Park

Some people have tried to explain the existence of phobias with the fact that humans practically took quite a while to evolve--therefore, our instincts are programmed by experiences our ancestors faced a long long time ago.  There are also people who it's bullshit and speaking of animal manure, what does the photo remind you of?  I bet it says "me-eh-eh-eh".  I had thought that, too--but I took that photo and take my word for it, there weren't any goats there.

Unless the goats hid there.

What Kind of Cookery is This?!

I have decided to make a cooking blog.  I am not much of a cook, but I think this will help me keep track of errant recipes and mistakes (such as boiling water scalds, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT put your hand in the pot twice!)--can't make the same ones over and over again.  It gets tiring.

I have made friends with a Chinese woman who cooks like Pavarotti sang.  No recipes.  No tasting.  Nothing.  She just chopped and put everything in and everything tasted of heaven.  Surprisingly, when I mentioned certain Chinese dishes I was familiar with:  Lumpia Shanghai, Siomai, Siopao, Tikoy, Pancit Canton (both she and her husband thought I was referring to the city), Mister Ho Chia, she didn't know any of them.  Now why is that?

I cooked sweet and sour bola bola today.  Sweet won.  The bola bola was tasteless. I don't think I can cook like Pavarotti just yet.

Assumptions

A turkish friend once pointed to the men's restroom and said something to me in German and I assumed I understood what she meant so I nodded, said yes, walked away, took a few steps, saw something in my peripheral vision (which was an amazing feat considering I usually don't have any), turned, and saw too late that she had entered the room.  I stood there frozen in horror and thought in all caps as only nervous thoughts do:  OHNOWHATONEARTHHAVEIDONEWHATIDONOW?!

So.  Assumptions.  They ain't never good.

I assumed "lesen" meant what it sounded like.  WRONG.

I assumed "unsympathisch"  meant what it sounded like.  GRRRRANGGG.

Just imagine the kind of trouble I got myself into when I assumed I knew what "bloed" meant.  Good thing I didn't.  Learned my lesson.

Kung Naa Ka's Sugbo (do this for me)

*Eat at Larsians--with your hands, feel your lungs scream for air, drink Mountain Dew because it's the same prize as coke but bigger.  Order twenty 5 peso a piece pork barbeque, ten 3 peso a piece puso, 2 chicken barbeque, and 3 chicken liver barbeque.  While you wait, squeeze the lemonsito and the sili into the soy sauce and vinegar mixture.  You can also wash your hands.  If you want.  And when the food comes, don't think.  Just eat.


*Go to Carcar and get yourself a real Lechon.  Fry the leftovers or make lechon paksiw--it'll earn  you a MI someday, but you'll know it was worth it.  You can also get chicharon there.  Ah.  Chicharon.


*Buy ginamos and mix it with lemonsito and use it as dip for everything.  Vinegar will also do but nothing beats lemonsito.


*Eat green mango with hipon.  Have your sister cook the hipon.  My sister cooks a really mean hipon dip.  No reason yours can't.


*Eat every single mango you can get your hands on:  indian mango, apple mango, carabao, paho, kabayo... so on and so forth.


*Eat banana que.


*Eat toron.


*Go to Busay.  Buy sweet corn for 15 pesos per kilo.


*Go to STK and eat shrimps, squid, fish, shells, and tuna panga.


This is torture.  I go look for something to eat now.

Blogs

I miss Filipino food, and by Filipino food I mean food found in Cebu.  No funky sounding food like PEHnoy (what is that?  Sounds like a half-hearted fart:  uh-oh, have to come out but I've too less a character so I'll just LEAK).  It's called Balut Pinoy.  PEEEEEEEEEEEnoy if you must spell it with an E (I couldn't find a descent/accurate photo of the pinoy.  Must note the difference, though, Balut Pinoy is NOT Balut.  Balut is abortion.  Abortion is...well, the mother duck/chicken never had a say in this matter.  So this is very wrong.) Got to say it right.  Got to give it justice.  Anyway.  Blogs sometimes drive me crazy--especially when I'm searching recipes and then I get this page that gives me ADVICE on how to make kids love pinoy food (This is easy, by the way.  Ever heard of the line "Not all the glitters is gold?"  It's absolutely true.  Some times it's HUMBA.  And kids LOVE everything that SHINES.  It might not be a very good idea to make people love pinoy food because, weeeell, more competition means less for you.  Ang Hangol bow).  Seriously.  I want recipes.  If I wanted advice, I'd watch Oprah or read Buddhist books.  Haha.  I am bloggering myself.  My handwriting is a lot better when I type, and then there's Leia who is in the "am I a one-man-demolition-team?" phase.  She's still figuring it out--too bad for anything that tears, cracks, breaks, you get the drift.


