Foot and Fire

Aside from the lusciously green trees, varieties of flowers and plants, and the eternally flowing spring water, Buenos Aires Resort of Bago City in Negros Occidental offers their olympic-sized swimming pool, three kiddie pools with one situated by the pool for the adults. The resort can accommodate many guests at a time in the huts by the pools and many air-conditioned hillside and poolside overnight accommodation. While one is in the resort, one can truly feel that the trees in the hillside cast cooling shade while the flowers and various plants add colors to the surroundings. What is more to expect is that some huts are located by the cascading creek waters and the sound is refreshing and so timely if one is there for the Holy Week as it gives one a reason to commune with nature and the Creator, just like we did. One of the things I enjoyed most was drinking in the cold spring water coming from the hose leading to the pool. Yes, all faucet water is drinkable and is all spring w...

These days, I read non fiction articles and books for the plain reason that I should get insight from the true stories and given my limited reading time, i should devote it to some quality non fiction books. But my attention was caught by a novel written by Salman Rushdie. As the title suggests, Haroun has a sea of stories. Aside from the fantasy creatures and comical lines in the novel, i found some serious insights -- that we need love, that we cannot deny such fact, that love inspires stories, that we need stories to enrich our soul, that we need story telling however tall and wide are the tales.... We need stories to survive as human beings. Since it is election time, I should mention the portion where voters wanted tall tales from a storytellers eventhough they know that they are not true but it makes them happy unlike the words from politicians which are unbelievable....Here I quote some lines.... "It was well known that if you could get Rashid's magic tongue on yo...

Verba or chinese batuan as we knew it here is also a childhood fruit. We used to climb two trees of it in Brgy. haguimit where we were used to have a short vacation. It is sour and turns yellow when ripe. It has no much commercial value as the same cannot be used in cooking although it is called batuan... It round and the size of longgan and the seed or two is found inside and as big asthe fruit itself. It can be enjoyed by peeling and squeezing the fruit seed inside one's mouth and letting it stay there for a moment while one is grimacing because of its sourness and then one ejects the seed. If one is lucky, some ripe fruits are sweet with only a bit of sourness.

Ang prinsipe na nakaupo sa tasa... Kasoy! I love this riddle and the fruit is memorable as when i was small, this fruit was a menace once because we played under the cashew tree and we picked the hanging fruit as it was within our reach. We bit it and our mouths were burned as it turned out, the fruit is not yet fully developed as the seed grows out fast first before the fleshy meat. Kasoy is a childhood fruit, as its juicy and messy flesh can only be tolerated by children. But this fruit will not go out of plantation as it is valued for its tasty nut. How do we eat the fruit? Slicing and dipping in soy sauce, by biting and licking some salt in our palms or by simply chewing it whole and munching until the fiberous flesh gets manageable to be swallowed.

I could not help but include in my blog the output of one of my clients in jail. He was able to churn out believable flowers from a pet bottle and straws. This is one of the skills training they get while they are in jail and they sell thier outputs for a minimal cost. During christmas season, they also make lanterns and sell the same. If you are interested to buy or find out some of their outputs, pls leave a comment and your email address. I will keep in touch..

It was so fun trying out the many new flavors of Iloilo City's favorite food hang out for students... Aside from their ensaymada, chicken and pina roll as well as chicken sticks, JD Bakeshop is known for its baked sweets squares and they come in variety... From buko squares, oatmeal, butter scotch, chocolate fudge, pineapple, peanut and a lot more. Since i love small squares rather than pie slices, these slices are thumbs up for me...

Lord, I have no power but I have compassion; I can understand I can feel I can act out of compassion. Lord, i have no gold but I have working hands; I can do my share I can reach for help I can work for my self and others. Lord, I have no flock but I have fellow dreamers; I can share I can give I can lead noble causes. Lord, I create no machine but I mind the kids. I can see nature I can feel for nature I can work for the future minding our children. Lord, given what i am and what i can, Let me work with the world, And let the world work with me, Let everyone know that my household embraces the world. by Gerlie M. Uy 7:11am 3/13/13

One of the best thing about visiting Iloilo City is revisiting the taste of JD Bakeshop, which offers an array of value meals at a student friendly price. For the students who once flocked JD, who can forget their fried chicken and callos. They now have a wide array of value meals but this one of the classic choice! Burp....

Having the chance to revisit my alma mater Central Philippine University, Iloilo City, I decided to take some photos of her memorable structures from Rose memorial to Henry Luce Library and popular football field and the half-moon. Though this is just a few of the buildings in the campus, I could not help but share them with you. The school maintains a website, so please drop by the website http://www.cpu.edu.ph/ for more info.

