UPTAKES

I’ve actually moved out a couple of weeks ago. Sorry for the late notice. It’s just been busy. If you still want to drop by, you can now find me here. Please leave a note if you do visit. Thanks!

So it’s 1 Nov. Here in Singapore, it’s just really another ordinary day, not the big holiday it is back home. If I were home, I’d be in my hometown by now, in the cemetery–to visit and stay for a little bit with my dad and my grandparents. I’d also be catching up with relatives and childhood friends I didn’t see or talk to on a regular basis. And there’d be lots of food to be had. My mom would always cook up a storm for our 1 Nov cemetery visits, lots of it to be brought to the cemetery (baon, hehe), others to be eaten at home after the tiring day. I know it all sounds like one big picnic, but isn’t that the whole point?! I mean, 1 Nov does seem like, more than anything, a picnic and a sort of mini-reunion for Filipinos. At least, I find this especially true in the province–with the feasting and drinking and singing and all manner of merrymaking activities during the day visits and late-night vigils. It also seems every family has their own 1 Nov activities.

I suppose I’m just missing home. I was talking to my mom and my brother yesterday. As usual, I was asking my mom about the food she prepared. She said with a laugh, “Alam mo ikaw lang ang nagtatanong kung ano ang pagkain,” to which I replied, “Eh kasi naman wala ako jan. Syempre di ko makikita mga handa mo.” “Eh bakit di mo tanungin kung may flowers na,” she persisted, still with laughter in her voice. Yes, she was teasing me. Eventually, she gave me a rundown of the food offerings, and I groaned as I heard each one. Then I talked to my brother who then gave me a rundown of the goodies he got from Manila for pasalubong: GoNuts cupcakes and Krispy Kreme. Sigh. That’s all I can say.

More than the food, of course, and the point of the matter really is that I’m missing a family thing again, because I’m away. It doesn’t even have to be 1 Nov. I suppose I just miss hanging out with my mom and my brother, gossiping about this and that relative, rehashing family stories and scandals, laughing at the most inane things, talking about what’s going on sa Bahay ni Kuya (one of my mom’s favorite shows), and just simply being there, in the presence of each other–all these while we feed Squee his favorite pastillas de leche. (He can have one whole bag in, like, minutes. Hehe. He is a fat pastillas de leche monster. I swear!)

Good thing I’ll be going home this December. I’m just happy and thankful that I have that to look forward to.

That’s exactly what I’m doing right now. I have some cooking to do today, and I’m right now waiting for the meat to thaw. I’m cooking pork afritada and chicken adobo. The last time I cooked afritada, it was really good, so I’m hoping to achieve the same result today. I cook adobo regularly, because it’s one of those dishes that are just really easy to do, but I haven’t tried chicken adobo yet. It’s because, well, I’m allergic to chicken.

I know. It’s sad, especially since I love chicken and actually grew up eating a lot of it. Para kong si Niknok, ang batang napakahilig sa manok. Hehe. Anyone who remembers Niknok? Well, if you didn’t read Funny Komiks as a kid, then I don’t think you’d know of him, in the first place. Anyway, going back to my chicken allergy, it was actually a recent development. Some ten years ago, to be exact. I know that doesn’t sound recent, hehe, but what I meant by recent was, I didn’t have it when I was a kid.

I blame this allergy on Chicken Bacolod. You see, there was that period, two weeks to be exact, some ten years ago when all I ate for lunch and dinner–and I swear, breakfast too(!), if the resto only opened that early–was chicken from Chicken Bacolod. I’d have the chicken inasal (breast part), garlic rice, and chicken skin. I think ultimately, it was the chicken skin that caused the allergy. But god, it tasted so good!

Anyway, when the allergic reaction first appeared, it was in the form of an extremely itchy rash all over my fingers and toes. The itchiness soon gave way to a burning sensation, and my fingers and toes started swelling and became really red. I can still remember what my brother told me when he saw the rash: ‘Wag kang mag-alala, Ate, dadalawin ka naman namin sa Tala.’ Panicked and afraid, I rushed to see a derma, who then asked me about my recent activities and the food I’d been eating in the last few weeks. That visit to the derma signaled the end of my happy days at Chicken Bacolod. Sigh.