I definitely want to eat Bicol Express.  And Pancit.  And I might just give this a try (Khrystle liked this very  much--which is basically why I'm so intrigued now--2 years later).  I really miss Palabok, but this dish calls for such strange ingredients.  Shrimp Juice?  What is that?  Am I supposed squeeze the shrimp?  That can't be moral, can it?  This looks interesting, too.  But what kind of name is Bok Choy?  What kind of EVIL PERSON would come up with that kind of name and much more name an innocent bunch of leaves that?  Now PECHAY sounds so much better.  It's chic.  It's elegant.  It's graceful.  Like a pirouette.  


Chicken Curry.  This is delicious in it's unadulterated form but in my hands... it could be the last dish you'll ever eat.  I could already see myself using Curry Paste instead of Curry Powder simply because there's Curry Paste in the fridge and it's been feeling neglected of late and if I brought home Curry Powder it might get depressed and change color and harbor ill feelings and spores and kill us all.  So what if it's the color of ferric oxide--it'll just turn my Chicken Curry into a lovely shade red.  Hey--!  What is this?  You can either use Coconut Milk or EVAPORATED Milk?!  What?!  EVAP?!  Really?  Would cow's milk do?  (Have you ever considered the fact that cow's milk is also breast milk?  Probably not.  I am proud to be the one to have opened your eyes.)


Afritada!  But nothing beats Nang Prime's afritada.  It's a waste of time trying.


Chop Suey.   I might want to cook this some day when I get my hands on a bag of fish balls.  This is MADE of FISH.  Not A PART of a fish.  Just so you know.

Gendarmenmarkt

I can never get the pronunciation right.  Jahn-da-muhn-markT.  Hmm.  Needs work.  Because I get carried away, you've to suffer through these redundant photos.

This is on top of that building (my guess it's a museum) right at the Gendarmenmarkt Square.  I thought the statues were curious.  But they were too high up to really appreciate.  Oh well.

And that's Pegasus.  Who else would it be?  He sprung into life from Medusa's blood, you know.  And he's no unicorn.

And Perseus didn't ride him.  Bellerophon did.  Those Hollywood movies really ruin these stories.  Take for example "Troy".  I mean, seriously, Briseis was NOT A PRINCESS of Troy.

I think this may have been the shining-golden-like-glistening-dome I saw when we were at the other dome. The Berlin Dom.  The one near Alexanderplatz.

There are two of these facing each other like chess pieces.  One is the French hmmhmmhmm and the other is the German hmmmhmmmhmm.  

Alas.  Lamp post.  Oh what a nice lamp post!

As I said, I get carried away.

That's a view from below, 5 plus a couple of inches above ground level.

It's... an angel.  Not Cupid.  Cupid has a bow and some arrows, right?  This one's got a...trumpet.

This building was built so and so and so.  So why is a building called a buildING when it is already built?  Why not call it a BUILT? It's done, isn't it?

More serial shooting.

The tarps are really in the way.  Seriously.

He's got a harp.  No.  No cupid.

And more statues up above where only the doves can see them well.

Hmmm.

Look!  Look!  She's bored!  Or is it a he?

I don't know.  I can't tell.  He?  She?  It?

There's a museum in there somewhere.  The ought to be.

Oh look.  She's studying.

What more can I say?  They look nice.  I'm already stretching my knowledge in the art of sculpture making people out from rocks here.

Pillars.  Don't you just love Pilar Pilapil?  (I'm being helpful).

This is a curious one.

Nothing in Particular

 I call them Half-A-Year-Upside-Down-Trees because half a year they look like upside down trees.  See?  It looks as if the roots are reaching for the sky, though just this morning I thought that almost all trees look upside down when they don't have leaves.  It's not that late.  This was taken at about 4 pm or earlier.

 Sehen Sie det?  Ajos Bravos!  It says Ajos!!!

 Da Tangad.  Yeez.  All you need then is Lechon and the world will be perfect.

 Imbutido.  But of course, mine's an adulterated version.