One of the favorite summer fruit is watermelon. Aside from its attractive red color, watermelon is water plus melon indeed. Everytime i partake this fruit while sweating under the summer heat, i could not help but get awed by the wonders of nature. Nature provided us with what we exactly need during these times. Isn't it great? Aside from devouring slices fo this, one can add bits of watermelon in a pineapple or dalandan juice. Or simply top shaved ice with the red pieces.

One of the ways to kill time when one is waiting for the angry sun to set is to try a hand at painting instead of the noisy arcade where now seems to imitate the casino slot machines.... Here is what we did for about 45minutes. Had i not helped the little guy, we would be ending up finifhing the same in an hour and a half for sure with monotonous color. He did the hippo and the lion. I did the zebra and the tiger. Lol This activity was once a hit and now it's coming back... The figurine prices range from 30 to 200 and we paid 10php for each brush.this madagascar-themed figurine costs 140php. It was fun....here is the photo of our finished product.

One of the ways to enjoy apa or lumpia wrapper is to wrap sliced cheese and fry them just before serving. Since we got 50 pieces of freshly cooked lumpia wrappers, we halved it and used the other half for vegetable lumpia and the other half for this one. I used our left over queso de bola for this one and left over quickmelt cheese. Love the lingering chesy taste quezo de bola while the quickmelt version of the cheese was overshadowed. Using the ordinary cheddar cheese, one can actually turn a cheese stick special by rolling the cheese slices in a condensed milk or some refine sugar. I also tasted the spicy cheese stick of my sister in law whe she sliced the jalapeno into two and combine the cheese and the halved chili before rolling and sealing it. It actually tasted good. I recommend for starters to use bellpepper as I love the taste and the aroma of bellpeppers. Here's a photo of the last two cheese sticks we just had...

When Rizal was exiled in Dapitan, he was with his three nephews whom he taught acdemically and whom he was able to observe as to their inclination. I was reading at present the Looking Back 5 of Ambeth Ocampo and was so fun read on the thoughts of Rizal regarding education. I mentioned that because in this compilation, there is an article where one nephew asked for books and one asked for bolos which Rizal understood that one can be a doctor and the other can be a farmer. Aside from that, I can't help but get amused that Mr. Ocampo does not know what color do the palay get when theyre ripe for the harvest. He thought it is still green. And for the benefit of those urban babies, theyre turning golden yellow. Somewhat still having both thoughts fresh in my mind, I enjoyed how my nephew played with the ducks and ducklings today : he chased them like cats and played with them like they're dogs. In fact, he wanted to bring one duckling home inorder to play with it. Learning in f...

Inspired by the Talisay estate of Jose Rizal in Dapitan, I decided to check on the small farm where we planted fruit trees... In his piece of land, Rizal planted some abaca and corn and he bought this piece of Land out of his lotto winnings, informs Ambeth Ocampo in his compiled columns enttiled Looking Back 5. Given the seething heat brought by global warming, i believe we all need to plant something in a backyard or even on a pot, and planting is a worthy activity to kill time than malling and shopping and a worthy break from the tv and other gadgets... We all need not be exiled to think of this good activity. And we were able to bring home ingredients for our laswa!

For lunch today, we had laswa. We mixed all solid vegetables available: papaya called kapayas here, squash or kalabasa, okra, takway (gabi roots) and saykwa or patola and the green leaves at hand: malunggay called balunggay here and saluyot called tugabang. The secret addition is the lemon grass known as tanglad here and some dried fish. .N.B. the ingredients are actually flexible; compare this laswa with my previous post.... Match this vegetable soup with fried fish and rice... Perfect!

In personal celebration of this month for the women empowerment, i am renewing my commitment to write more and i am including my advocacies here. I deleted Gerlie's Angle in my blog to avoid compartmentalizing my blogs, so i retained my food blog and this foot and fire which should accommodate my travels both literally and figuratively. In the latter travel, i shall write about my advocies...there is no more appropriate time than today to renew that commitment than today.... So Cheers....

One of the challenges in making rolls is how to wrap it neat and firm. The secret is in the wrapper as it must be just- made. A day old wrapper is dry and unmanageable but a just- cooked ones are soft, pliable and easy to wet when closing the ends. It is a happy discovery to me that an old woman in my place still makes this tedious-to-prep lumpia wrapper. I just have to order a day before so she can make my order right in time. This is a happy find for me because those sold in our wet market is usually days old already. Here is our vegetable lumpia for dinner....tomorrow, i'll post the cheese sticks... And if i have time i'll take a photo of the old woman doing her thing and get a few tips from her.

I am posting the photo collage of my sister featuring her fish tinola with kangkong tops. I know that a kitchen rival is born! She has that kitchen sense actually when she just feel like exercising it. She boasts her 25pesos fish slices, bunch of fresh kangkong, fresh tomatoes, and her luscious and plump duhat for her dessert. Here is her enticing prep!