MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza On one of my rare visits to the supermarket, a display of garbage bags – not in black – attracted my attention. They stood out because they were packaged in sunny colors and labeled as pleasant-smelling garbage bags, thanks to the added value of fruit and flower...
Reminiscing time… Whenever I did my Japan food tour, I would get mixed emotions. Mostly positive. I pray and thank God for blessing me with a dream job. Each meal was like finding treasure I simply enjoyed. Seeing participants close their eyes in satisfaction over the food was also priceless. The...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Take it from the experts. Those seat warmers in MWSS predict a water shortage in summer, two months from now. They’re paid to say that? Just by asking the weather bureau how much rainfall to expect or not to expect? After all the rain dropped by Odette – typhoon...
Santi's Delicatessen spread With the easing of the restrictions, long-awaited get-togethers were at an all-time high. I’m sure many new home cooking discoverers were busy sending off their products. The lockdown also brought out something positive. Many home cooks and bakers were born. Most of...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza This time it’s fear that’s fueling the surges. Fear is good if it keeps parents from taking their tykes out for a walk in the park along with 20,000 other people. Fear is good if it pulls us back from going out for the sake of going out. Fear is good if it keeps us...
Anyone who knows Portia knows her as the pink lady who cannot live without pink P FOR PORTIA Portia Leuterio, the lady who thinks pink, drinks pink, dreams in pink; and the table is set, almost, for P (as in Portia) and her guests. Portia Leuterio teaches ladies and their daughters and...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Christmas ends on the 12th day, two days from now, with the Feast of the Three Kings. Looking back, it was the second half of December that put us in the merry mélange of a near normal season of anticipated joys, gift-giving, family bonding and hopefulness. Now look...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza In her 2021 book, The Madness of Crowds, the novelist Louise Penny writes: “What’s a year? Why do we need a new year? Is the old one broken?” Not all memories are good, but the following list shows that as in using a stairway, there’s always an upstairs and a...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Word of the year 2021, according to Oxford Dictionary, was “vax” – not “vaccine,” just vax. Vaccine is an old word whereas vax is a pandemic-2020 invention, shorter to pronounce and spell, especially for headline writers. Word of the month of December 2021 based...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Gifts unwrapped. Boxes torn open (why the day after Christmas is also known as boxing day in Western countries, when presents bought in a store are allowed to be returned or exchanged for another size, style, or color). Some children looking disappointed. There’s always...
FOOT FETISH Chicken feet A chef friend once told me, “If you think about it, most foreign cuisines only have a handful of dishes that are popular and really stand out.” Images of dishes from other countries came to mind, in particular, Thai cuisine such as tom yum, pad thai, pandan chicken,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Christmas, wrote Alexander Smith, “is the day that holds all time together.” Poetry? Theology? Psychology? What would the world – humanity-- be without Christmas? Still, there are those who do not believe in the story of the First Christmas or who prefer to forget...
