#005 Be Open

I just recently came back from an immersion. That is why I haven’t posted anything for the past weekend.

Basically what happens in an immersion is, you take a well-off kid, remove him from the little bubble he has been operating in his whole life, and you shove him into the life of someone less fortunate.

That is what happened to me this weekend, and as I soon felt, I felt this terrible feeling. A feeling of being swallowed up by something I did not know. Something completely foreign.

But in all this there was this thing tugging at me to be more open. And so I did, and I lived.

The best way to keep yourself sane is to keep yourself open.

Re-inovation

Change has come! Welcome to my all new blog.

The first thing you may have noticed is that my blog has been white-washed, but the reason for this is simple. It’ll be all about what I write. There is no need for color with colorful words.

Please visit! http://www.thedailyprattler.wordpress.com

Renovation

The world has always been a place of change. Let’s face it, as the cliche goes: “Change is the only thing that is constant” (Well, I’m pretty sure it goes something like that.

Well, I’ve dropped by for the first time in a year. And it has honestly been no fun not blogging. I need a way to keep this constant…I’ll figure it out.

As for the great RENOVATION. I will be doing some major overhauling. So far this blog has had about 10 or so brain farts as posts. Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that if you ask me, but in some cases as I have learned countless times in English class, you must have “Coherence, cohesion, and unity”. So here’s my stab at CCU. I will limit myself from here on out to one simple post. Expect most of them to be short.

I love the idea of things being short and sweet, and in a world where nobody has time to relax, much less read some random teenager’s blog, this seems ever more relevant.

Expect change.

What I want to do tomorrow.

So here’s the plan for tomorrow.

I will be making a cracker dough pizza, a pizza made from a dough so thin it cracks in your mouth.

I’ll make the dough buttery and crisp, then I will bake it until it’s golden.

I’ll top it with olive oil, tomato sauce, discs of mozzarella and kesong puti and what ever I can find in the pantry.

Now only one problems remains. My recipe. I have no idea how to make a buttery pizza dough. I’ve tried google searching but none seem to hit the target. Do you guys have any suggestions. I know there are tons of food-lovers on Word Press. I am calling you on to hand me your personal favorite recipe of cracker dough.

It doesn’t actually have to be your recipe. You can have me try it out, then tell you how it went tomorrow via blog entry!

Best recipe suggestion wins my love and virtual praise!

Go on, comment with your recipes!

I’ll try every single recipe, I swear. (Give me more than one day )

Someone RESTRAIN me.

Someone restrain me. I am not kidding. I might hurt someone if I am not held back.

Why do I need restraining? Peppermint. It’s the one thing I go crazy for at Starbucks every time Christmas comes around. It’s kinda like my own personal drug. I’d get high on that all day.

I first got onto this obsession with anything minty when I first went to Canada. I went there and asked my aunt whose house we were staying in, if they had any ice cream. She reached into her freezer and pulled out a pint of a flavor I knew not of. She propped me up on the counter. (I was a lot smaller back then, I was five) I was staring into what looked like chocolate-chip cookie dough, but the dough itself was green. I took my first spoonful and I immediately fell in love.

Who would’ve known that the flavor we all associate with toothpaste would taste so good with chocolate?

Then, I ended up back here in the Philippines, where something like peppermint ice cream would be way to different for people to try out. It was a sad eight-year-long wait before I discovered it.

I was in Starbucks, and their Christmas promo had just started. It was a cold November evening and I was with my family, waiting in line for our drinks.

Then I saw on the menu, something that made my heart skip a beat. A peppermint mocha frappe. It was like Christmas had come early for me. I was the world’s happiest child sipping on a peppermint mocha frappe on the way home.

I still have friends who look at me weird when I tell them that I enjoy mint and chocolate eaten together.

They give me that, “Are you crazy? That’s like eating chocolate after you brush your teeth, that’s disgusting.” look.

Well, now that I think about it, and yeah, I have tried it. It is kinda like that. I’ve tried having chocolate right after brushing my teeth (shh, don’t tell my mother) and it tasted amazing.

Hopefully one day, peppermint and chocolate can become better acquainted here in the Philippines. I can only pray for the day mint-chocolate-chip ice cream is stocked in shelves all over the Philippines.

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Don’t be afraid to leave a comment! I won’t bite, I promise.

This makes me Word Press famous now, right…?

croo croo…

Served upside-down or it’s FREE!

As far as tall tales go, I can’t think of one that’s as amusing as this one.

But now that I think about it, there isn’t much height to this tale, which is what I think makes it more real.

