Foodie ME

I am the type of person who eats when stressed. I’ve always loved good food and being stressed urges me to experiment in the kitchen. Maybe this is my way of stress release, though that I am not entirely sure. But one thing is certain, I love food. Sure, I’m a but pudgy in some parts but I’m blessed with a small waist and  semi-well-endowed behind so it’s not as bad as it looks. Back to food. I’ve always dreamed of being able to write about food, to share with others how I feel when I cook, how to cook certain food… but a million other people are doing just that, so I wonder if I should go that direction as well. Honestly, I just write to preserve memories, whether it be about food or love or life but since food is my current favourite topic, I write about it more than other stuff.

So my current fixation actually brings me back to my roots once again. (I’ve tried to cook adobo with some success) Now I’m geared towards cooking binagoongan, my style. I feel like when I cook, I am in full control of the flavors I want to taste which of course for me is such a plus. Sure I know restaurants that serve them well, but only you can make how you really want it to be. I say this because it’s true--- only if you know how to cook. Knowing how to cook means you have a vision, and you know how to get there, kind of like tasting a dish and then being able to break down the components ( a bit technical ei?) and knowing how to re-create it the way you like it. I grew up watching cooking shows long before they boomed and created celebrity chefs. To be more specific, I started when I was grade 3, and on discovery channel they had shows like world class cusine, bibba’s kitchen and Caprial’s café (I don’t know what happened to them though). I started with culinary journey baking oatmeal cookies. I learned that your oatmeal cookies taste better if you use half white and half brown sugar. As I perfected the recipe, I started adding other ingredients that I know I wanted to taste in my cookie—cinnamon and raisins. I’ve experimented as well with brownies--- melting marshmallows on the stovetop (indirect heat) and adding it to the brownie batter, can you say awesome? The idea spawned because I did not like eating marshmallows but I did like them as smores. So I melted them. Logical right?

So after my stint with baking, as I matured and started appreciating more of food than sweets, I graduated to cooking pasta. All these Italian cooking shows inspired my love for pasta until this very day. It’s a plus too that my Dad has an herb garden in which basil, oregano, rosemary are abundant and readily available for any culinary adventure I might want to take. I cooked a lot of pastas--- contemplated on actually making the pasta dough from scratch but it’s too tedious for me (especially since my love for food blossomed when I started working for a hotel) because I have work and try to juggle a billion things during my free time on a weekend.

And since I work, I’ve learned so many easy-to-do meals that I can prep myself in less than 20 minutes. At one point, I had a fixation with our oven because I could just pop the meal and use the timer so the food wont burn even if I bathe and dress-up for work. Smart ei? But washing the dishes-wise, bloody hell, anything with tomato drips would harden or form some sorta thing that needed soaking to remove. Now, since I’m lazier, I just cook 5 minute meals.

Adieu for now, this has taken me longer to write than cooking my own food to eat. Xo.

Back

3 years have passed and I was expecting that this page would be non-existent due to inactivity.

I randomly searched for a friend's name back in college and by chance I actually saw old blog posts

about my  life years ago. 

As I read through my old posts, I laughed at myself. Before I used to write, now  just instagram my life.

How the times have changed since then!

Now, I have resolved to write some more and share some more, if time permits me to do so.

My last post talks about september rain... and emo stuff. 

I've forgotten how to write in this manner, as most if my writing is focused on reports, long e-mails--- mostly work-related stuff.

Hopefully, I learn again. :)

September Rains

It's raining again. The weather's all screwed! It's already september and it's supposed to start getting cold. Not wet and cold. Just cold. Wet and cold weather's just good when you're inside the house sleeping your a$s off but not when you're outside.

Sometimes I jump back in time and remember how classes would be suspended when the rains would get strong. How we would call each other up or send messages to each others beepers(during gradeschool days)and say NO CLASSES! Well, work's a whole lot different. Technically, we're supposed to be adults and be able to manage in spite of the weather. It's weird because i still say no classes when I really mean no work. Hahaha. Or say dismissal time when i mean logout or timeout at the end of the day. I laugh at the my attempt to bring back the old days when nowadays, it's just old. Me=old. Wala na yung days. Hahaha.

