Foot and Fire

Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert softbound, 334 pages Memoir, Penguin, 2006 It is hard to start reading a book when one has a slight negative prejudice towards it. Before I saw the movie, I already skimmed a few pages of it in a bookstore and I was turned off by the very idea that the author wanted to avoid: Another tale of prozac-filled brain in a cold urban jungle of New York City by a woman who divorced her husband and a society filled with sexual permissiveness but devoid of spiritual warmth. As a starter, I really hated too much anxiety-filled drama so that I did not decide to read this one then. But I came to read it this June and I am glad I was ready for it. It was a delightful read as it tackles a personal spiritual journey (or I must say, journey towards selfhood). I got her now than when I was skimming the book in my 20s. There is a point in our lives when we are faced with a question whether we made a right decision all along or just tagged along the linear dicta...

From pale green (or red or purple) you turned into sunshine signaling me that you are in hurry to be picked from the budded befruited standing scepter of the forest. Why hurry? You will be cut in half, you football-shaped creature! You will no longer remain you. You will be your many soft white seeds with smooth pulps bearing your sweetness with tempered sourness. Then, you will merely be scooped out right away. (Children in the Philippines will gently suck you first, though). For a week, your soft delicate seeds will be fermented under the seething sun, or on some days, in a dryer machine. As if for you being picked is a happy occasion, you ignore me then and now. Mind you, Dear Cacao, you will be sun-dried for one more week before your individual selves in the form of cocoa beans will be shipped out of Ivory coast or Indonesia.   Gerlie M. Uy Copyright 2015 *A poem inspired after reading Chocolat Here's my review on...

A thoughtful friend brought us a Snakefruit during her trip to Bali, Indonesia... I lavished and slowly chewed on the fruit after peeling off its snake-like peeling... I loved the taste. It has the nice sweet sour taste of a pineapple and the crunch of apple as texture and it looks like a giant clove of garlic when peeled and dissected. Is it a fruit or nut? When i had the chance, i googled and found out that it is from a palm tree like fig and dates... It is a popular and common fruit all over Indonesia and it can be made into wine... I think I will have more of this when I get to visit Bali too. *photos used above came from my google search...