The Wanderful Wandering

There's this guy in history who was a coward but was eventually made a leader after going a against a king and leading the slaves out of their slavery. Oh he led them out of slavery alright... and into the desert. Wandering and wandering about for 40 years in the desert (sheesh, I keep typing "dessert").

Their wandering wasn't just wandering. It just had to happen for them to know their God. In wandering is where we find what we ought to look for. It is where we discover our direction and where we ought to go.

I'm personally in a season of wandering right now. But dear Lord, please let it not need to be 40 years, not even 20, nor 10 please.

The Actual New Year

I the spirit of the annual shift, I'd like to share about the second most wonderful time of the year -- the new year. A few years ago, I realized that there are actually more than one new years in 365.25 days. One is the first day of the calendar year, and the other is each person's own new year, the birthday. The planet Earth's new year and mine actually happen in only a 24-day difference. Such a short period.

And so, in a lame effort to "discreetly" make known my wishlist, I blog thee:

The Ideas for an ldeal Birthday Gift for Conan

WAIT!! Before you close the window due to your non-interest in gifting me any of these, at least read through it just so you could know me better. More than a list of I wants, it's actually my way of putting out myself in the universe and saying, "Hey, I'm interested in these things. How about you?" So please do read on... and even feel free to comment at the bottom. : )

This (planet Earth) year has started quite fruitful for me. Plans have gone a-churning and my life has gone a-moving. It hasn't been like the past year's beginning. So I think I'll end this rhyming, 'coz I'm totally blowing it. Haha. Recent events have inspired this list, and so here it goes:

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1.A... Driving lessons: I've been praying for God for a car to go about with my business. It's been impossible to make bulk deliveries when riding a commute. But although I don't own one yet and I'm believing I'd own one on or before the 2nd quarter of the planet Earth year, I reckon I'd have to take the first step to owning a car: LEARN HOW TO DRIVE properly... and then get a license. I accept personal lessons from anyone or a gift certificate consumable as driving lessons from any reputable driving school in Metro Manila.

1.B... A good car care and repair book. When I get my car this year, I'm sure it's gonna suffer a lot from the nube that's been sweating balls and trying his best not to hit every lamp post along the street. So aside from the fact that I'd like to see my car live at least another 10 or 15 years, I think it's cool for a guy to know how to maintain and/or fix his car when it breaks down in the middle of a road trip, don't you think?

2... Strengths Finder 2.0. I just wanna take the test. They say it's gonna help others a lot. I know your eyebrows just looked at each other now or at least one of them stood higher than the other after the two sentences that didn't seem to connect. You see, at the beginning of this year, I've prayed for God to help me be a better person towards others. Somehow,  I've gotten feedback that people "fear me" or that I'm a snob. I'd say I disagree but hey, it wasn't just one person who said it, and I commend them to have the intestines to tell that to me even if they "fear me" (it must be the sarcasm). I didn't feel comfortable hearing that but I knew I had to do something about it. Strengths Finder 2.0 (allegedly) has a way of finding out your strengths not just so you could crown yourself with a pat on the back but also to help others via your strengths. Now that, I think, would make me a better person towards others.

3... Any food book that is above (or almost) PHP 1,000. Don't get me wrong. I'm not after the price. The price is simply a gauge for the quality of the book. If you noticed, I didn't say cookbook lest you misunderstand that I seek for recipes. When I  mentioned food books, I meant books that answer the why's of the kitchen rather than the what's. A good example is the Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet. They explain why your burger has to be cooked this way, what adding this does to that, and all that. It's USD 600 by the way. So no, don't buy me that. But if you find it in your heart to do so, I pray that God will bless you more. Hehehe. With that, I'd just recommend Ideas in Food by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot; Working the Plate by Christopher Styler and David Lazarus; Alinea by Grant Acahtz; and On the Line by Eric Ripert... read up!! And for all these books, an e-book reader would be nice too.

4... Kitchen tools and equipment. For any time of the year, occasion or no occasion, these would make an excellent gift for me. If I may, I'd also like to formally announce that we are officially in the planning stages of a concept food shop. As early as now, we are trying to build our shop, one measuring spoon at a time. So we'd really appreciate any peeler, wire whisk, ladle, silicone spatula, Pyrex measuring cup, knife, chopping board, mortar and pestle, cookie sheet, stew pot, baking pan, frying pan, sauce pan, cast iron pan, pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, hand-held blender, stand blender, electric mixer, food processor,  bread toaster, oven toaster, microwave oven, gas/electric oven, gas burners, chiller, freezer, sous vide machine, an entire kitchen if you would like to, or as simple as an apron, dish towel, and good quality mittens. Those... would... be... great.

5... Meatballs. I'm such a sucker for them. If I were a mighty African tiger, meatballs would shrink me into a kitten and a ball of... well... meat. Haha!

