The Sassy Lawyer & Pinoy Cook on food, family and home.
I’m a little weird when it comes to my coffee and tea habits. I can’t drink my coffee black — I need to add sugar and cream or milk. But with tea, it’s the complete opposite. I like my tea plain. A squeeze of lemon juice and a bit of honey is fine. But milk ... (more)
Saturday night, we went out to see The Avengers. Alex had seen it with her school friends on opening day because, well… she had to be among the first. It’s a Robert Downey, Jr. thing. She’s smitten. Speedy and I, on the other hand, hate seeing any movie on opening day. We don’t like jostling ... (more)
When we were living in the city next to my grandmother’s house, Sam and Alex spent a lot of time in my grandmother’s garden. Alex was very young then, just learning to talk. Sam was already the most talkative toddler ever and she liked to christen the plants and flowers. Because it was the Disney ... (more)
Alex had been asking for baked salmon with buttered vegetables but we only had a 300-gram or so of salmon fillet and it wouldn’t have been enough to feel all four of us for lunch. So, I deviated from the baked salmon with buttered vegetables by serving the salmon on a bed of very cheesy ... (more)
My first encounter with vegetable protein was a disaster. I was in high school, my mother was flirting with vegetarianism, she bought bags of TVP (textured vegetable protein) and added the cubes to meat dishes. The TVP label said that when cooked with meat, the TVP would acquire the same taste, color and texture of ... (more)
Speedy gave Alex an assignment today: do something with the mangoes in the fridge which were becoming too ripe already. Alex initially thought about a simple milkshake but wanted to incorporate gelatin in her recipe (which made me wonder if she used gelatin in her 2006 layered milk shake). I suggested that she puree the ... (more)
Last month, Speedy and I went to see another play. Alex was the production’s assistant lighting designer. I won’t beat around the bush. Alex is my daughter, she likes me to write about her theatrical projects, I want to be encouraging and supportive but I also want to be honest. Love, Pain and Everything In ... (more)
Everyone in my family has cough and cold. I thought it was plain exhaustion. The girls were having their final exams at around the same time that my mother passed away, then they moved to another unit in the same condo, there was a lot to do and, well, you add the usual skirmishes that ... (more)
Late last month, my mother passed away. Despite her professional stature (she was a judge), there were no eulogies, no rituals, no ceremonies. That was how she wanted it. Her instructions, contained in a duly signed document, were clear and precise. Yesterday, we completed the last of those instructions. We headed out to sea and ... (more)
Sam was born on August 20, 1992, exactly two months before my 29th birthday. And for my birthday that year, Speedy gave me a rocking chair. He had this idea that if I held Sam in my arms, sat on the chair and rocked gently, she would soon be asleep. Well, it worked when Sam ... (more)
We already knew that Sam wouldn’t be coming home this weekend because she’ll be out of town on a photo shoot. We were, however, expecting that Alex would be home. In fact, because she doesn’t have classes on Fridays, we made preliminary arrangements to pick her up on Thursday afternoon. But she couldn’t come home ... (more)
In a post I published four and a half years ago, I mentioned that everyone in my family has a unique favorite bread. Alex’s favorite is focaccia. That hasn’t changed in four and a half years. What has changed is the price of focaccia. My goodness, you’d think special equipment are used for baking the ... (more)
Casa is Spanish for house. CASA is also an acronym for Connie, Antonio, Sam and Alex. We are all surnamed Veneracion. We all love to take photos -- of anything that catches our fancy. It's a family obsession.
This is a journal of how we live, eat, learn, play and have fun. Work? Work is part of playing and having fun. Seriously.
In 2003, a time when I hadn't heard of the term "blog", I started a recipe website at cooking.houseonahill.net using a now defunct content management system that ran on ASP. Ok, never mind the geek talk, I'm sure you're not interested in that. The contents easily multiplied and, in 2004, I moved the food site to pinoycook.net. Always unhappy with the fact that the dot com versions of houseonahill and pinoycook weren't … (click here to read all »)
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