love:
Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! It is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Losing Eat
I was struck by a viral infection that rendered me housebound for the better part of November, with only enough energy to sleep a lot and eat a little. I'll say that again. Eat A LITTLE. Up to now, I still can't quite believe that I went through a period of time not feeling like eating. Not wanting food, or needing it, or loving it, or having any kind of emotion about it. This, to state the obvious (something that I like to do every now and then), was uncharacteristic of me. It had never happened, in fact. I've felt worse in the past and have actually been sick with gastroenteritis (which I believe is God's punishment for eating indiscriminately). But even during that hellish period of alternating nausea and diarrhea punctuated by 3 needle shots, I still found in me the will to eat. For about one week last month, I lost it. I lost the will to eat.
This is how it happened. My loving, generous mother came home from Hong Kong bearing the gift of Zhen de Shou, a Chinese herbal supplement that purportedly helps one lose weight. My mom, bless her, had taken it upon herself to help us, her three daughters, lose weight. Not that we were begging for help. In fact, not that we were trying to lose weight either. Well, maybe my two sisters. Kinda. It's just that my mother is one of those people who believe that people are more beautiful when they're not fat. She thinks we're beautiful, yes. But I think she believes that we'd be downright ravishing if only we lost a bit of weight (in my case, a LOT of weight). I don't have the heart to tell her that being downright ravishing requires not just a certain weight but also a certain mien, an oomph that not everyone who's beautiful and thin may have. (Case in point, Lani Mercado, objectively a beautiful woman but, also objectively, about as 3D, sexy, and ravishing as a thumb tack). I just don't have that oomph. Maybe my sisters. But me? Not so much.
But when your mother brings home a month's worth of herbal supplements that cost quite a bit of money, you do not say no. You do not go into a pseudo-feminist rant about restrictive standards of beauty. Instead, you say, "Ok. Thanks, Mama. Love you. This doesn't have side effects naman, di ba?" And even though you rarely pray these days, you say a quick but heartfelt prayer that this works. If not for you, then for your mom. Who's obviously desperate about YOUR weight.
So I took them pills for three days. And on the 3rd day, God created Bochog's Loss of Appetite, a state or condition characterised by a lassitude that cannot be accounted for by a simple viral infection. Such lassitude includes an alarming apathy towards food and a similar disinterest in any kind of activity that constitutes the concept of LIVING. I did not feel like moving, dreaming, thinking, eating. I did not feel like doing anything.
The Loss of Appetite terrified me and prompted me to quit taking the pills and go to the hospital. The doctors at the hospital thought it was just another symptom of the viral infection. But when I asked my sisters, they said they were also feeling the same inertia. Mine was just worse because I was already sick with the viral thingy (I just didn't know it). I think also that my experience was worse because you do not go from thinking the world of food to not having any kind of thought or feeling about it in zero seconds flat. That just doesn't happen. Needless to say, my sisters quit too. And Ate My urged Mama to stop taking the pills. Turns out, Mama was feeling those things too. Except she was attributing them to high BP. When Ate My told her what happened, she realized it was those bleeding Zhen de Shou supplements. They make you lose weight, all right. They do it by making you lose your joie de vivre and turning you into a zombie. Or an anorexic trapped in the body of a fat girl. To which I say, no thanks. I'd rather be fat, passably pretty, and happy. I don't need to be thin and drop dead gorgeous.
So now we have around a dozen unopened boxes of those blasted pills. I'm not even going to give them to anyone. They're horrible. My sisters and I have never been so happy about quitting anything. Quitting those pills was like quitting sadness. And I'll always quit that.
This is how it happened. My loving, generous mother came home from Hong Kong bearing the gift of Zhen de Shou, a Chinese herbal supplement that purportedly helps one lose weight. My mom, bless her, had taken it upon herself to help us, her three daughters, lose weight. Not that we were begging for help. In fact, not that we were trying to lose weight either. Well, maybe my two sisters. Kinda. It's just that my mother is one of those people who believe that people are more beautiful when they're not fat. She thinks we're beautiful, yes. But I think she believes that we'd be downright ravishing if only we lost a bit of weight (in my case, a LOT of weight). I don't have the heart to tell her that being downright ravishing requires not just a certain weight but also a certain mien, an oomph that not everyone who's beautiful and thin may have. (Case in point, Lani Mercado, objectively a beautiful woman but, also objectively, about as 3D, sexy, and ravishing as a thumb tack). I just don't have that oomph. Maybe my sisters. But me? Not so much.
