The Sassy Lawyer & Pinoy Cook on food, family and home.
There were recent films that I wouldn’t have watched even if I had been given free premiere tickets and even if the tickets came with a free dinner. Transformers 3 was one of them. Total waste of time as far as I’m concerned. Truth be told, these days, and especially after Captain America which was ... (more)
We have a VCD copy of Wolfgang Peter’s 1995 film Outbreak. People dying from a deadly virus for which there was no vaccine. Sam and Alex watched that film so many times when they were toddlers. Sam because she thought the monkey (the host of the virus) was super cute. It’s been her dream to ... (more)
After almost two decades of being a mother, my daughters still manage to surprise me. Last week, the day that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 opened in cinemas, Sam started texting me about when we would go and see it. I told her I had asked her father to buy tickets a ... (more)
Speedy and I watched “The Rite” last night. For those of you who are not familiar with the film, it is about demonic possession and exorcism. It says at the beginning that it is based on true events. A seminarian, Michael Kovak, who wants to quit the seminary for lack of real religious faith was ... (more)
Our last three movie adventures were disasters — The Green Hornet, Red Riding Hood and The Adjustment Bureau. The Green Hornet was so bad I wanted to walk out; Red Riding Hood was plain disappointing. The Adjustment Bureau was almost good but I hated the Judeo-Christian underpinnings that some forces out there control our lives ... (more)
We had been planning on seeing Red Riding Hood for months. It opened last week and we thought we’d be able to see it over the weekend. Our girls are 18 and 17 but, yes, we still watch movies with them, as a family. I’ve often been warned that when kids get to a certain ... (more)
The other night, on a whim, Speedy and I went out at midnight for some food tripping. You can read about our Banchetto adventure at the food blog. Driving home, Speedy remarked that it was the third night in a row that he drove out at midnight and returned two hours or so later. See, ... (more)
Alex had her birthday last week. But because she and Sam stay at the condo near their school on weekdays, we didn’t have a chance to celebrate as a family until last night. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant then saw a movie. The Green Hornet on 3D. I wasn’t expecting a lot, nothing ... (more)
Yesterday’s news was full of tidbits about the newborn baby boy of Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. I knew Penelope Cruz as Tom Cruise’s ex; before No Country For Old Men, I didn’t know who Javier Bardem was. After seeing Vicky Cristina Barcelona, my respect for both rose sky-high. Moreover, in Bardem’s case, the respect ... (more)
Very rarely does a book get translated into a movie and survive the translation. More often than not, a lot of substance flies out the window to comply with cinematic requirements including the length of run time. Then, there’s the actual and more serious problem of translating words into visuals. End result, people who have ... (more)
The first time I saw the trailer many months ago, I knew I was going to see Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. How could I not? I love the 1987 original, and the same director and lead star were doing the sequel. The release of Money Never Sleeps was postponed so many times but, finally, ... (more)
Never judge a movie by the scandalous reputation of its director. Roman Polanski may have been in the news more often for his legal skirmishes and his involvement with underaged girls but his personal life does not in any way dampen his prowess as a movie director. His latest work, The Ghost Writer, is magnificent. ... (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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