Foot and Fire

I love long introduction but just like this dressing, this blog is very straightforward when it comes to kitchen inventions straight from the whatever-is-in-my-fridge shelves.  1T miso paste 1 t anchovies 2T Japanese style soy sauce 1T honey 2T mayonnaise Pinch of salt & pepper Mix and beat all together with your trusted fork.  I used a tablespoon for my dressing today and reserved the rest. Oh, yeah, Caesar who? 

Well, stormy days call for easy cooking. This rice cooker one pot meal is highly recommended. It has lots of mushroom so I enjoyed it.  Beef-wrapped Enoki mushroom  1 carrot, julienned 3 T oyster mushroom 3 T dried sliced shiitake mushroom 2T miso toppings (seaweed & tofu) 1 mug rice, rinsed 1 mug water Sesame seeds Sauce 3T Japanese Style soy sauce 2T rice wine 2T honey 3 T sesame oil 1T nutritional yeast In a bowl, mix the sauce well and set aside. In a rice cooker with rinsed rice, top the rice with all of the ingredients and add the water then the sesame seeds. Let cook.  After the rice cooker shifts to warm, add the sauce. Do not mix yet. Let cook again. Make sure the liquid reaches the bottom. Let stay in the Warm for 5 minutes. Mix well, let warm again. Serve as a one-pot meal. Add soy sauce, kimchi, and chili paste, if so desired.  

Watched two "based on true story" Netflix film features, The Match (2025) and The Dig (2021). As in all artistic license in fictional biographies, the true story must only be ten percent like limited alone to the names of the protagonists, but these two are really entertaining, and indeed great directorial accomplishments for turning difficult subjects interesting.  THE MATCH Baduk or Go, the sports interestingly presented in this film despite it's a boring boardgame.  I must have said that because I am so ignorant of this game and experienced an online version of it once out of sheer curiosity.   The true story herevmust be limited on Korea's D-9 level teacher Cho and  pupil Lee, who both eventually played against each other & beat each other in the matches.  THE DIG.  This ultra fictional film based on ultra fictional novel. This "based on true story" is worth the fictional personal tales if only to present one of England's important ...

         Disclaimer:  I am a self-confessed Park Bo-gum fan. I mean, he can be a believable Olympian boxer here, and also a silly pet puppy at the same time.  But that does not mean I watched the series solely on that ground. I watched his latest TV series Good Boy for another icing on top of the cake: a good story line. The central story of Good Boy is pursuing good to defeat the evil that is corruption. The former athletes, who were at one moment in time hailed heroes when they got their Olympic medals, joined the police force only to be discriminated against as "privileged," "no guts," "poster girl," "no good" and so on. And since, we are on this, let me say that the story line has some potential to be a classic but the comedy in an action K-series ruined that potential. But well, I'm not surprised. Disappointed? Yes, a bit because I love the reference to the poem of Yun Dongju.           The character of Pa...

BANGUS IN OLIVE OIL. In a bed of banana leaves, I pressure-cooked in my Instantpot two kilos of milkfish in Spanish-style condiments.  It has been a very long while since I cooked bangus using a pressure cooker. Well, it's all worth it.  I enjoyed eating the bones, especially the head since it's all melt-in-your-mouth tenderness. This is a welcome break to our fried fish or fish soup fare. I made 2 kilos as I want to have them as part of my packed lunch. I slowly placed the 2-3 sluces of fish in a tin container add the oil & spices so I can just heat it when it's time to eat. Made four containers even after eating this for lunch and dinner. Caveat: more cups of rice is needed. 2 pcs (about 2 kilos) milkfish, cut in pieces Black & Green olives, 10 pcs each 2 pcs Carrots, cut round 1T Baby Capers 9 pcs Chilis 20 pcs Bayleaves 1 head of Garlic, peeled 2T Paprika powder 2T Himalayan salt 2T Peppercorns 2C Olive oil Water Prep: In a bowl, put Water & diss...

I am not very skilled with Canva but I tried to collate the six poems so you may easily access them. Click this link and use the poems to spread the campaign against corruption. Here is the  CANVA  link to all the poems.

Do not go gentle into that cave of billions, honest people should burn and rave  about “labor is honor” every pay day, and  rage, rage against the dying of the conscience. Good people, pinned against the wall,  know glitters are strong and blinding  for their honest words had forked no lightning,  and yet honorably, they again and again do not go gentle into that cave of billions. Good people, some of them wave by,  crying how the cave’s full of glitters, their frail resistance even rewarded them  with luxury cars with premium umbrellas. rage, rage against the dying of their conscience. Corrupt people, who were caught and now try hard  to declare that their cave is dull and empty, learn, albeit too late, they deserve to grieve  on their way to the pinnacle of shame. Told you:  do not go gentle into that cave of billions. Nepo babies, living like barbie dolls & movie stars, they’re such a blinding sight, shimmering stars...

     While I was simmering my ideas for this blog entry after watching Netflix's Kontrabida Academy , I came across a news article posted by  ABS-CBN News just an hour ago as of this writing saying that content creators launched Creators Against Corruption . This made me smile because I immediately had a wild thought that these content creators must have graduated from the K ontrabida Academy.        These content creators must have felt powerlessness in their meekness and patience and by the external forces that takes advantage of that meekness and patience that they immediately enrolled in the Kontrabida Academy and emerged as best fighters by all means. I myself felt that way. I wanted to be Classmates with them and Mayor Vico in this cause. I am a public servant serving my fellow citizens since I was 26 years old, and though I did my share in stopping corruption within my sphere of influence, I felt that it is never enough, that i...

I have a handful of walnut on my pantry mixed with a few almonds so I looked for a recipe utilizing them. This vegan dish is a perfect try and I got some frozen flatbread/pita so try I did right away. Persians have many versions of this recipe but the foundation is the walnut & eggplants. 4T olive oil 1 big white onion 200g walnut, ground to paste 400g panfried eggplant 1t cinnamon 1/2 t turmeric 1/2 t black pepper 2T tomato paste  4T muscuvado + 2T lime juice 200g ice cube In a pan, saute onion in oil until trasluscent. Add the ground walnut, and continue to stir for 5 minutes. Add the pan-fried eggplants and mix well. Add the three spices. In a bowl mix tomato paste, muscuvado sugar and lime juice, add a bit of water to thin the paste. Add to the walnut mixture. Mix well. Add the ice cubes to shock the walnut & emit its natural oil. Let cook for 20 minutes to reduce. Serve over rice or with bread. Notes: Pomegranate molasses is in the o...

On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous  by Ocean Vuong Paperback, 196 pages This is the first novel of the contemporary American Poet Ocean Vuong which tells of a story of writer Little Dog through letters addressed to her mother who is illiterate. This may be a novel but it's fifty percent autobiographical. Some nonfictional portions are the fact that Vuong's mother worked as a manicurist and he also became a writer and that they are Vietnamese immigrants and lived in Hartford, Connecticut. He's also a queer.    The story is told in an epistolary form but in a non-linear manner. It is about struggles of being a child of Vietnam war who immigrated to the US with his grandmother and mother, who grows up to be a queer, who had a relationship with an all-American boy who is an addict.       The story may be about the coming-of-age of a Vietnamese immigrant in the US seeking to fit and thrive and survive in the land of milk and honey but in the end, it i...