27 July 2009

Tartine's Lemon Meringue Cake

Tartine's Lemon Meringue Cake (with title)
Huh, I can't believe this is my 251st post! Thanks to all those who have tuned in.
It's already nearing the end of July, and most of my friends who sojourned to the US for residency are wrapping up their first month. I have almost no idea how they felt about it. You see, about two months ago, I decided to remove the column on Tweetdeck that updates me on people's Facebook statuses. Even though I have an (admittedly loose) policy on not comparing my life to other people's, especially not my friends', some of the updates were starting to get on my nerves.

20 July 2009

Ruins Longanisang Hubad

Ruins Naked Filipino Sausage
Ruins Longanisang Hubad (with title)
It's my first time to participate in Marc and Susan's event, Dinner and a Movie (see the announce), this month for Breakfast at Tiffany's. I thought it would be a good one to participate in, because it is such an iconic movie and I'd never seen it before. It would be really easy for me to talk about being afraid to fall in love or being a slut (er, not really), but as I tweeted while watching it, I just couldn't get over particular scenes involving Mr. Yunioshi, and how he 1) acted like no Japanese person I know, and 2) could ever stoop so low as to play such a stupid and misinformed stereotype. It turns out, he wasn't Japanese at all, and was played by Mickey Rooney in yellowface (well duh, Manggy).

15 July 2009

Winter in New York (New York Part 1)

Park near New York University
As usual, just click on any photo go to to the Flickr page, where you can view it full-size.
Welcome to the first of my 2-part feature on New York, the last stop of my "tour" of the US from last Winter (second part comes next month). Actually, I have a few pictures from New Jersey, but it's kind of pathetic because I only managed to take pictures of the food in one restaurant, and not much of anything else (though it's obviously not representative of the number of good places you can eat in New Jersey, as you'll find in Off The Broiler). Anyway, I found the sheer number of pictures I took in New York daunting to process, and that's even as I skillfully evaded places like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. Even Rockefeller Plaza, and I am a big fan of NBC programming and ice skating. BUT I did get to meet three bloggers, and up there is a picture of the park where Marc and I ate Australian ice cream while talking about the job market.

07 July 2009

Mango Parfait with Orange Anise Jelly

Mango Parfait with Orange Anise Jelly (with title)
I transferred from another elementary/primary school to high school. As a result, many of my classmates knew each other from before, and my classmates had friends in other sections. In the Philippine school system before college, sections of 40-50 students are stationary in the room, it's the teachers that moved around, so I never really got to meet anyone outside my 49 classmates in 4 years. Anyway, there was this boy from another section about a year older than me who was a paraplegic (? functionally, if not totally) and therefore always walked with crutches all over the campus. I knew his name but I didn't know anything else about him.

02 July 2009

Week-End

Week-end (with title)
When I was in medical school there was this little-known (HAH) release by R. Kelly during his strange phase called "Ignition (Remix)". There's a line that goes, "It's the freakin weekend baby, I'm about to have me some fun," which I really loved because it's easy to feel fried by the end of the week as a student. During my later years it was even more precious to have a free weekend because clinical duties have little concern with what day it is, except those who don't have overnight duty can go home at noon. Big whoop, right? (By the way, I call it R. Kelly's strange phase because prior to that he was primarily known for his ballads. Anyone remember "I'm Your Angel" with Celine Dion?)

I'm sure my friends thought it was pretty strange of me to be rejoicing over the weekend, because I was one of the uncommon types who, instead of staying behind and hanging out with friends, I packed my bags (and dirty laundry of course) and headed home with my family every weekend I had a chance. I bet they were wondering if I had any actual youth-y fun.