August 3, 2020 at 8:37 pm (Books, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, Philippine History, Recommended)
Tags: desserts, elections, Filipino food, indulgences, memories, Mondays, nonfiction, nostalgia, politics, The Philippines
p. 13: “the past comes rushing back . . . ”
- On election day, in full view of more than 700 foreign and local journalists, and millions of concerned citizens, Marcos’s men ripped up ballots, bought others and muzzled voters. As many as three million names were stricken off the voters’ list.
p. 16 features a description of self’s favorite Filipino dessert, halo-halo (Literal Translation: mix-mix):
- This delicacy, served in a tall sundae glass, contains diced bananas, sweet mango, chickpeas, kidney beans, strands of macapuno (the succulent meat of a variety of coconut) — all of these in syrup — plus pinipig (kernels of crisp and delectable rice), mongo beans, corn, langka (jackfruit), sweet potato, jello, ube (purple yam preserves), and leche flan.
HUNGRY.
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July 27, 2020 at 4:10 pm (Conversations, Recommended, short story collections, television)
Tags: adaptations, COVID Reading, Justified, Mondays, nostalgia, summer, Timothy Olyphant
He watched Dewy Crowe bring a pump shotgun out of the trunk and start back this way, all business now, his mind made up, his dumb pride taking him to a place it would be hard to back out of.
. . . Raylan in his shirtsleeves, Dewey Crowe taking careful steps now, holding the shotgun out in front of him.
“Mr. Crowe? Listen, you better hold on there while I tell you something.”
It stopped him about fifty feet away, his shoulders hunched.
“I want you to understand,” Raylan said, “I don’t pull my sidearm ‘less I’m gonna shoot to kill. That’s it’s purpose, huh, to kill. So it’s how I use it.”
— Fire in the Hole
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July 27, 2020 at 3:52 pm (Recommended, short story collections, television)
Tags: adaptations, COVID Reading, Justified, nostalgia, performances, praise, short story, summer, Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins
Since self is currently reading Fire in the Hole, she’s on a Justified nostalgia kick.
Lookit these two! The hottest dudes on TV for six glorious seasons:
Timothy Olyphant as US Marshal Raylan Givens; Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder
Chemistry between these two was high, every encounter struck sparks.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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July 10, 2020 at 1:37 am (Food and Drink, Links, Movies, Philippine History, Recommended)
Tags: adaptations, memories, nostalgia, Palo Alto, reviews, summer, war movie, websites
Self just saw the review on a site she checks pretty regularly: http://www.rogerebert.com
She normally doesn’t like watching ‘military’ movies. She feels like the high point was Platoon and The Hurt Locker and she hasn’t seen any good ones, not any straightforward (not Quentin Tarantino tongue-in-cheek) good ones, in a long time.
But darn, The Outpost sounds like a good movie! Brian Tallerico (who she hasn’t quoted before, she doesn’t think) begins his review with:
- Director Rod Lurie’s first film in almost a decade is also one of his best, and the first movie since our national nightmare began in 2020 that I really regretted not being able to see in a theater.
That’s you and self, Brian!
If only they would open the Stanford Theater on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto so that she could watch classic black-and-whites like Roman Holiday and enjoy with the $1 small bucket of popcorn.
Anyhoo, this is one of those VOD ones. The only other film she’s rented during the pandemic has been Ronald Emmerich’s 10,000 B.C. and that’s because she wanted to see how Captain Jim Holden of The Expanse looked when he was 21 and clad only in animal skins.
Read Brian Tallerico’s review here.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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July 9, 2020 at 8:20 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Women Writers)
Tags: essays, Filipino food, indulgences, nostalgia, The Philippines
From Hometown Foods: Essays on Filipino Food:
Quiet, bucolic Silay used to have a lot of gambling for high stakes going on behind the walls of those gracious houses. Some, I was told (I never saw them) had sophisticated warning, hiding and escape systems built into them in case of an unlikely raid — unlikely because of pakikisama, because important officials were among the gamblers, because it was an important part of the community lifestyle. Tales were told and zarzuelas were written about jewelry, land titles and car registrations flung on the gambling table; of haciendas lost in a night of gaming; of marriages sacrificed at the mahjong, panguingue or monte tables, or at the cockpit.
For these gamblers, I was told, were developed for kalan-unon (kakanin) for which Silay is famous, and the accompanying institution, the manug-libud (accent on ug and ud). The kalan-unon are portable — they can be eaten without getting up from the gambling table, and they used to be made by the best cooks in Silay — maiden aunts, young wives, mothers, girls, many from the best families. The food was taken around by the manug-libud (“libud” means to take from place to place, usually to sell) to homes with or without gambling, to restaurants and schools, in large round baskets covered with cloth and carried on their heads.