But when your mother brings home a month's worth of herbal supplements that cost quite a bit of money, you do not say no. You do not go into a pseudo-feminist rant about restrictive standards of beauty. Instead, you say, "Ok. Thanks, Mama. Love you. This doesn't have side effects naman, di ba?" And even though you rarely pray these days, you say a quick but heartfelt prayer that this works. If not for you, then for your mom. Who's obviously desperate about YOUR weight.
So I took them pills for three days. And on the 3rd day, God created Bochog's Loss of Appetite, a state or condition characterised by a lassitude that cannot be accounted for by a simple viral infection. Such lassitude includes an alarming apathy towards food and a similar disinterest in any kind of activity that constitutes the concept of LIVING. I did not feel like moving, dreaming, thinking, eating. I did not feel like doing anything.
The Loss of Appetite terrified me and prompted me to quit taking the pills and go to the hospital. The doctors at the hospital thought it was just another symptom of the viral infection. But when I asked my sisters, they said they were also feeling the same inertia. Mine was just worse because I was already sick with the viral thingy (I just didn't know it). I think also that my experience was worse because you do not go from thinking the world of food to not having any kind of thought or feeling about it in zero seconds flat. That just doesn't happen. Needless to say, my sisters quit too. And Ate My urged Mama to stop taking the pills. Turns out, Mama was feeling those things too. Except she was attributing them to high BP. When Ate My told her what happened, she realized it was those bleeding Zhen de Shou supplements. They make you lose weight, all right. They do it by making you lose your joie de vivre and turning you into a zombie. Or an anorexic trapped in the body of a fat girl. To which I say, no thanks. I'd rather be fat, passably pretty, and happy. I don't need to be thin and drop dead gorgeous.
So now we have around a dozen unopened boxes of those blasted pills. I'm not even going to give them to anyone. They're horrible. My sisters and I have never been so happy about quitting anything. Quitting those pills was like quitting sadness. And I'll always quit that.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Excuse Me While I B.A.R.F.
Was praying with my family, ie my dad, 2 sisters, and our kasambahay Daya, last Saturday (Mama was out making money, which can be a form of prayer, I suppose, if you do it religiously and ritualistically. Ahem.). While it was not an unusual occurence for mi familia to pray together, it had been a long time since the last group thanksgiving-slash-supplication. We (and by we, I really mean my eldest sister and my dad) just felt like saying thank you to God because we've been feeling especially blessed the past few days. So in a fit of Protestant gratitude, we prayed.
When it was my turn to pray, I felt fake because I hadn't prayed in a long time. A long time. Possibly years. The kind of prayer that requires sincerity, heartfelt gratitude, and more importantly, the acknowledgement of God's control over one's life. I've become too William Ernest Henley, too "Master of My Fate", for that. Nevertheless, I prayed. It was sincere enough but I knew too that I was just regurgitating many of the words. And then... out of nowhere, the words came out of my mouth, "Lord, help each one of us carve our own paths."
That sounded so foreign to me, and a little bit jarring. Not because I've never said or thought about carving one's own path (in fact, that's all I think about) but because I had never ever prayed it. I was brought up to believe that a Christian could never be a Humanist and vice versa because to be humanist is to assert man's inferiority to no one (much less to someone who remains unseen).
And yet there I was praying what can only be called a humanist's prayer. And while I was jarred for a microsecond, I felt good afterwards. Imagine that. One can be a Humanist Christian, I suppose, or a religious academic, one who prays in a scholarly (seemingly secular) manner. Sometimes, I wonder at my Westernized academic orientation with its inordinate fondness for creating artificial dichotomies. As if we don't live our lives in a fairly integrated (and unconscious) manner. (Don't you just love the mind? It's a lean, mean, rationalizing machine. Hehe.)
What does prayer have to do with FOOD? Uh... it's food for the soul?
When it was my turn to pray, I felt fake because I hadn't prayed in a long time. A long time. Possibly years. The kind of prayer that requires sincerity, heartfelt gratitude, and more importantly, the acknowledgement of God's control over one's life. I've become too William Ernest Henley, too "Master of My Fate", for that. Nevertheless, I prayed. It was sincere enough but I knew too that I was just regurgitating many of the words. And then... out of nowhere, the words came out of my mouth, "Lord, help each one of us carve our own paths."
