22 Oct, 2006
My daughter had a friend over for dinner this evening. Faced with two identical platters of pan fried chicken breasts, she asked what the difference was between the platters and I quickly said “one platter was made up of male breasts while the other was female.” She said, “no really, what’s the…
22 Oct, 2006
Sometimes the simplest of effort results in something nice and soothing. Take five long stemmed gerbera daisies (PHP12 to 15 pesos each if you buy them wholesale or a little more if you want to get fleeced at Tagaytay roadside stands) and cut them very short and stick in a nice short cup…
22 Oct, 2006
I saw these fairly good looking scallops at a shrimp/crab/scallop vendor at the Salcedo Market yesterday morning and decided to buy a 1 kilo pack for PHP380. I’m sorry, I forgot to ask the name of the stall/owners but they were the ones near the softdrinks station at one corner of the market….
21 Oct, 2006
Some of the fancier restaurants go that extra mile to present their spectacular food in spectacular plating arrangements. If you notice some shows on the Food Network or say on Iron Chef America, the attention paid to plating a dish is incredible. Flavored salts are one of those easy chef’s tricks that…
21 Oct, 2006
My mother was an avid amateur gardener. And she was a vehement nemesis of garden snails, to the point that she would find them, extract them, turn them upside down on the pavement and salt them so that they would suffer a cruel and slow death. Needless to say, animal or snail…
20 Oct, 2006
A personal favorite. I don’t know what it is but the combination of mushy noodles, drowning in sauce, bits of shrimp, crunches of chicharon, the sometimes nuclear color (though I prefer the more muted pumpkin hue) that just screams party comfort food. I have loved this pancit since age 5 probably. …
19 Oct, 2006
Mandy, one of my regular readers and commenters, is apparently getting married soon and has been reviewing her flower options. This post is for her and all the other folks who have e-mailed me to ask why I have slowed down on flower posts. My flower posts are driven by events…
19 Oct, 2006
In my eagerness to make some mangosteen jam a few weeks ago, I looked the other way and bought 10 kilos of fruit in Cebu at PHP180 a kilo, a seemingly high price, though the resulting jam WAS worth it. But yesterday, I was again in Cebu and the price of brilliant looking…