The Sassy Lawyer & Pinoy Cook on food, family and home.
One of my favorite past times is browsing through house designs. I frequent sites like this, this, this and this and I imagine what it would be like to live in one of those fabulous homes featured in them. ALL THAT SPACE. ALL THOSE GORGEOUS FURNITURE. NO MESS. NOTHING OUT OF PLACE. I go through ... (more)
If you’re a new reader, I’ll tell you something that everyone else probably knows already — I take photos everyday. Well, almost everyday. I have to make exceptions for the days when I was sick like that time when a horrid (kidding!) doctor took out my gall bladder and I felt my mortality a hundred ... (more)
The first time I heard of an inverter, it was in relation with air-conditioners. We were planning on converting my study into a home theater, we were discussing air-conditioning and a cousin mentioned inverters. I can’t explain it in very technical terms; I only know that an inverter-equipped air-con unit can mean a lot of ... (more)
My grade school teacher said gas is invisible. Steam is water in its gaseous state. Steam can be seen even by the naked eye. Ergo, my teacher was wrong.
I think I’ve mentioned it before — standard house designs in the Philippines don’t include storage space. We have a number of cabinets above the closets in all bedrooms and that’s about it. So the trick really to avoid house clutter is to dispose of something (sell, give away) every time you buy something new. ... (more)
Sam and I were having brunch earlier. Part of the conversation went like this. Me: “I want to build a bigger house.” Sam: “Where will you build it?” Me: “In that huge empty lot with the old tree.” Sam: “Go build it.” Me (in complete dream mode and ignoring Sam’s last comment): “The design of ... (more)
When news reports about the alleged dangers of granite countertops (link points to a New York Times article — you may need to register for a FREE account to view it) in the kitchen came out several weeks ago, I knew it would be followed by press releases from the kitchen manufacturers claiming the exact ... (more)
For someone like me who loathes knick-knacks and flower vases (especially with plastic flowers), the idea of decorating a house with functional pieces is more appealing. Lighting fixtures serve a dual purpose. They illuminate the house and serve as ornaments too. If you can patiently scour shops and home depots, finding the lighting fixtures with ... (more)
The kitchen (the entire ground floor, in fact) had an all-white motif when we first saw the house. This was how the kitchen looked. Four days ago, the renovations in the kitchen were almost done. The cabinets now sport a flat dark wood-stain finish that goes better with the granite countertops. What’s “flat dark wood-stain ... (more)
Yesterday was order-the-furniture day. We already had “some ideas” about where to buy the furniture but we had not really made up our minds. We had scoured more than a dozen places, including Tiendesitas, Greenhills and malls, and still hadn’t made any final decisions. We were clear on one thing though — we want hardwood ... (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 … »»
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