Well, maybe, I still go to Chicken Bacolod from time to time and still eat chicken from time to time. Hehe. I just make sure I have my antihistamines with me. Also, the key phrases are ‘in moderation’ and ‘from time to time’ as I can’t definitely eat a lot of chicken now or eat chicken for days in a row. Sometimes, when I forget myself though, there is still some allergic reaction, but now, it appears in the form of a redness around my mouth, pretty much like a windburn. So if you see me sporting a windburn, you know someone’s been eating what she’s not supposed to. Hehe.

Okay, I have to check on the meat now.

Because we were getting tired of our own cooking, we decided to go to Joe’s Kitchen for dinner tonight. Joe’s is a Thai restaurant, but for some reason, many of its dishes taste like Filipino food to me, at least after the chili is put aside. Hehe. I think what I really want to say here is that food at Joe’s tastes like the way Thai food is cooked in the Philippines. Which means I really like it. Then again, I basically order the same thing every time I go there anyway, so I don’t have any means of judging the dishes I haven’t tried. Whatever! Joe’s is just really good food. And affordable too.

We had crispy seafoood tofu, pineapple rice, fried chili fish (chili definitely on the side), and, for dessert, the yummy sticky rice with mango.

I know the food could have used more color, but that means mixing in the chili, which is a no-no for me. So, I’m sorry if the food in these pics looks a little bland.

Anyhoo, after dinner, we went to Little India to see the lights and do some chocolate-shopping at Mustafa. Here are some pics of the lights and me. No pics of the chocolates, because chocolates are private. Hahaha.

Overall, it was a good night out. I’m thinking of doing it again.

P.S. Sorry for the layout of this post. I honestly couldn’t get the pics and the sentences to go where I wanted them to. And, if you’re getting multiple notices for this post, I’m sorry! I kept trying to fix it, but well, to no avail. Hmph!

Just wanted to share the song and vid below. Got it from a site where I usually lurk. Hehe. Anyway, it’s such a fun, joyful song, and the vid is hawt. Mary J Blige totally rocks it. Enjoy!

By the way, I love how they made those streaks of gold/fire swirl and spiral around her at the beginning. Parang pwede na din sa ‘Heroes’ si Mary J Blige. Hehe.

Okay, I did say I was going back to work, but just one more thing. I’m sure you have your own reaction/s to and/or position on the recent outing of Albus Dumbledore by his creator, JK. I will not discuss mine here, because it’s not really the point of this link. But I really do want to say that I think it’s wonderful that Dumbledore is gay, and such a shame that I chose not to pick up on it–I did think there might have been something a bit more in his thing with Grindelwald–primarily because I didn’t think JK would dare. Turns out she did, and even announced it, in no uncertain terms, to the whole world. (Well, pretty much, right?) Despite certain misgivings about the business side of the franchise and how JK has been handling it, I have to say, props to JK for this one. I acknowledge what this pronouncement can mean, what it can do, and I’ll give JK credit for that.

Okay, so I did end up talking A LITTLE BIT about what I thought. To the article now, what I find interesting in it is the shift of the discussion from JK’s pronouncement of Dumbledore’s sexuality to what JK does to the notion of authorship every time she announces some piece of information or ‘past’ or ‘future’ story about a character in a series that is supposedly concluded. Indeed, in JK’s case, it seems the author is definitely alive.

I just realized I haven’t written about food in a while (hehe), so I figured, while taking a break from school work (t e d i o u s) and house work (CRAZY!), I might as well write about food–and have some fun in the process. As I said before, I’m not really what you’d consider a great cook, heck, I’m not even a good cook, but I’ve some recipes I’ve sort of mastered, so suffice it to say, I can cook. Or more accurately, there are certain dishes I can cook, and they actually taste like they’re supposed to taste. If not better. Hehe.
One of these is cheesy tuna and mushroom pasta. I make the sauce from scratch–that is, I put cream and cheese together in a pan and I stir and stir until the cheese is one with the cream–that is, all melted–and the color turns into a pale golden yellow. The tricky part is making sure that the sauce is smooth, and there are no cheesy bits. So to get the right texture, I keep stirring. (The problem with the cheesy bits is that they stick in the roof of your mouth, in your teeth, and/or even under your tongue, and it’s annoying when that happens. If the cheesy bits cannot be avoided though, say, I got tired of stirring halfway through, I just say it’s supposed to be like that, as the cheesy bits bring out the delightful cheese flavor even more. Hehe.)

