Daydreams of an eating and writing life
My favorite bottled Tuyo brand 
Being in the middle is often not a good thing. You’re neither here nor there, or neither black nor white. You are just lukewarm, neither cold nor hot. It can mean cowardice for some, lacking the balls to choose a side. It is the gray area, obviously a drab color, which best describes the feeling of being in the middle.
This is where I am at the moment: right smack in the middle.
“Hey. What’s happening to you? How come I have not seen any new posts on your blog?” asked a couple of fellow bloggers and faithful readers. After getting that question from people who actually bothers to read my blog, I wanted to hide under the sheets from blogger shame. The absence from the blog seems that I have been doing nothing. And I’m the type of person who beats herself so hard when I do squander precious time, something that you could never ever gain back.
This blogpost has been sitting inside my head for a couple of weeks now. Oh, I stand corrected. Judging by the date on my last post, this blogpost has been over two months in the making. Night after night I thought of blogging, sitting on the couch and sharing my food adventures, which I have had a fair bit of, but somehow I managed to wriggle out of sitting still, digging up and sorting out the million and one thoughts in my head. And those thoughts just remained there…inside my head.
I did NOTHING.
There are just days that are plain ordinary.
In the morning, at around 7AM, I get up, do my morning routine in the bathroom, cook and eat breakfast and leave for work. Then for 8-solid hours, I work almost non-stop to get to clock out on time and get home. After a 15-minute trip home, I exercise (or sometimes just try to in my head) then cook or reheat dinner and hit the sheets. Those are ordinary weekdays.
There are also ordinary weekends like this. Uneventful, no parties or get-togethers to attend, no errands to run that I end up cooped up in our wee flat, busying myself with house chores including my favorite chore: cooking, watching TV series or movies, reading through my Kindle and surfing the net.
But somehow, there is this itching feeling to make something extraordinary out of the sometimes boring ordinary day. There has to be something special everyday, right?
Monggo (mung bean soup), one of the humblest and standard Filipino comfort food dishes, was on our menu list and I gave it an upgrade by using bacon to give it the salt and smoky flavor it needs.
A huge part of my eating life in Dubai is about discovery, especially cuisines that I have never in my wildest dreams imagined eating: Iranian, Indian – North, South, and West (not sure if I’ve even had Eastern Indian food), Jordanian, Egyptian, Pakistani, Emirati, Iraqi, Irish, English, Yemeni, and Lebanese. But in the past weeks, my food adventuring around the world through the multi-cultural Dubai population has slowed down to an almost stand still. It’s only lately that I’ve been really, really craving for the tastes of the familiar, the tastes of home.
One particular dish that I’ve been dreaming about the past weeks is the pork adobo. It’s been quite some time since I’ve last cooked and savored this Paterno family favorite.
Today, I indulged myself by cooking pork adobo with a few interesting twists…as I’ve cooked it in the oven versus on the stove Am I loving my oven too much?
The Arroz Caldo (chicken congee or porridge) is a bowl of comfort for millions of Filipinos out there. Perhaps the counter part of chicken noodle soup from the North Americas, it is a cure all for the sick. It is also a warm hug for the grieving, often present during memorial services, especially in the chilly evenings.
Unfortunately, the Arroz Caldo does not earn a coveted spot in my line-up of comfort foods. It not one of my favorite Filipino dishes. In fact, I don’t like it. There’s something about dishes with boiled chicken, especially those with the bumpy skin on, that have me heading for the hills. *insert Goofy yoddle here*
But then as The Husband and I were menu planning, he wanted arroz caldo to rid our wee pantry of the not-so yummy jasmine rice we bought. Then arroz caldo it is…Gulp!
I will be perfectly honest that I just do not feel like blogging right now. I am dead tired after deciding to vacuum and scrub down our floors on all floors in order to remove the collecting dust from the past two weekend’s sandstorms. My eyes are droopy already with my head bobbing up and down as I struggle to finish today’s post.
Oh, did I mention that I also did writing work and cook on top of my Cinderella duties? Tired…
Ginisang Monggo (mung bean soup / stew)
What is it about monggo that we Filipinos adore? I just can’t seem to pin it down.
Image from www.garibay.tumblr.com
It’s 4AM and I am still wide awake. That’s my body clock these past few days: wide awake at night and asleep in the mornings. I’ve made it a commitment to join The Husband in the constant changes of work schedule to ensure that we both enjoy peaceful, restful sleep together in our wee studio flat, where the tiniest noise is the doom of the lightest of sleepers like The Husband dearest. And so here I am wide awake and still very full after a bloody meal. Literally a bloody meal.
Image from munchpunch of www.photobucket.com
I was so disappointed, or maybe more like appalled, on how the Gulf News did this feature on “Demystifying Filipino food”. Sure, the feature was 2-minutes long, but you can do a LOT of demystifying in that period of time…
Will you please stand up??? (Image from icanhascheezburger.com)
Today, I encountered a Filipino dish I have NEVER EVER heard about or tasted (at least to my knowledge). I am now a Chicken Halang-halang virgin no more…
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