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.
I hate going away. Both ways it is always sad. If you are the leaver, the one who left a place or a person, there always is a part of you, even just a molecule or maybe an atom of your being, that will attach itself to that somewhere or someone, leaving an emptiness in you. And if you are the leavee, the one left by somebody else whether by choice or by circumstance, well, this can even be more painful.
Last Saturday, I was a leavee. The Husband left for his much deserved annual home leave, while I was left here in our wee home in the desert to, well, work as most of us, expats are here for.
I knew he was leaving and was honestly quite excited to have time for myself, but as I’ve said earlier, being a leavee is always painful. I sent him off with a kiss as he was whisked away by the taxi to the airport. As I closed our wee home’s front door behind me, I found myself crying into my favorite pillow, imagining it was The Husband. Our wee home felt empty. I was alone and lonely.
But I knew I had to deal with this loneliness head on as this could not continue for the next two weeks. I brushed my salty tears away and went into a cooking frenzy in our wee kitchen. Somehow cooking has started to become my go-to zen activity, whenever I go through a roller coaster emotional ride.
As a number of people truly imbibe the spirit of generosity in the Holy Month of Ramadan, there are a number of companies who share free Iftar and Suhoor packed meals to their employees, whether Muslim or not, who work during the odd hours of 24-hour operations. The Husband is luckily employed by one of those generous companies. Hence, I also get to enjoy the fruits of the free Iftar and Suhoor meals. Hehehe!
Why so? Doesn’t The Husband get to enjoy and finish the free meals?
Well, the meals are quite hefty. Imagine: 2-3 pieces of dates, 3-4 Arabic bread rounds, 3 pieces of Arabic pastries like kibbeh, spiced ground meat encased in a crunchy bulgur wheat mini football, a bowl of salad and / or a small plate of hummus, a humongous plate of rice and grilled meats like kebab or stews and a small tetrapack of fruit juice. That was a meal for one person. So obviously, The Husband and I had quite a pile of leftovers (literally), most of which were the rounds of Arabic bread.
The pile of Arabic bread was too tall that it practically begged the questions: What about me? What will you do with me? Will you just throw me away?
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.
“Is The Husband there?” a friend messaged me last night. I wondered why he messaged me out of the blue and so I asked.
“We can have coffee and wicked Oreos. I learnt the recipe from a friend.” he replied.
Wicked Oreos??? That is the question. I found out this afternoon with friends after devouring bowls of Sardine pasta.
There is nothing like kicking back your feet and celebrating little housewife wins in the wee kitchen with a few bottle of beer. Yes, I celebrated my freedom from headache and fever with two bottles of Hoegaarden in a stew, a hearty macho one-pot wonder that any beginner cook (like me!) could easily replicate.
So if you have some extra beer to spare, this would be a nice home cooked way to share the love…
Recycling never tasted this good.
I hate to see food go to waste, so good thing I’ve learned howto recycle, or rather upcycle food from my mama. One of the most basic Filipino food items upcycled is almost stale rice.
Now this is HOME.
I miss home a lot, especially the food that my mama (or helper, Ate Joan, who knows all the family recipes by heart) prepares for us. Now that I am “on my own” with no mama or helper to cook our food, I have no choice, but to try and recreate some of those dishes from here.
Again, because I am a beginner level cook, I will start with the easiest dishes of the lot. Today, I cooked one of my most favorite comfort food of all time (part of my Project 30) is our family’s version of arroz ala cobana…
The sun, the kids, the rope and a big fat clown. Can you spot the clown?
Yesterday, we were invited by one of The Husband’s friends to celebrate their son’s 6th picnic birthday treat at the Dubai Creek Park to partake in a feast of Filipino food treats and a two-layer Ben 10 themed birthday cake, to frolic on the grass and be silly with the kids, and to be blown away by magic tricks of a big fat clown. This is one of the things so beautifully ironic about this desert city. There are public parks with ponds and rolling greenery found in almost every community. And birthday picnics at the park are one of my favorite Dubai activities. Do you know why?
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