Leave the chilli's to the professionals

The weekend was a culinary quest. Yes. The quest to make everything related to food taste good. Haha. Made paella last friday, and some oatmeal and sugar cookies, saturday was spent bonding with jed by making our own pizzas and sunday, I cooked the 'vegeman's ' spaghetti for sunday lunch. (frankie hesitated before eating the spaghetti because she saw something green in it Haha. She thought it was vegetables! It was only basil and oregano! )

Well, being jobless kind of makes you 'domesticated'. Haha. Parang animal lang ha. Wahaha. So, I spent the weekend like I said, cooking. Messing up the kitchen for cristy, and the house in general, for her. Well, I taught her how to bake too. I taught her to use the uber fab kitchen aid so when mom wants cookies, cristy can bake them herself! You see, mom loves cookies. She loved them so much she brought some along for karlo to naga, and when the following morning came, I was looking for my cookies. Cristy said mom had finished everything! And to think Karlo wasn't home, the cookies vanished anyway. Well, atleast they were well appreciated. Haha. My paella tasted good to according to pop so am happy about that one, my dad's pretty finicky about the way his food tastes. I say dealing with 1 piece of chili paid off. You see, I put 1 piece of chili in the paella for some spice. I was so brave I dealt with the red chili with my bare hands! I ripped the chili open to remove the veins and seeds, and then ripped them into little pieces and threw them in the paella. After a few mins my fingers were burning so I washed them lots of times. While dinner commenced, the area near my cuticles were burning. I was wondering home I could stand eating while my fingers stung like crazy! I soaked them in milk for 10mins. It was okay when I soaked them. But when I finally washed my hands, they still stung. Rawr. So I let them be for the meantime as I headed to jed's house, I figured he could do something about it (such a baby I am!). And so his mom told me to soak my fingers in icy water, which of course jed dutifully prepared for me. I didn't know my fingers were becoming numb until they were. Haha. It eased it a bit, luckily, the beer I drank when we headed to tonio's grill made me forget about it. So, I say, leave the chilli'ss to the professionals. Hahaha.

I love the fact that I finally got Jed to share my passion in the... Kitchen. Hahaha. Now, aside from the usual drinking, malling, travelling, dining out, we've found another commonground. Our love for food. We've made buffalo wings, cream cheese carbonara, pizzas and siomai so far. Stocked their kitchen with spices essential to making buffalo wings, our ultimate fave (also jed's older brothers fave, jim and bonx's)Which are cajun spices!! Cayenne , paprika and so and so. We're constantly thinking of food we want to cook, and the nice thing is when we cook at jed's house, everybody makes the effort not to miss it.

1st year anniversary

We started our day much earlier than usual (the usual being uom, after lunch!). A quiet picnic at the sunken garden was how we started our day. We went to the shopping center, or as i fondly call it, dilimall, to buy tapsilog at Rodics. Yeah! Who doesn't love rodics? What's better than having rodic's for breakfast, at my alma mater, with the person I love? Luckily, Jed didn't mind Rodic's nor did he mind picnicking at sunken. After all, Ateneo has their own share of huge tracts of greens, but I gotta say, at UP, people don't give a rats ass if your picnicking on a monday morning... Or rather, people mind their own business.

After we had soaked up the morning sun, we headed to footloose, a massage place near new manila. It's actually along Tomas Morato but nearer the E. Rodriguez side than timog ave.
Well, it was about 12nn when we got to footloose. They had just opened so we were a tad bit too early. So... We decided to take our lunch nearby. We decided to try Nasi Lemak at Thompsons Square, along morato too. Finally we ate there! We agreed to eat there for the longest time and apparently, it's a singaporean resto. Tingtingting! Jed had wanted to relive our trip to Kota Kinabalu while I just wanted some singaporean fare. The Nasi lemak Jed ate at Kota was very simple. It was missing some elements which is why he wanted to try the "real" nasi lemak. I was looking for some nasi rendang but they didn't have it. I ordered the hainanese chicken, which is a staple of singaporean cuisine. You can find familiar singaporean dishes here like laksa, chilli crab, bakuteh, mee goreng, ice kachang, kway teow and of course, teh tarik or milk tea! Horay! Jed and i intend to return and sample the other dishes. Oooh and a lot of people actually eat at Nasi lemak, seems like there's a small following. Don't worry, you won't find noisy hs kids or college kids studying there, most people we saw were either office people or older people, I think we were the youngest there hahaha. It's a must try resto if you've got an adventurous palate, or if you want some singaporean fare.