For the tuna and mushroom mix, I saute some garlic first, then some onion–both minced, by the way–then I throw in the tuna, then the mushrooms. Then I do a bit of stir-frying. I usually use a combination of Century Tuna Hot and Spicy and Century Tuna in Vegetable Oil, so that the tuna is not so spicy, yet, it has a certain zing, which, from experience, I can say goes really well with the cheese and cream sauce. The mushrooms I use come straight from the can, usually Narcissus. I don’t know why, but I’ve always used that brand.

I’ve always preferred spaghetti, and for the almost 5 years I’ve been cooking and serving this dish, I’ve used spaghetti. When I cooked it the last time though, I think about two weeks ago, I used macaroni. I wanted to give this old recipe something new. I wanted to bake it, and when I thought of that, I thought “Baked Mac, yum!” So I used macaroni. (I know, I know. I’m as logical in my cooking as I am in almost all other aspects of my life. :-)) The result was actually pretty successful. It was actually very good. And that’s why I don’t have pictures. We kept eating and talking about how good the pasta–now called baked cheesy tuna and mushroom macaroni, hee–was that we forgot to take pictures. Ahem. It’s up to you if you want to believe that.
But I have to say this pasta dish is not exactly the most healthy of meals, even with the tuna and the mushrooms, simply because of the cheese and the cream, which I use lots of. And, in the baked version, there’s also the additional mozzarella on top, because, well, I love mozzarella. Hehe. Seriously though, the gooey texture and the mild and delicate milky taste of mozzarella make it the perfect topping for this pasta dish.:-) But, as I always say, I don’t eat it every day (there are other more sinful fares to feast on, hahaha), so when I eat it, I will not be deterred by thoughts of what’s healthy or not.

I wonder why I’ve never thought of baking this dish before. Oh, well, whatever, time to go back to work. Sigh. And, oh, I promise to take pictures next time I make this dish again, baked or not.

After much planning and lots of careful attention to details (translation: stressful stuff), I finally got to book tickets for home this December, and I’m proud to announce it’s reasonably priced, given the peak rates of the holiday season, the rather late hour in which I booked them, and my flight dates.:-) I’m flying with PAL en route to the Philippines and Cebu Pacific when I return back here. Would you believe this deal is actually 50sgd cheaper than if I had flown Cebu Pacific both ways?! I know it’s just 50sgd, but still, I feel as if I’ve done a bit of good strategizing here and won something.

I mean, you couldn’t possibly imagine the sick, miserable feeling I had when I went to the Cebu Pacific website early last week and saw that there were no more available flights beginning 17 Dec. It turned out that it was a glitch–there were available flights actually–but at that time, I didn’t know that, so I was all panicky. Tiger Airways had sold out all their flights for the period in question weeks and weeks ago. I had vowed never to fly Jetstar again unless my destination was not the Philippines and only for a really unbelievably cheap ticket price. (The reason for this, as they say, is another story, and in this case, a long one, which I really don’t want to recall.)

So, at that time, it was a very real possibility that I would have to fly PAL both ways. That would have cost me 200sgd more than the deal I got, and it would have been simply heartbreaking to pay that much after having experienced traveling for so much less before. I know it’s Christmas anyway, but still, all the more reason to try to get affordable tickets, right? I mean, gifts need to be bought and parties attended and people to be made happy, after all. And that doesn’t come cheap. But I also told myself that if PAL was the last resort, then so be it. I should just resign myself to not being able to buy some things I wanted for myself this Christmas.

Good thing though I checked at Kabayan, a Pinoy-run (not sure if it’s also Pinoy-owned) travel agency at Lucky Plaza, the Pinoy hangout/mall/destination in Singapore, before purchasing any tickets. Thanks to Dayen for the tip-off on the PAL one-way fare, which cost less than Cebu Pacific’s, the further 10sgd deduction, and the interesting conversation. If I had gone the other way and taken a two-way ticket with Cebu Pacific, you know, after I had found out about the glitch, I would have paid 50sgd more and missed airplane food (hehe) and lost Miles, which could help, if only a little bit, the sorry state of my mileage account. Plus, the PAL flight departs at a better, more convenient time.

In the end, I really think it’s a good deal all around, and the best one I could have gotten under the circumstances. Sometimes, I really think I’m kind of a winner. Hahaha.

Manila, here I come! Well, not quite yet, but you get my drift.
P.S. Please forgive me if I sound too self-congratulatory. It’s very seldom that things of this nature, you know, successful execution after careful deliberation of details and such like, work out for me. Hee.