So first, let me give you the context of this story. It’s a hot August day, and we’ve just endured the last day of the week, which, lucky for us, ends at lunch time. A lot has been going on along Katipunan, and as much as I love how the old Katipunan was, I couldn’t help but be amused by all the new shops and stores along my favorite avenue.

One of which, was Dairy Queen. I had my first cup of Dairy Queen in grade 6 after my brother picked me up and bought me a cup after class. It was amazing. I fell in love. Vanilla ice cream, soft and light, mixed with some chunks of chocolate cookie, if you wouldn’t want that you must be…well I don’t know what you are, just, you know…different and weird…

So the tale begins…

The Not-so-Tall Tale of The Twisted Dairy Treat

So, our story starts at 1 pm, the bell rings heralding the whole high school to leave campus as early as possible.

I pick up my stuff and leave with my friends, determined to get some food into our stomachs. We decide to eat at Pizza Hut. (Cheap and affordable but we get to ask for a bill, and that’s just cool because it makes me feel all grown up and stuff) To our delight, we realize that the new store that was built next to Pizza Hut was Dairy Queen.

We all got our blizzards and headed back to our table at Pizza Hut.

After ordering, my friend decided to test the cup of ice cream he bought by flipping it over.

He held it upside-down a bit too long…

It landed with a satisfying plop on his plate.

He called the waiter and told him.

“Can I have a new plate? My desert fell on this one.”

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My favorite gourmet meal along Katipunan.

So first of all, let me give you a quick introduction to Filipino Cuisine.

Unlike most Asian countries with food that is purely their own, the Philippines has quite a different cuisine. We never had much of an idea as to what food was like before the Spanish conquestadors arrived on our shores (Haha, that rhymed) and took us and our culture in as a colony of the Spanish Kingdom. With them, they brought their food.

Thanks to Fernando Magallanes, the famous Spanish Conquestador that braved the Pacific Ocean, we have food like:

1. Adobo
2. Menudo
3. Callos
4. Picadillo

The list goes on and on but you get the idea, we have tons of pseudo-spanish food. Why did I say pseudo? It isn’t exactly Spanish, we made it our own. We use suka (vinegar) and toyo (soy sauce) as the two staple ingredients that make up the Filipino adobo.

There is however, one thing about Filipino food that’s quite different. Our street food.

Most of it consists of various ball-shaped delicacies deep-fried in oil and covered in a sweet and spicy sauce.

My personal favorite? Squidballs. It is what is it. A ball of imitation squid meat, then deep fried on a stick, and dipped in sweet and spicy sauce.

When purchased at the right stall, you walk away with no threat of diarrhea attacking you late at night. (This has happened to me before, for your sake, I hope it doesn’t happen to you)

My favorite stall is the one right next to Starbucks, it’s a really cheap alternative to buying a Php 100 frappe .

It’s a quaint yellow cart with a gas stove and a jar full of brown sauce. It’s the most beautiful thing ever.

I’d consider that just as delicious as foie gras. Maybe even better.

I’m fifteen and pregnant…with a food baby

I am not ashamed to say it. I am pregnant, and it is all my fault.

It was just one of those nights where your parents decide to bring out all your favorite foods to waste those two hours you spent at the gym. (I’m wondering if watching me struggle makes them happy…) So, long story short, I found myself pigging out on my mom’s paella and callos. (My mom was working around a spanish theme, she just came back from Madrid)

I probably stuffed myself too much because this morning I woke up with that awkward collar of sweat in the morning even though you are not using a blanket and the fan is pointed directly at you. It’s pretty much the worst sign you can get that just screams “You are fat and unhealthy” but oh well, life goes on. It was probably the most amazing paella I have ever had.

So, if you have children reading this, I suggest you send them out now. I am about to tell you how I got impregnated by paella.

…

I got home at around 5 o’ clock from the gym, and there was this strange, tomato shrimpy smell wafting through the house. I walked over to the kitchen and sitting in a wide, oven safe pan was the paella.

It was the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen. Perfectly round succulent and juicy pieces of chorizo. Butterflied shrimps with their two sides spread wide open, presenting it’s juicy insides to me. A perfectly golden wet skin of rice. All of this scantily clad in lemon and bellpeppers.

Next thing I knew, I was looking down at it, ready for it to be stuffed inside me. Anticipating the hot rice sliding down my throat.

…

Then I woke up this morning. I had the world’s largest baby (paella) bump and a nagging pain in my stomach telling me I was about to give birth. I ran to the bathroom as fast as I could. Sweat was dripping from my forehead. I pushed and pushed and pushed, then finally. Plop. It was all done.

I decided not to name my bastard food baby, I didn’t want to get too attached.