After lunch we headed back to footloose. I'm not entirely sure what thai massage means but i take it that it involves stretching? Jed got a back and arm massage, i got a foot and back massage. Fell asleep during the foot massage. It's pricier than a whole body massage though, but the ambience will easily make you drift into lalaland, like yours truly. Haha.

After our very indulgent day, jed and i headed to his house to chill and use his wifi and do our online obligations together (eg facebook, ym, email, friendster, multiply etc)with our identical wifi-enabled phones. Their couch, which faces the tv, is our fave nap spot. There is something about that couch that makes one drowsy. Or lazy. Haha. So we just sit back and then sooner or later poooof! Zzzzzzz....

Jed and I spent the whole day together to celebrate our first anniv. In fact, he took a leave to spend the day with me. I wish though he could take tuesday off too, but that would just be demanding of me hahaha.

Time just goes by really fast, so better do what you can and not let special days be forgotten.... So you've got memories to share and look back on. Ü

Back and Busy

Back from Singapore with 9kgs of overweight luggage. Haha. Deng, 135sgd down the drain. Haruuummmph.

Got back just in time to attend my mom's special awarding ceremony for ACES (award for continuing excellence in service) given by the metrobank foundation. This is a special awarding ceremony because: 1. The orig ceremony was last january. She didnt make it because she was busy giving a talk at the nat'l university of singapore. So, they created a separate awarding ceremony for her. 2. This award is given every 5 years only, and she is part of the 2nd batch. Plus, this award can only be given those who have already won the 'Metrobank outstanding teacher' award, or outstanding cop award etc. So, this award, according to metrobank foundation is the only award of its kind because it recognizes those people who have won the award and have continued to exhibit excellence in their respective fields. Hence, it's a very prestigious award.

So there I was, groggy as usual but extremely proud of my mom. So were all of her colleagues, from system officials to former students to her present students, everybody was so supportive, so supportive that her guestlist included big names in UP and awardees of the metrobank foundation as well.

Talk about living up to the Legasto/Patajo Legacy in UP. Btw, we were one of the families who won the 3 generations award given by UP during the centennial celeb. Now, all I have to do is live up to it.

Finale: Singapore Sojourn

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.... Hrawr! My bags are not packed yet!!!! Haha. Alas, farewell to my singapore adventures! I'm leaving tomorrow early morning so I have to finish packing by tonight.

I sipped my last store-bought iced tea tarik from the United Square foodcourt. I sipped it on the slow walk home. I took as much of the familiar scenery as I could, pretty soon when I get back and months have passed, I might not remember every single detail.

In the beginning of this fun-filled adventure, my sister Kaye gave me a notebook from Singapore's largest bookstore, Konikinuya (mahirap shang i-remember the first "times" around hahaha) to record my thoughts (Carissa said, to report my thoughts to my sister haha). Some-sort of diary. Everyday I write something. Anything. But usually, my entries are about the places I visited, and they were a lot. As in. From the museums (Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore Nat'l Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Philatelic Museum, Malay Heritage Museum, Chinatown Heritage Museum.... )to the malls (Paragon, Takashimaya, Far East, Vivo City, Suntec City, Explanade Mall, Wisma Atria, United Square, Novena Square, Velocity.... only a few out of the 250+malls in the city!!!)to other attractions (river cruise, singapore flyer, sentosa, botanical garden, bugis village, east coast...), I went to a lot of places!!!! Time well spent resulting to achey legs (as much as 20k steps per day!!!! c/o my pedometer). Kaye made a list of food I should try... I tried most of them... Chilli crab tops my list (from no signboard)!!! Laksa closely follows and then roti prata (Jaja!!! Roti Heaven!!!! You'll love this! Remember banana leaf curry? This one is much better!), chicken rice, satay etc.... Do you know they have a dish called carrot cake? But it's not dessert, nor is it made out of carrots. Haha. It's made out of radish with the texture of tofu. Very interesting. I didn't try the fish head curry... stuck with the regular curry, and of course, ate the japanese curry kaye made at home--- I loved it so much I ate it everyday. It's vegetarian curry, tuna and mushrooms and it tastes FAB!!!

Speaking about Kaye's curry. Ahah! I dub her vege curry dish-- Curry Kee. Haha. Kee kasi mahilig sila sa ganon spelling dito. Wee Nam. Mee Goreng. CURRY KEE! This goes out to you sister!!! For making this healthy curry!!! Btw, her REF/pantry is a hodgepodge of food cultures. And what's funny is it's kind of balanced. Lotsa healthy food, and lots of sinfully delightful food too. So + and - makes 0? Haha.

