incessant rambling

what do richard gere, fernando zobel de ayala, jaime augusto zobel de ayala II have in common? salt and pepper hair. i've always been fascinated with that particular look as it gives an air of sophistication. in the same way that dreadlocks inspire visions of "kuto" that my scalp instinctively itches when i see someone sporting that do. i was on my way to the mall this morning to meet up with a friend and i looked up to check the rearview mirror and saw the amount of salt and pepper colored hair starting to grow out of my temples and beard. upon closer inspection, i noticed a few white hairs sticking out of my nose. ah, that's a litte bit freakish as i didn't realize that nose hairs can turn white as well! nothing classy about that look! yuuuck. i have to run and get my clippers. for the moment, i glanced around to see if anyone is checking and i quickly pushed the white hair back up my nostrils. darn.

i was resigned to having blah-blah food on the last day of our national conference in tagaytay but was pleasantly surprised by the selection. i had ginataang tilapia (tilapia cooked in coconut cream)for lunch and pene pasta tossed with tuna flakes, pesto, cream and served on top of fresh lettuce. ginataang tilapia pene tuna-pesto pasta i really didn't bother with the other dishes but feasted on the succulent tilapia perfectly cooked in vinegar, coconut cream, garlic and ginger. you know if the fish is fresh if the meat is tender but firm and has a sweetish taste to it.

earlier this month i attended the national conference for my company and found myself in tagaytal taal vista hotel. the welcome lunch was a lavish affair that featured native filipino dances. since my interest is in food, i took the opportunity to capture a couple of shots. if taste and smell can be translated into pictures, these pictures are mere visual feasts. in short, the fish fillet is dry, the pomelo seafood salad tasted like paper and the only saving grace is the spicy chicken adobo. what amazed me though was the dance that featured indigenous tribes. one thing i noticed is that filipino dances have this tendency to place stuff on women's heads while they gracefully moved about - from baskets, to pots, to glasses filled with water etc. one pot, two pots, a looooot of pots. why place the baskets on their heads while they kept their arms free? it doesn't make sense does it?

erich is one of my bestest friends way back in college. and the laws of transmutation dictate that the wife should also be close to me. good thing that i am a BI for erich (that's better influence, duh). a quick coffee with my friend in seattles best in greenbelt three while i'm passing time till i have to go to the airport. i've grown wider, erich has grown thinner, ruby never seem to change and we now talk about work and stuff. erich looks like he doesn't have a care in the world but is constantly thinking of his collectibles amounting to mega millions and ruby is still working for a biggie bank. erich joked that our time together seem to get shorter with every visit. made me think about the rat race and the need to slow down a bit. unfortunately i am not shaider with the time space warp powers. darn. miss you guys!

the indian food stall in legaspi sunday market is a real disaster as the food was not even remotely close to the real thing. frustrated, i searched for another indian restaurant near legaspi village where i stayed in my most recent trip to manila. new bombay and swagat were the closest. i heard horror stories of some undesirable life forms in the samosas of new bombay (uh, little thingies that had six or eight legs) so i told cat to accompany me to swagat. her first reaction was that it wasn't really that good. on the other hand, she mentioned that her group previously asked the food to be mildly spiced and it came back resembling "lugaw" (rice porridge) without any flavor. well, not really "lugaw" but it was rather bland. i was able to convince her to give it another shot but we made it a point to ask for the dish to be cooked spicy "hot". unfortunately, filipino definition of spicy is just loads of chili. the red variety. the murgh korma (curried ch...

there's nothing grammatically wrong with that statement. for the past couple of months I have literally gotten on a plane approximately 4 times. the mactan international and ninoy aquino terminal 3 airports are literally my second home as i find myself waiting for hours to get on a plane. on a really bad day, delays can cause me to spend a minimum of three hours in an airport. it's usually the manila-cebu leg that gets delayed and it's not as fun considering that there's free wifi in mactan international. in any case, i snapped a picture of myself (18th April 2009) on one of those horizontal escalators. ideal for sleepy-tired peeps like me who tried to squeeze every conceivable meeting and activity while on a business trip. am i complaining? far from it.

if a picture is worth a thousand words then i probably have to use 3,000,000 words to describe the 3,000 or so pictures in my library. sifting through the collection made me realize that i have so much stored memories of places, events and people. unfortunately, i don't get to see myself that often in majority of the pics. i literally have a backlog of posts that i need to put up: Taal Vista, Guadalupe, Caohagan ad infinitum.   the holy week was literally a penitence as i probably walked, hiked, huffed and puffed through 15 kilometers of urban roads, mountain trails, highways etc etc. my boss was in town for the holy week and i (foolishly) offered to show him parts of cebu that would have been otherwise missed by regular visitors. heck, most cebuanos don't even get to visit some of the places that we visited. in any case, my boss didn't count on the fact that it was the holy week - i would have felt guilty if i let him stay in the hotel thursday to sunday, totally "...

The annual run for your heart marathon took off sunday, April 5, 2009, with hundreds of enthusiasts going through the streets of cebu in an effort to get a little bit healthier. in another location, i was going through the sunday market in legazpi village in makati for food finds that i can write about. near the entrance i spied a big sign that bannered ALTAPRESYON by the FEU Nursing college announcing some medical acivity related to keeping one's heart healthy. except that they're selling deep fried crunchy fatty pork rind. they claim it has anti-aging properties - you die young.

the absence of aromatic curry should have been a warning. i was looking at rogan josh (lamb curry) and i remembered the heavy flavors of cloves, aniseed, cumin, cinnamon and garlic tempered with the creaminess of yoghurt. despite its fiery red color, rogan josh is not necessarily "chili hot". generally, curry is the infusion of various spices that give your tongue that tingle. the common belief is that curry is the anglicized version of the tamil word "kari" which means sauce or gravy. south asian food is characterized by the fondness for curry or sauces. an indian stall in the sunday legazpi market served two dishes: rogan josh and palak paneer with a stack of roti (indian bread). i ordered two small portions and two roti to go and was a bit surprised to see the bill come up to Php 799. this better be good. if you've had the flu and ate something, food generally tastes like paper mush. imagine chewing on the paper bottom of a siopao.kitty confirmed my observati...