23 Nov, 2010
It always amazes me how incredibly substandard or undistinguised the green salad choices are at most restaurants in Manila. In the past year, only one salad stood out, a very nicely executed salad with sprightly greens, asparagus, a perfectly poached egg, a slice of prosciutto all dressed just right that I enjoyed one…
21 Nov, 2010
Marketman must have a sixth sense for brewing markets. Or at least “My Favorite Martian” like antennae that lead me to them… I woke up late-ish (for me, 7am) this morning and bummed around the house, checked out our Christmas list, and was shocked at the number of blanks this late in…
15 Nov, 2010
At breakfast this morning, I read the front page story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (on-line version here) about Manny Pacquiao’s superb victory over Antonio Margarito in Dallas yesterday. A friend texted to alert me to read both the Inquirer story and The International Herald Tribune, and I immediately had a hunch why…
14 Nov, 2010
These days, we go several weeks without fresh flowers in our home… Perhaps a sign of more frugal times, relatively speaking. We might replace fresh flowers with blooming orchids that last several weeks — phalaenopsis or butterfly orchids if splurging, or more reasonably priced dendrobiums which cost just PHP90-120 a pot at the…
13 Nov, 2010
I snapped these photos at a provincial market in Bohol a few months ago but forgot to post them. Aren’t they adorable? For some reason, I always assumed chicks were yellow in color, one of those stereotypes that probably started soon after birth, while watching cartoons on television. At any rate,…
11 Nov, 2010
I was in the flower section of the Carbon market yesterday morning looking for some greens and blooms for a event today. I circled through the market three times and was uninspired until one of the vendors pulled out a humongous, and for me, an unfamiliar bloom, which she called “palaw”. It…
10 Nov, 2010
I gather there are several variations of this soup from the island of Panay. Simple chicken broths, sometimes cooked in fresh bamboo, now mostly done in a typical pot on a stove. Vegetables included can vary based on what’s in the backyard. Some would say this is simply a version of…