I don't know, maybe because when we were growing up we would eat any kind of food (even if we were tricked into eating it... eg. Kara's Wasabi experience: The wasabi was shaped into a leaf... or was that a flower, and I asked my dad what it was, he said it was candy... so what would little me do as a kid? Eat it of course!!!) and so we've got a diverse palate, one could say. She's got fresh fruits (strawberries are abundant in her ref, unless I finish it! And lemon is for the water... for detox or to put into sugar-free iced tea, which I do), lee kum kee XO sauce, Jack Daniel's Honey Mustard (Who knew Jack had a mustard line???), cheese slices, frozen dumplings, ben and jerry's chunky monkey ice cream (which I have been consuming in secret hahaha), royce chocolates, muesli, cheerios, milo (just like home, we always have milo), bottled tuyo in olive oil, betty crocker's muffin mixes, chicharon (which I brought for her hahaha and which I consumed... she's doing a lenten sacrifice by not eating meat and chocolates, if I did that... kill me, really), Friday's chips ( hidden away at the topmost shelf of her cabinet, and for a reason. I can't reach it, she prolly can, but she's gotta stretch. Hahahaha. Put temptation outta sight.), pasta sauces, buckwheat twirly pasta, bundaberg light ginger beer (which again I consumed), vege curry (which I finished too hahaha)... italian, filipino, american, singaporean, indian, chinese etc. Although there is a GREAT ABSENCE OF MEAT. Yes, she reminded, because it's lent. Oh yeah. Mah bad. Although she doesn't impose it on me, she makes me eat regular food when we eat out.

Everyday I set out with the following things:
1. Money. (Thank you Kaye!)
2. EZ link card, Top up card 128 (load for singtel), Park Infinia entry card, house key--- The Visitor's kit we call it
3. Bottle of water
4. Snacks
5. Cellphones (singtel and globe)/ camera
6. Alcohol!
7. Maps!!!!

So far, I survived doing tours alone. Once you get the hang of how the cool public transpo works, you're good. It was fun, going wherever, walking the streets, hanging around the bus stops, foodcourts, steps by the bay, although, only problem, i had to take a lot of pictures without me in it, if ever i was in it, it was either taken by another person or my head was strategically angled to include the attraction behind me. Haha. But it was amazing! For such a small country, they know how to showcase their history really well. And they magnify their attractions too. Very good marketing!

Singapore, the land of shopping malls, high-heels, pda couples, designer bags, fake eyelashes and chilli crab! I'll miss it dearly. But most especially, my sister. (nax.) She took care of me, just like an older sister would. Plus, she gave me this opportunity, she made me discover singapore on my own, with some guidance of course, hehe. Well, I'll be seeing her on April, as she'll be diving at Tubbataha (living aboard a boat in the middle of the palawan sea for 5 days!!!)and then of course, she'll be passing by manila too hahaha. But just a visit though, because she is of course based in Singapore, I call her the expat. Sounds like such a cool term. Haha.

As for the bisyos. Cigs and Booze are expensive here (and don't bring reams of cigs in, or out, it's illegal! They are eventually banning smoking here, scary...). In secret, unbeknownst to my sis, while touring sentosa, I stumbled upon CAFE DEL MAR (Head Kandi? sound familiar now?). I paid about 23sgd at cafe del mar (siloso beach, sentosa). Had 1 drink, 1 delicious drink--- my fave, mojito, with a lychee twist, one of their best sellers. And it was happy hour, so one-for-one (aka buy 1 take 1 hahahaha) and an order of fries (big secret!!! Haha. As Kaye tells me not to eat fast food, bk, kfc, mcdo, carls jr--yes, carls is alive here). That was my first and last encounter with booze. Unless, you count the light ginger beer I'm drinking right now as booze, then again, I just checked the bottle, there's no alcohol in it). Oh and as for the CIGS? Bummed from Gen (and it was lights pa, well, beggars can't be choosers hahaha). Hooked up with highschool classmates, Gen Mariano and Carissa Cristobal aka Coco Love, along orchard for some coffee at... STARBUCKS!!! It was fun reminiscing. Deng. We're old. Crap.(Kara takes a swig of her ginger beer, kunyari may alcohol nalang hahaha).

And so this blog ends, but the memories don't.

And yes, I've got tons of pasalubong. Haha.