On Thursday afternoon, I was sitting on a dining chair taking the photo below when Speedy walked into the front door with a bag of bread.

He set the bread on the kitchen island then sat down two chairs away from me. I asked him if he wanted a mid-afternoon snack.

“A sandwich?” I asked.

“What kind?” he said.

“Meat loaf. Here,” and I pushed towards him the plate that you see in the photo.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, “I thought that was a cake for tonight’s dessert.”

So, I explained that I cooked the meat loaf in a silicone bundt pan because I figured it would look more interesting, meat loaf being a rather plain dish. And the too-dark edges? Well, see, after putting the thing in the oven, I went back upstairs because I was monitoring the server to make sure it was stable. I didn’t want any more downtimes for the blogs. I checked the oven after 45 minutes and the meat loaf still wasn’t done. So, I told one of the house helpers to turn the oven off after 15 minutes, at “two quarter”. Well, she turned it off at 15 minutes before three or “quarter-to-three.” The thing with silicone pans is that food cooks faster in them. So, the extra 30 minutes in the oven resulted in a more than moderately browned meat loaf.

So, anyway, at about that moment, Alex came down from her bedroom and sat down on the chair between her dad and me. I turned to her and asked, “Want a sandwich?”

“No,” she said.

I then proceeded to slice the meat loaf to take a photo of the cross section.

Alex, who was watching, said, “Oh, I thought that was a cake!” So, I started to explain all over again.

A few minutes later, Speedy and I were on our way to the supermarket. We shopped for the coming week’s food and non-food supply and were on our way home when there was a text message from Sam. (Read more…)

(Yesterday’s column)
You may know Jay David as the author of the two irreverent Kwentong Tambay books that chronicle his life as an overseas Filipino worker in Singapore and, currently, in California. His books are the printed version of his Web log. In one recent Web log entry, he recounts an incident at the Los Angeles [...]

Continue reading 'Reverse racism' →

Haven’t slept much this past week. Server trouble. Looks like the worst is over but it still needs monitoring unless I am okay with the blogs disappearing for long stretches everyday. And I am definitely not okay with that. When I couldn’t get up this morning, Speedy took pity and packed the girls’ lunch boxes. [...]

Continue reading 'Waking up to telemarketers’ same old ditty' →

(Today’s column)
There is an interesting recap on Blogher about parents’ ideas on how to teach kids the value of money. One father says, “I don’t like the word ‘allowance.’ It looks too much like receiving money whether you work for it or not. I personally do not believe this helps to prepare kids for the [...]

Continue reading 'Kids and money management' →

September first. In the West, it means the start of a new school year. In the Philippines, it means the beginning of the longest Christmas season in the world. Department stores and supermarkets will soon be holding year-end sales (if they haven’t already) to give way to Christmas stuff. Christmas carols will be played to [...]

Continue reading 'The first day of the first ‘ber’ month' →

Sunday. At the house on a hill, that means it’s the man of the house’s turn to cook.

And my turn to play paparazzi.

I turned on the lights (Speedy’s such a cheapo he actually cooks without turning on any lights. Duh!) and started taking photos.

I was happy with the details I was getting, the lighting was [...]

Continue reading 'The Sunday burrito story' →

(Yesterday’s column)
When I read a couple of weeks ago that the incidence of dengue in Caloocan City had risen by 500 percent, I was shocked. That was were I grew up and, even back then, the mosquito situation was already bad. The story goes that when I was a toddler, my father required the nanny [...]

Continue reading 'Citronella versus dengue' →

British chef Jamie Oliver has hit the headlines again. He criticized his fellow Brits by saying the quality of British cuisine has deteriorated because the Britons prefer to get drunk rather than eat. Based on comments posted in The Telegraph, some of his countrymen agree while others are furious, one even calling Oliver a “self-opinionated [...]

Continue reading 'Drunks don’t cook delicious meals?' →