I hope you learned a little more about me today. This is one side of the dodecahedron that I am. This new year is has become very personal to me. Not in a selfish angle but in a way where I think I'm thinking less about myself and thinking more of the people surrounding me. I'm starting to choose a direction for my life (yes, I've been fooling around all these years). While around friends and family, I'd like to think that it's time for me to build something for my future. And although I'm not in a relationship right now, I'd like to be ready when my heart finally tells me that it's time. Meatballs and gooeyness. Told ya I was a dodecahedron.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love Christmas! Christmas songs top my reasons with tunes that are uniquely for this season! As old as hymns are, Christmas songs get reinvented and revive the sentimental side of everyone...unless you're the Grinch. I love the sparkle and glamour that Christmas lights bring; a certain wide-eyed wonder in every child on the street, some pressing their faces on the store windows to just get a closer peek of the display. I love the warm feel of reds and greens, some copper and blues, and even the whites bring out a nostalgic moment a midst its plainness throughout the rest of the year. And why wouldn't it when it is also the season for weddings! A season when couples finally tie the sacred bonds of their 'til-death-do-us-part's and begin a roller coaster ride of building a family on love.

Some people aren't mad over the holidays. I'd understand. Streets get jammed, malls get jammed, the shoppers are crazy, your Secret Santa/Munito-Munita is picky, you've got more nephews, nieces, and inaanaks than the grains of rice on your plate, and the heaviest reality of all, the funds are depleted.

I still smile after thinking about this. Rethink about it: It is the season where people go the extra mile, exhaust their reserves, go through hours of traffic, and shove their way through a sea of crazy sale shoppers, just so they have something to give on Christmas day. All the earth is moving double time and working the hard extra hours just to get service to clients/customers. I'm not saying everyone is willfully doing it with a cheerful heart and the holiday spirit, but at the end of the loooooong process of making this gift item or preparing these food, it still brings a smile on a son's/daugter's/mom's/dad's/friend's(/pet's if you may) face. It's chaotic, beautiful selflessness and it happens like clockwork during this time of the year. It is in the human soul.

Why wouldn't it be? After all, the big kahuna for all of these was the biggest inconceivable selfless act: (Start of sentence) The God whose presence is of bolts of lighting and rolling thunder, Maker of erupting spheres of fire and suspended spinning rocks, Commander of the skies and seas, the only One worshiped and obeyed by nature, stepped down from his awesome, splendorous, glorious, and majestic dwelling, and came to this world through a bloody birth into a stinky, cramped, and damp cow and donkey hole -- it's all the tiny world had to offer that night (End of sentence). And at the end of His stay here, he actually had to die for the world who welcomed Him in a stable; the world who did not recognize Him even after the stars in the heavens and the heavenly host and angels exalted Him on that night. Nobody recognized the King, but He would die for them anyway, and yes He did die (and live again) for them anyway. What a chore. Nothing compared to what we've gone through. Chaotic, beautiful selflessness.

Merry Christmas, planet Earth.

The Ones that Matter

There are billions of species of crawlers, lurkers, trotters, climbers, swimmers, wrigglers, gliders, wanderers. Beyond one enormous marble of soil, water, air, and fire, there is a vast array of spinning and suspended rocks. A billion other suns, burn and explode with rage. Gems and precious rocks and metals of the earth; all the complexities of biology, chemistry, and physics; the arts and sciences of colors, lights, sound, music, reason, passion, and every single thing that have already been before we were even born -- all gloriously from the mouth of God, out of nothing... but in the grandness and splendor of all those, I doubt that any of those matter to Him as much as these:

You, me, all other people, sin, redemption, salvation, holiness, worship, love.

The Guilty Pleasure

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After culinary school, I totally realized how much of a big deal it is when food is handled well or not. Well handled food deserves "respect" for the service and badly handled food deserves otherwise. Respect for the skill of someone handling your food can be awarded in different forms. One form could probably be a personal commendation to the chef, another can also be a recommendation to other diners, and of course, the most basic would be the willingness to pay (no matter how costly) for the superb service and for taking time to perfect and master excellent food handling. But before this paragraph turns into a snooty snooze fest, let's cut to the chase.

Image from here

Let's just put it this way: lately I've been exposing myself to food that's properly cooked (by someone else) and am willing to pay for it, even at a price. However, even as a budding culinarian (yes, aside from being a newbie trying-hard writer), there are just some things I'm used to, and they do come cheap. By things, I mean food; by used to, I mean try my best to have them regularly; but by cheap, I don't mean handled really bad. After all the snoot fest I've been training my palate to get used to, I regularly return to my culinary guilty pleasure -- Chinese Takeout.




There is something about the Chinese cuisine that I feel is superior over a lot of others (especially Western). While others impress themselves as posh and pinkie-up snootiness, Chinese cuisine (and a bunch of Asian cuisines, for that matter have) has a regal sophistication and oriental respect to ingredients, at some point, even a science to it. And when you get all these properly made for a few bucks, packed in boxes and have them while you work or go to school or just for dinner with your fellow geeks, boy oh boy, have you hit the jackpot.

