It's because of yoga

I’ve been doing yoga consistently for the last three weeks, so it must be because of it!

I’m been calmer and more contemplative. When I made these Palmiere cookies this morning- something at work pissed me off so I had to step away to bake something yes- I wasn’t rushing it like I normally do.

I took my time assembling the ingredients and fastidiously cleaning up as I went, that I felt I was in one of those Asian ASMR videos. There’s a part in this recipe where you spread the cinnamon sugar all over the pastry with your fingers and the surface glinted like the rose nebula (use caster instead of granular so it would be less sugary) and I thought, life is to short to be pissed off at shit.

If you want the recipe for these cookies, click here

The weirdest thing you ever cooked

Lately, I’ve been on a food funk, craving this and craving that. And the craving is made all the more worse by the fact that the food item in question is hard to find or totally unavailable in New Zealand. Here is a short-list

Hard-to-find
1. caviar
2. fresh shrimp
3. seafood-boil
4. actual lechon
5. Ube ensaymada

Unavailable
1. fresh bangus
2. Lingayen tamales
3. Laduree macarons
4. camote leaves
5. fresh plantain (saba) bananas

On a whim, I went to the supermarket with no clear idea of what I wanted but was wanting something and I ended up buying a tomahawk steak and some watercress. The weather prediction was stormy and cold so I knew I wanted some comfort by way of broth and voila…tomahawk steak (seared first) cooked in a ‘pinapaitan’ broth with Chinese sausage, watercress and sweet corn. It’s a mash-up between a Filipino traditional bulalo and Maori boil-up.

tomahawk steak with broth, sweet corn and watercress on a white restaurant plate

Postcript to that dinner last Friday

We hosted this dinner last Friday for Mary’s friends - women of a certain age - and I started what was turning out to be a really long treatise on friendship when I realised that these women weren’t really my friends, even if we had been sharing what could be one of the better dinners/get-togethers I’ve had with anyone these last couple of years.

But the affection is there, the honesty and the candidness is there, the ease of self is there for which is only possible around people who know and accept you.

And this is the thing with friends, which I have been fortunate enough to have and have had, that the best ones have come into my life by accident; Leila, Chris, Eric..that’s it. And it has been enough, more than enough. God made me self-sufficient, but these people give me happiness and comfort. Remember that scene towards the end in the Netflic movie ‘Don’t Look Up’ when the world starts actually to fall apart?

That’s how I’d like to go if it ever came to that (which is becoming more likely by the day it seems if you read the news) - around a table full of great food with my family and my dearest friends..

Saturday morning (in images)

Early this morning, I was woken up by the cat meowing loudly in the spare bedroom we’ve christened the budoir- a walk-in closet of sorts, the racks now groaning with winter coats and jackets, the floor, three rows deep with shoes. She was clearly looking for something, and without my glasses, I couldn't make anything out on the dark, hairy rug. And then I almost stepped on it, my big toe touching something (still) warm; it was a small wax-eye with that distinct while colouring around its eyes and that dusting of pistachio green on its head, wing-tips, and tail.

It was literally the early bird getting caught by a cat.

Lily has a bell around her neck so it’s either she’s clever and the birds are dumb or the birds are clever, but she’s cleverer. Or she could also be cunning- an adjective that is a step above clever. There are so many ways of looking at it, but does it matter which one is more accurate? Or truer?

It’s too early in the day to mull over these things so you just take a breath and to realise that you need to see the fundamentals; this is the nature of cats, and birds are prey in the hierarchy of things.

The sun’s out (in spite of weather predictions to the contrary) with a nice stiff breeze so you can do the laundry. You woke up early so now you have time to replant the blue cypress that hasn’t been liking its pot. You can work on that presentation due Monday. You can do the pork butt, 3 kilos split into two generous portions, one for Korean barbecue and the other for a pulled-meat recipe. So I did all these all before 9:30am.

Life is a combination of circumstance and the choices you make to work with these and sometimes, you don’t need to be as clever as Lily the cat.

You just have to do it.

Canned goodness

Growing up, the foods that comforted us the most came from a can- Spam, Ma Ling Pork luncheon meat, Philips Sausage and Ligo Sardines. When we had unexpected guests, fruit cocktail (from a can) served with cubed ice was a treat. I had always believed that canned peaches were the most glorious things in the world, and this was further reinforced when I had them, freshly plucked from a tree.

When we were older, there was more variety- Purefoods corned beef (which Matt adores), Turkey Spam, Low-Sodium Spam, canned sisig and my old college standby, Century Spicy Tuna.

When I find myself at an Asian store, I would treat myself to an occasional can; Philips sausage makes for a good omelette and canned sisig saves you the trouble of having to prepare a whole pigs head (or two) to make the real thing.

