The Sassy Lawyer & Pinoy Cook on food, family and home.
Last year, a husband and wife team were sued when a patient complained that he could no longer sexually satisfy his partner after a penile insertion procedure. Now, it’s Vicki Belo’s turn to be sued. The complainant underwent a non-surgical procedure called Thermage to smooth out her wrinkles but got a deformed face, ugly scars ... (more)
(Today’s column) Everyone who has gone to school has experienced homework and projects. I have. Some homework I appreciated because they strengthened my grasp of lessons learned inside the classroom. Some projects I really enjoyed because they involved discovery–like the one about pouring vinegar in a jar with a chicken bone and finding out how ... (more)
(Today’s column in Manila Standard Today. The photos only appear here and not on the print and online versions of the paper.) There were no Halloween parties when I was a kid. There were no days and days of preparation for costumes and décor that culminated in the trick or treat event on the night ... (more)
(Today’s column) “The Bucket List” is a film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. I saw it several months ago and it just seems like the most relevant idea to me today. Edward Cole (Nicholson) and Carter Chambers (Freeman) are terminal cancer patients with six months to live. They meet when they become roommates in ... (more)
(Last Thursday’s column. Blog Action Day calls it a “must read article on the complexities of poverty.” Thank you. Two more articles on poverty will be published next week — I’ve already submitted them.) On Oct. 15, Blog Action Day hopes to repeat the success of last year’s initiative to get people and media talking ... (more)
(Today’s column. The photos do not appear in the print and online versions of the newspaper.) My family spent two hours at the Blanco Family Museum on Sunday afternoon. My younger daughter Alex had been there before; one of the Blanco grandchildren is her classmate. It was an enriching experience. Art as I like it. ... (more)
In the wake of the Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG crises, when my brother-in-law, Buddy, and his girlfriend, Laura, came over for dinner last week, after-dinner conversation inevitably included issues about personal financial security. Most people find it strange that my husband and I never found it necessary to invest in those private health ... (more)
(Yesterday’s column) A decade and a half or so ago, whenever prices of fuel and consumer goods started rising at alarming levels, people used to joke that “Si Nora Aunor na lang ang hindi tumataas [Only Nora Aunor isn't getting any higher].” The literal translation might not make sense but in common usage, “taas,” rootword ... (more)
You’d think that with dozens of cable channels to choose from, one would never run of television entertainment. You’d think that with the number of movies that premiere each week, there will at least be one winner that will be remembered, talked about, dissected and debated over coffee, wine or beer. “Hellboy 2″ put me ... (more)
As we were sitting down to dinner on Tuesday, my husband asked if I had heard about the Filipino mother who killed her three children then committed suicide. I remarked how life seem to imitate fiction citing an old episode of CSI where, before stabbing herself, a mother stabbed her children to death to preserve their being “angelsâ€. Our younger daughter, Alex, said it was like the plot of the movie “The Others,†too.
Sure, we want our kids to learn the value of hard work. We want them to study well, learn how to cook, wash the dishes, do their laundry, clean up their mess, clean up after their pets — but it has to be because they understand the consequences of being a moron around the house rather than because they expect to be rewarded with money. I just don’t want them to think that no deed ought to be done unless payment is in the horizon.
(Today’s column) The last time I watched the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics was in 1992. I was pregnant with my first child and bedridden. Those were pre-cable TV days and there was nothing much to choose from. It was the Olympics or those darn afternoon soap operas. I’m not a huge sports ... (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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