And so, while some may look down on Chinese takeout, I'm sorry but my amateurly sophisticated taste bids well to the properly made stir-fry in a paper bucket as gourmet that is worth every cent, no matter how few the cents I shell out. Haha! Now excuse me while I finish my left-over dumpling from last night's take out. :p

The Market Basket

I know, I know. I'm sooo sorry for having a follow-up blog this late. It's just that I seem to have ran out of brain cells to elaborate about ideas I believe in which I can actually summarize in three sentences. Three sentences ain't a blog, and it's too long to be a tweet or a status message. So I've finally given in to my comfort zone and one of my major fields of interest, which is incidentally yours too -- food.

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I've been professionally cooking for only two years now, but I've been an amateur garage-band type of cook since I was a young lad. You see, in the culinary world, there is a term called the market basket. It began somewhere in time when people went to the market every single morning to decide on the menu of the day. What ever is offered in the market today shall be what is on the menu later. It's a pretty challenging task for a chef to come up with different dishes everyday and also takes a set of highly skilled cooks to execute to the chef's standards a different dish each day. Not many restaurants or eateries are blessed with such a crew. The market basket is so challenging that it has evolved and established itself as a format for competitions in the culinary world, even used in reality shows like Top Chef.

The previous paragraph just shows how cluttered my thoughts are as a writer; starting with being a young lad and cutting to the market basket concept. So where does my ladhood go in the picture of this thing called the market basket? Here: I have been doing it since I was 6. As a child, my parents both worked the 8-hour jobs. When I got home from school for lunch, nobody would be there. My sister comes home in the late afternoon, and my mom & dad came home late at night. So for lunch, it was just me, the fridge (my market), the stove, and the TV; and for dinner, it was just me, the fridge, the stove, the TV, and my sister. You can guess what I did with these things. And you obviously know how I was (and still am) when I was a kid -- I was fat. In the Philippines, there is a term people use to joke about fat kids, "napabayaan sa kusina" roughly translated as "left alone in the kitchen". In my case, the joke was not half meant; it was entirely true! Thank God I never burnt our house down. My mom swears by this story (although I think I do remember parts of it), that once she and my dad were away for a seminar out of town for a few days. One morning, she calls home and I answer the phone, "Hello, mama?" Like I knew it was her who was calling. "How are you, my baby?" she says. "I'm awake." "Where's your sister?" "In bed. Asleep." "What about you? What are you doing?" "Cooking breakfast..."

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In the Philippines, traditional folk don't usually have toast nor pancakes nor bacon nor cereals and milk as proper breakfast. We have garlic fried rice, an assortment of scrambled eggs, omelet, and/or perfectly sunny over easy eggs, fried dried fish and/or smoked fish and/or beef/pork/chicken tapa/tocino and/or sweet sausages (called longganisa) that spit and spatter when you fry... plus an assortment of dips (called sawsawan, i.e., ketchup, fish sauce, spicy vinegar, bagoong) and tomato & leafy top salads with salted duck eggs. Sounds like a feast eh. Now, imagine a 6-year-old preparing such a table as this... for two -- me and my sleepy sister.

I don't mean to brag or toot my own horn. All I wanted to do was finally share one of the things I'm most fascinated about. Besides, any 6-year-old kid can do (probably even more than) what I did when I was a kid. Hello? Junior Master Chefs? If there's one thing I'm proud of though, it's that God gave me a set of parents who raised me well into being smart and independent as young as I was, even in the aspect of food preparation.

The Thing I'm Good at Saying Out Loud

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In line with my last post, I had to ponder about this boy-girl relationship thing. I've been often told to seek and contemplate for the right person to spend my life with. I've always been pursued by this word: pursue. But then I ask myself, "why does it have to take such a long process of searching and enduring? Why can't I just be with whom I feel like loving now?" I cannot help but wonder how it was when this boy-girl thing happened in the first place. People, (especially y'all single ones out there) let us take a look at Adam... and Eve... but mostly Adam. Did Adam have it easy?

As far as I remember Adam didn't even ask for it. I was thinking he was slouching bored, sad and lonely on a tree branch, busily pointing at a random creature and naming it which he did not even get to finish (because his descendants are still up to it even today). He was the only creation of his kind. I wasn't sure if he knew that, which was probably a good reason for being sad and lonely, but even if in case he didn't notice, he must have felt it in his heart. And who knew his heart better than his Crafter? So God said, would you like another of your kind? I can just imagine Adam's face lighing up and nodding furiously, which probably made him dizzy, lose his balance, fall off the tree and into a deep sleep (LOL! Kidding). And so, Eve was created. The point is, it seemed like Adam did not have to search... or did he?

Genesis 2:18-20

18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” 19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. 

But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

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With that, I think he did search...amongst the livestock. He went "Dog. Cat. Cow. Chicken. Pig. Duck. Duckling. Goat. Aww... sheep. But no. Lizard. Frog..." and so, no suitable helper was found. Hence, Eve.

So young people, the waiting, contemplating, and pursuing has been done since this boy-girl thing was invented. Sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, nobody said it was easy. However, everyone else who has been through that waiting and searching phase had said it was worth everything. And if you ever find your self in the midst of a frenzy of hogs, cows, chickens, and other forms of barn yard creatures, no matter how cute they may be, do not settle. Take heart. The Lord knows your needs more than you do. ;)