my kitchen and recent food trips

An update, at last!

I cook on weekends on a somewhat regular basis, most of which were not blog worthy.

Pending such chef blog posts I intent to do soon, let me show you my kitchen in progress.
Anyways, this is my kitchen in my house in the ancestral family compound where I live on weekdays. I go home on weekends where my wife and child stay.

Anyways, technically the kitchen is just a set up for now. The fixtures are in place. Behind is the lavatory where I intend to wash the dishes - sa bahay na hindi pangmayaman, dyan din ang toothbrush-an. I don't have enough space in the bathroom install another sink.

The counter table was an old window frame. The top is a piece of old wood from a dismantled cabinet. There is also a brick post which was made to conceal a not-so-pleasant wood post.

I shared what's there. So for wha'ts not there - I don't have stove and the essential gasul. Flat iron is not that bad as a prize in a christmas party raffle. Not when you want get one of the two stoves at stake.

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As a child  I pretend to do cooking show host when I make calamansi juice or prepare my chocolate drink. This was at those times that I was not yet allowed to use the stove. When people from the household allowed me, there were summer vacations that I became in charge of the cooking, which includes going to the market. I was given a amount enough cover main dish, beverage and dessert. From that, I made decent varieties of fried chicken. What I cannot practically succeed on is to make gulaman. I use "is"because until now i just can't have it the way it should be. When I do my mock cooking show, the last instruction would always be to put the gelatin in a plastic bag and throw it in the garbage can.

I'm sharing it because it happened just last Sunday. After more than an hour of cooking sago I just could get the right texture. I just don't know how much time would it take, all I know is that nauubos na ang gasul namin. I drained it and put it in a plastic bag all the way to our trash can. The same goes for the sardines spaghetti that i made -on the same day. 

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lastly, I had few (not intentionally for the blog) food trips which i am sharing. I've been on field work for the past weeks, gone out with my family and visited coffee shop to finish office paper works.

photo ops for  hou tsu. I cant find the correct spelling of this vietnamese soup.

I was in Morong, Bataan for field work. With a tight budget, I was looking for a carinderia for lunch. I used to eat near the bus terminal but I don't want to go there since I still have transactions in the municipal hall at 1:00pm. My option was to walk few meters back and forth or spend P20 for tricycle fare. Then, I found a vietnamese carinderia. I mean - carinderia and not a restaurant, which I was not able to get the name. I had this soup for P25 and a small chat with the (i suppose) owner.

clockwise: 1. bic mac courtesy of my kuya 2. required order to stay in a coffee shop,
cafe americana for P60.  3. & 4.  kim bop and the other serving from a korean restaurant.

As far as i remember, I never bought big mac in my entire life. my kuya, an OFW has this benefit of being able to go home every 90 days. When he's in the Philippines, engrande! we always have midnight snack of fastfood. panalo or talo sa sabong, or kahit walang laban. Maisip lang, he does take out  snacks from fast food. That's when i asked for a big mac.

As an instructor, teaching in the classroom is one of the easiest task escpecially when it's not the first time to teach that subject. having a double job, what's difficult is to find time to check for quizzes, assignment and seatwork, and compute for grades. then, i find a coffee shop which always has few customers. That's where I do the above tasks. Anyways, sa coffee shop, di kape or food and binabayaran, kungdi ang space.

there was this one time that my wife and I had a date. We found a korean restaurant. the signage says sandwhich cafe. I just don't know if that's really the name or it's unreplace signage of the previous restaurant which occupied the space.