Thinking about ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ a while back, which was occasioned by a blog post and a reply, got me thinking about the shows that I really miss and want to see and watch. One is ‘Ugly Betty.” I read somewhere that this season, they will have one episode that is a musical (yipee!), and that Mark’s character will get a boyfriend. This boyfriend is supposedly not Mark’s type. He’s chubby and not exactly fashionable, but Mark will be drawn to him. This should be good to see. But before I actually start watching this season of ‘Ugly Betty,’ I should finish the first season. Due to the unfortunate fact that my ‘Complete Season 1′ of ‘Ugly Betty’ was only up to episode 17 and no matter how many times I brought it back to exchange it with some new copy, I still got the same (in)’Complete Season 1,’ I unhappily missed a lot from the last season.

The other show is ‘Heroes.’ Haven’t seen a single episode since the new season began airing, and I really don’t have any idea what’s been going on. I try to avoid the recaps and the forums, because, well, I want to be surprised when I finally get to see the new episodes. (I really don’t mind being spoiled in most cases; in fact, I prefer it. But this time around, surprisingly, I want to be surprised.) I miss Hiro and Nathan and Nikki/Jessica and Mr. Bennet and, ok, ok, even Mohinder and his rather superfluous voiceovers (hehe). I also miss Peter Petrelli. So, in the meantime, to address my missing Peter Petrelli, I view this vid at least once a day:

I know he doesn’t have superpowers here, but methinks Peter Petrelli with tattoos and a guitar and acting like a thug is good enough at the moment. At least, until I get to see the show again. Interesting that I end up with only Peter Petrelli to get my ‘Heroes’ fix. Oh, well, some things can’t be helped. Then again, I also really like Fergie, despite her rather extremely high-waisted pants in this vid. Hehe.

Other shows I’m looking forward to are ‘Bionic Woman’ (I suppose I would have been more excited about this, if Burke weren’t there, but I do hope he wouldn’t have to stay all throughout the season) and ‘Cashmere Mafia,’ a ‘Sex and the City’ kind of show, I was told, but with a different set of women, which begins airing in November. A friend of mine also told me to start watching ‘Weeds’ and ‘Brothers and Sisters’ and ‘Gossip Girl.’ Sigh. So many shows, so little time. Or more accurately, so many shows that I can’t watch as they air, because we don’t have cable. Then again, even if we had cable, I don’t think the cable channels here would have aired them the same time they come out in the US anyway. I guess I’ll just have to catch up when I go home in December. All I can say is thanks to all those venues (ahem) in the Phils that allow me to see all these shows.

So what am I watching these days? Not much tv actually, but it pleases me to say that one channel here is airing cycle 8 of ‘America’s Next Top Model.’ As in every cycle, the wannabe top models are looking fierce, there is always drama (and bitchiness) happening in the house, and Tyra is, well, looking every inch like the Tyra I’ve come to know and love (and hate) in this show. It’s just so hard to describe her. So that makes my Thursday night. The rest of the time, I’m working. Bwahahaha.

Enjoy your Sunday, all!

P.S. If any one’s got episodes of ‘Ugly Betty’ and ‘Heroes’ and you have a way of lending them to me, I will be forever grateful and will be your friend forever.

This is the song that I keep singing right now. I caught it while viewing some new commercials with supposedly nice catchy tunes. (This–seeking out songs in commercials–is a new habit for me, which I suppose started after discovering Feist in the new Ipod nano commercial.) Nothing spectacular or profound about the song, but it’s pretty and catchy, and I think it makes one feel warm all over. At least, that’s what it does to me. Hehe.

So, first, here’s the commercial

I just thought that maybe the reason why they used it to sell sweaters was precisely because of what I said above–it makes one feel warm all over. Hee. And, well, I suppose, because of the lyrics: ‘If you are chilly, here, take my sweater.’ Rather literal, don’t you think? Oh, well, my favorite lines are, ‘I love how the way you call me, baby/And you take me the way I am.’
After some research (thanks, internet!), I found out that the song was sung by Ingrid Michaelson. You know what’s next. I went to youtube and found this:

Then, I found out that she also sang ‘Keep Breathing’ which was used in Season 3 of ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is too much drama for me most times, but I still watch it. Hehe. No, that wasn’t what I was going to say. I wanted to say that, while way too intense for me most times, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ does have some of the best tracks one can possibly get from a tv show.

So, here’s ‘Keep Breathing.’ I can’t find a vid where Ingrid Michaelson is singing the song, so I’m just posting here the one with the ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ montage of the ‘Keep Breathing’ story arc.

Good night, all.