That sounded so foreign to me, and a little bit jarring. Not because I've never said or thought about carving one's own path (in fact, that's all I think about) but because I had never ever prayed it. I was brought up to believe that a Christian could never be a Humanist and vice versa because to be humanist is to assert man's inferiority to no one (much less to someone who remains unseen).
And yet there I was praying what can only be called a humanist's prayer. And while I was jarred for a microsecond, I felt good afterwards. Imagine that. One can be a Humanist Christian, I suppose, or a religious academic, one who prays in a scholarly (seemingly secular) manner. Sometimes, I wonder at my Westernized academic orientation with its inordinate fondness for creating artificial dichotomies. As if we don't live our lives in a fairly integrated (and unconscious) manner. (Don't you just love the mind? It's a lean, mean, rationalizing machine. Hehe.)
What does prayer have to do with FOOD? Uh... it's food for the soul?
Friday, August 18, 2006
Kain na!
Hi, hello, and mabuhay!
You have strayed into Bogchi ni Bochog, my blog about all things gastronomic. This is my first attempt at blogging. For a while I had been hesitant to create a blog because the idea of having an online journal and laying bare my soul to virtually any curious cat with a few hours to kill did not sit well with me. But I liked the idea of having my own space on which to dump any thoughts or, shucks, feelings I may have about a particular subject. But because I do not wish to write extensively about my self and my life in a Dear Diary way, I decided I needed a topic I could wax endlessly about.
Enter FOOD.
Now, if you are a friend of mine, or if you are family... Heck, even if you've only known me for a minute, you would know how much I love food. I'll say it again. I love food. Food is my friend. Food is right up there with Claire, my best pal from college. Right up there with my Ate My and Ditchie. Right up there with writing. Psychology and my grad studies do not even come close to Food. If I were stuck in a boat in a raging storm with food and You and I could only save one, I probably wouldn't save You.
Food, good food, is as necessary to me as punctuation is to a run-on sentence. I love to eat. And when I'm not eating, I think about eating. Sometimes, I have deep, existential thoughts centering on food and eating, and I feel so strongly, keenly about it.
So there's my topic. And here's my blog, Bogchi ni Bochog. This is also the name of my dream eatery which, in my mind, I shall put up in place of Arcade (which I shall have leveled and demolished, in true capitalist fashion, haha!) in my alma mater, UP-Diliman. Bogchi ni Bochog, the eatery, shall be a place where students can eat cheap but good food (all of it my recipes), hang out, and read books from the extensive collection of social science and fiction tomes (tomes, baby, tomes!). I even have a menu laid out already. But that's for another post.
Meanwhile, I welcome You, curious cat, to my humble kitchen. May you find here good thoughts, good feelings, and maybe a recipe or two.
Kain Na!
bochog
You have strayed into Bogchi ni Bochog, my blog about all things gastronomic. This is my first attempt at blogging. For a while I had been hesitant to create a blog because the idea of having an online journal and laying bare my soul to virtually any curious cat with a few hours to kill did not sit well with me. But I liked the idea of having my own space on which to dump any thoughts or, shucks, feelings I may have about a particular subject. But because I do not wish to write extensively about my self and my life in a Dear Diary way, I decided I needed a topic I could wax endlessly about.
Enter FOOD.
Now, if you are a friend of mine, or if you are family... Heck, even if you've only known me for a minute, you would know how much I love food. I'll say it again. I love food. Food is my friend. Food is right up there with Claire, my best pal from college. Right up there with my Ate My and Ditchie. Right up there with writing. Psychology and my grad studies do not even come close to Food. If I were stuck in a boat in a raging storm with food and You and I could only save one, I probably wouldn't save You.
Food, good food, is as necessary to me as punctuation is to a run-on sentence. I love to eat. And when I'm not eating, I think about eating. Sometimes, I have deep, existential thoughts centering on food and eating, and I feel so strongly, keenly about it.
So there's my topic. And here's my blog, Bogchi ni Bochog. This is also the name of my dream eatery which, in my mind, I shall put up in place of Arcade (which I shall have leveled and demolished, in true capitalist fashion, haha!) in my alma mater, UP-Diliman. Bogchi ni Bochog, the eatery, shall be a place where students can eat cheap but good food (all of it my recipes), hang out, and read books from the extensive collection of social science and fiction tomes (tomes, baby, tomes!). I even have a menu laid out already. But that's for another post.
Meanwhile, I welcome You, curious cat, to my humble kitchen. May you find here good thoughts, good feelings, and maybe a recipe or two.
Kain Na!
bochog
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