On New Zealand’s supermarket shelves, there are only a couple of canned meat products that we gravitate to and one specifically, Hellaby’s corned beef, is the best I think; meaty and densely packed, a can is enough to feed four (!!) for breakfast. But for the last couple of years, the price has continually gone up and lately, you almost always never find it at the supermarket.

And then I see this one on the shelves, Countdown’s own corned beef. But at $3.50, why the hell not?

The proof is in the eating, and yes, it’s good.

Twister is on Netflix

I have strange viewing habits. I have a whole bunch of movies that I love, but I don’t watch them again in their entirety. I skip to the (good) parts I want and call it a day. In this day and age of soooo many things to watch and only 24 hours in your day, you only have so many hours to spare so this is actually being smart about it.

One of my favourite films of all time from the 90s - Twister - is available for viewing on Netflix.

Here are my favourite bits from the film- yup, the parts where I skipped to.

Where have you been?

After recovering from Covid, it was straight to work- a show, which was essentially the work of three and then a death and a funeral of someone I had known for years. And there was the drama of that - most of which was not visible on the surface- so there was also the effort of pretending that you didn’t know (nor care, which both look the same).

And then back to work again, a treadmill at full speed. And it’s June- half the year is gone and that familiar rising panic that time is too short.

I mean this is my life which compared to other lives, would probably be inconsequential, normal maybe for some or worse, fortunate.

But it’s mine.

And at the end of the day, we do the best we can.

FriSat

FriSat happens when there’s so much happening on a Friday that it spills over to Saturday. It’s also a test of endurance since I’m still trying to suss out what parts of my body, Covid may have ‘damaged’.

You never know.

Remember this day

I could say a million things about the results of the Philippine elections, but I won’t.

Instead, let me share this story my mom told us. When the Miss Universe pageant was held in the Philippines in 1974, my mom was a teacher at the Binmaley Central Elementary School. They got a directive to be part of a group that was tasked with planting flowering bougainvilleas along the sides of the highway so that when the Miss Universe candidates drove past (they were to go on a sight-seeing tour of The Hundred Islands in Alaminos) they would see, well, flowers. Even if they only did the Binmaley to Alaminos route, this would be about 47 kilometers.

Interesting times ahead..

The Covid Diaries 3

I finally tested positive, and the line couldn’t be any clearer or finely drawn as if it was screaming, ‘is this what you wanted?? Well here it is then..”

I’ve realised two things about this: 1) you really have no choice in the matter no matter how careful you are. This is the age (and future) we’re living in; 2) You need to be always prepared- ALWAYS.

But the symptoms have been mild; I can remember colds that were so much worse.

The only thing I wasn’t absolutely prepared for is food- I’m ravenous. Even Sam is ravenous. I want to eat steaks with fries; slow-cooked pork belly; pancakes with bacon and banana dripping with caramel syrup; vermicelli noodles loaded with chicken and prawns; steamed mussels eaten with french-bread slathered with garlic butter…

The Covid Diaries 1

So Sam tested positive last night.

I was all agog over picking up the bamboo plants over at Doyet’s the next day and it was to his credit that he thought of testing first, ‘just in case’. The red line came up swift and clear in a couple of seconds. It meant that sometime between Monday and Wednesday, in those beautiful, expensively maintained grounds in Queenstown, some dirty, stupid bitch had Covid and didn’t even know it and was passing it around like party favours. Or perhaps they did, but didn’t care as is often the case it would seem with a lot of people these days who shrug it off as if it was inconsequential.

Ugh. He rings Mary down at the flat, and I could hear her trying to keep her agitation down. So we’re all stuck at home and minutes later like in a terrifying dystopian movie, SMS alerts came up on our mobiles advising us of what we already knew.

Almost immediately after, I log into New World’s website and round up a couple of ‘essentials’- lemons (terrible supply these last couple of months), a jar of honey, cup noodles, potato chips, Lily’s favourite shaved deli chicken. In my mind, I go over the meals for the next couple of days; nothing complicated to prepare and easy on the stomach. Thank God for Filipino food like adobo which keeps forever (just make a big batch of it) and comforting arroz caldo.

I had been having allergic fits (pollen and dust mostly) the last couple of weeks with a warmer autumn season, but now suddenly, every sniffle, every itchy feeling in my nose felt like a portent.

But what could you do right?

Well, I cleaned the bathroom; did a weeks worth of laundry; finished all pending work deadlines; dusted off some books I had been meaning to read. The worst you could do really, is nothing.

And I comforted myself with the thought that next week, there were exciting courier deliveries to look forward to- a new Nespresso machine, a new pair of Yeezys and a bunch of morning Sunday Riley goodies.

What did you eat on your birthday?

For me at least, I would have forgotten the heartaches, the regrets, the joy..but I would always remember what I had eaten…