Are there any chefs from Silay in the Bay Area? Are there any Filipino restaurants in Redwood City? How about Half Moon Bay? Just wondering.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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July 9, 2020 at 1:23 am (Books, short story collections, television)
Tags: adaptations, COVID Reading, favorites, Justified, memories, nostalgia, performances, praise, reading lists, Redwood City, short story, summer, The Emmys, Timothy Olyphant
Self checked out a collection of Elmore Leonard short stories from the Redwood City Public Library early this year. She hasn’t managed to get to it yet. COVID happened, and then self’s mind flew out the window.
This afternoon, while browsing through her stack of “To Read” books, she encountered the Elmore Leonard collection, and immediately turned to the title story.
Opening line:
- They had dug coal together as young men and then lost touch over the years.
omg!
Justified!
Timothy Olyphand and Walton Goggins! Those two actors were born to play Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder. Did either of the two ever win an Emmy? Did the show itself ever win an Emmy? For the six years of its run, self doesn’t think she ever skipped an episode.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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May 22, 2020 at 4:29 pm (Food and Drink, Lists, Places)
Tags: desserts, Filipino food, Fridays, indulgences, memories, nostalgia, The Philippines
- Bamboo shoots – labong
- Banana – saging
- Bottle gourd – upo
- Cabbage – repolyo
- Calamansi – calamansi
- Cashew nuts – Kasuy
- Cauliflower – koliflor
- Chickpeas – garbansos
- Chico – chico
- Chinese cabbage – pechay Baguio
- “Chinese” peas – chicharo (one of self’s faaaavorite vegetables, growing up in Manila)
- Coconut – niyog
- Corn – mais
- Cucumber – pipino
- Custard apple – atis
- Eggplant – talong
- Fern leaves – pako
- Ginger – luya
- Green snap beans – habichuelas
- Guava – bayabas
- Lanzones – lansones
- Lima bean – patani
- Long cow pea – sitaw
- Mango – mango
- Mangosteen – mangostan
- Melon – melon
- Mung bean – mongo
- Mustard – mustasa
- Papaya – papaya
- Peanut – mani
- Pineapple – piña
- Pomelo – suha
- Potato – patatas
- Santol – santol
- Squash – kalabasa
- Strawberry – stroberi (lol)
- Swamp cabbage – kangkong
- Sweet peppers – sili
- Sweet potato – kamote
- Taro – gabi
- Tomato – kamatis
- Turmeric – luyang dilaw
- Watermelon – pakwan (Dear Departed Sister loved chewing pakwan seeds)
- Yam – ubi (Ubi ice cream is the best!)
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May 19, 2020 at 7:22 pm (Food and Drink, Holidays, Links, Places)
Tags: breakfast, California, Cee Neuner, Christmas, Filipino food, memories, nostalgia, The Philippines
Let’s nose around in our archives or sniff out new photos that are related to the sense of Smelling. Be creative and have fun.
— Cee Neuner
Self found this Foto Challenge more than usually, er, challenging. She’s trying to keep her mind off food — for the first six weeks of the shelter-in-place, that was all she thought about, with disastrous consequences. And her roses don’t give off scent — mebbe it’s the type of soil? Even her Sheila’s Perfume rose has no perfume!
Anyhoo, after some determined hunting, she managed to come up with three photos:
- Fried chorizo for breakfast in the island of Negros, central Philippines:
- A fresh-cut Christmas tree makes all the difference. Self got hers from Wegman’s, a local nursery:
- Just before shelter-in-place, self had her front door and front porch painted. The smell of fresh paint is the memory of singular happiness:
Stay safe, dear blog readers.
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May 13, 2020 at 4:34 pm (destinations, Family, Food and Drink, Links, Plays)
Tags: Cal Shakes, Cee Neuner, indulgences, memories, nostalgia
- The topic for this week’s CFFC is Sense of Tasting. This is all about things you can taste, be it sweet, sour, bitter, comforting, fulfilling, addictions, etc. If you can drink or eat it, you can usually taste it. — Cee Neuner’s Fun Foto Challenge
These days, self has been searching for comfort food. But, first: NOSTALGIC MEMORIES of her last picnic at Cal Shakes, Orinda:
Picnic Before Macbeth, Cal Shakes, Orinda, October 2019
Second, comfort food during a pandemic: Maggi on Roasted Chicken is the best! And her favorite cookies from childhood, available at Pacific Market in South San Francisco:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 9, 2020 at 11:38 pm (Family, Links, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: baseball, Cee Neuner, memories, nostalgia
You can see the picture on Cee Neuner’s site (Thank you, Cee Neuner, for this series of interesting Foto Challenges!)
Suggested topics: floats, things hanging on trees, rope, fishing items, grass, green, orange, white, blue, numbers, bare branches, or come up with your own topic
Self considered several possible topics (Hanging, Bare Trees, Collections, Displays, etc) before she settled on: GROUPS OF OBJECTS
It was a lot of fun, coming up with a topic!
Thank you, Cee Neuner!
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