Dinner in Amsterdam? Let's!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Someone greeted me "HVD" this morning. Sounds more like a disease than a greeting, but what the heck. As they say, it's the thought (and perhaps the text) that counts.

A glass of chardonnay is waiting for me to guzzle it up as of this writing. Hardy's has been one of my favorites since I discovered it early last year. For one thing, it's really, really affordable. Less than P300 a bottle. How can you beat that?

It goes well with pizza (especially ones topped with anchovies, but I didn't order that for this evening - my mom said she doesn't like anchovy pizza 'though I swear one time I ordered it from A Veneto, she said it was good).

A couple of photos should be accompanying this entry but I'm still kinda woozy so I'll just edit and add it later. And I'm not exactly sure how much typos are in this entry. Again, I'll just edit later.

Happy V-DAY!

Briegud! Briegud!

Say "CHEEEEEESE!!!!

My friend, who went frolickin' in Europe for a couple of weeks, came home with this wedge of Brie for moi. I believe it's my prize for helping him pray to get the trip! Haha!

He got this piece of Brie from Maison Collignon, formerly known as Au Marche de la Butte, where Amelie shopped in... well, Amelie.

I almost finished the 125-gram cheese in one sitting. Siiigh... I have turned into a pig. Do pigs love cheese? I wonder. At any rate, thank you Chong Gerard - for the cheese and the shop pic!

P.S.

Read about Gerard's adventures on http://actorenescritor.blogspot.com/. Ciao!

All spiced up!

If I had a new year's resolution list, it wouldn't include not blogging. Unfortunately, I really had very little to talk about the past weeks. For one thing, like many other households in Metro Manila, we (still) don't have LPG. We ran out of it early January. We did find a tank of cooking gas some time last month but it's defective. We've been cooking everything on an electric skillet for almost two months. Meralco must be very happy these days.

I haven't done much experimenting since the start of the year. I made Veenagoongang Vavoy a couple of times. Made my Fake Cheesecake for New Year's eve and for a friend's husband's new president's post-inauguration party. Last weekend, I made Porky Rolls -only this time they were flat because I now have an amazing plastic tenderizing thingie, AS SEEN ON TV!! (Well, not really.)

A couple of weeks ago, my mom thoughtfully bought me a recipe book while on a business trip in Singapore. What she missed considering, though, is the fact that most of the recipes call for ingredients which demand frustration as I am not likely going to get them here.

One thing that's been bugging me, even before that fateful day of the recipe book's arrival, is Garam Masala. I see it in a lot of Asian recipes. Wiki says:

Garam masala, the literal meaning of which is 'hot spice' (in the meaning of high temperature as opposed to spiciness), is a basic blend of ground spices to be used alone or with other seasonings. It is common in Indian cuisine.

Now, I luuuuv spices. So when a friend said he's going to Singapore, I thought I'd ask for a tiny jar of Garam Masala for future use. He got me this....







... as well as it's seven cousins!! Here's a family pic:



I'm sooo looking forward to cooking with these babies! Thanks, Dax!