Just like the lemon tree that seems to be taking its sweet time to grow… Well, okay, I’m being unfair. The lemon tree is growing fast. It has grown more than one foot in one year and I really shouldn’t be complaining. So many branches too. But like the lemon tree, this tamarind tree won’t bear fruits for a couple of years yet and I am so, so impatient for that day when I can just go out into the garden and pick tamarind fruits to cook sinigang…
Soon, my little tamarind tree
Posted on August 14, 2009 · 5 Comments
An attempt to bake Oreo cheese cupcakes
Posted on August 14, 2009 · 4 Comments
I saw this gorgeous and seemingly simple recipe for Oreo cheese cupcakes in Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes cookbook and decided I was going to make some. I was so sure it was going to be an enormous success that I took photos of every step of the procedure because I intended to post the recipe with the photos in my food blog. Well, that’s the only photo I’m going to show the Internet at this point. The cheese cupcakes were, well…
Tea, please, not Krug champagne
Posted on August 14, 2009 · 9 Comments
After all the talk and reading about the now infamous Le Cirque dinner that included Krug champagne and wild golden osetra caviar, I have to admit that the topic has gotten more than a bit boring. In the first place, the New York Post is a sensationalist tabloid and people are reacting to the Le ... (more)
Mac and cheese in Christmassy colors
Posted on August 13, 2009 · 5 Comments
Fast cooking doesn’t have to be unimaginative. It doesn’t have to be plain and it doesn’t have to be colorless. My younger daughter Alex wanted pasta for dinner a few nights ago, I obliged but because I had already cooked something else, the pasta dish had to be simple and cooked fast. This was the ... (more)
You know your kids are grown up when…
Posted on August 13, 2009 · 20 Comments
A year or so after we moved to the suburb, I remember how all of us got addicted to Scrabble on the computer. Of course, I had been playing the board game for years but the girls played against the computer (it was an offline game against the computer) before they learned to play with ... (more)
Korean beef stew
Posted on August 12, 2009 · 158 Comments
This is an updated version of a recipe originally published on August 9, 2005. I’ve often been asked, mostly by Filipinos based abroad who intend to vacation in the country, to suggest restaurants where they can take their families. I’ve shied away from making these recommendations because, in many cases, restaurant food is never consistent. ... (more)
Red wine, not Krug champagne
Posted on August 11, 2009 · 4 Comments
I took this photo more than a month ago, posted it in Facebook but not here because I couldn’t decide how best to contextualize it. Something red wine related or should I just focus on the fact that I took a careful aim to position my reflection on the wine glass? Well, alcohol drinking has ... (more)
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams
Posted on August 11, 2009 · 42 Comments
When a fellow lawyer sent me the New York Post page with the article about President Gloria Arroyo’s Le Cirque dinner in New York, my mouth fell open. After the initial shock, however, I started checking and cross checking media reports against facts. The full text of the New York Post article: The economic downturn ... (more)
Amazing chocolate marble cheesecake
Posted on August 11, 2009 · 69 Comments
It’s really a cheesecake although it was baked in a pie dish. Why not in my trusty old springform pan? No exotic reason — I just couldn’t locate the pan’s removable bottom yesterday, that’s all. Note that the following substitutions are possibly better choices: dark chocolate instead of sweet chocolate and crushed Oreo cookies in ... (more)
Postcard perfect Mayon Volcano
Posted on August 9, 2009 · 7 Comments
The time I wrote a column about our visit to the Blanco Family Art Museum in Angono, Rizal, I mentioned that one of the Blanco progenies is a classmate of Alex. Yesterday, Alex handed me a greeting card with a reproduction of an oil painting of Mayon Volcano and said it was from the museum. ... (more)
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