Foot and Fire

We conducted the FIRST PROJECT of Guilty Your Humor which IS A GIFT GIVING TO THE CHILDREN OF ESPERANZA last 23rd of July 2021. Thank you to all friends of Guilty your Humor - Anniv Fundraiser from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and worldwide as well, for sending your help to this undertaking, including my two friends Engr Mayleen and Ms Leah who braved the rains and muddy way today.  Our day started with the threat of Bagyo Fabian but it gave way to us. The road going to Hda Esperanza was muddy bumpy scary but we made it through.  Thank you to our City Mayor for providing us with transportation, to our two BHW Maam Marilou and Maam Arlene for the assistance, Maam Norma of Esperanza Elem School for lending us a venue for the gift giving of food packs as well as accompanying us today. We missed the children because we required only the parents to pick up their goods. Indeed, happiness is always in sharing. 11.23.21 Please check out why we chose Hda Esperanz...

AS SEVENTH POST FOR THE #foodflixflex which my friends and I will be doing this September to celebrate food and cinema, I present you my Duck in Rose Petal Sauce (turned out to be more like Duck with Macadamia Sauce) which is inspired by Laura Esquivel's magical realism novel and the 1992 movie version of it which was very faithful to the book both entitled, Like water for chocolate. I always have a slip of the tongue when saying the title. I say, Like hot water for chocolate. Maybe because this book is about deep longing, true love, hindered desires. So I imagine that Tita melts like chocolate because Pedro is the hot water.     On the March entry, Tita received a bouquet of roses from Pedro to congratulate her on her first year as ranch cook. The roses which were pink became red when Tita clasped it and her blood mixed in the petals. A chemical reaction began without her knowing. Tita felt she has to do something special abou...

How to make an American Quilt Whitney Otto Fiction, 1991 paperback, 236 pages This is one of the rare ocassions when the movie version I watched first is at par with the book I read later. I recommend the reading of the book and the watching of the film. In sum, the lives we lead, married or unmarried,  bound by law or not,  is the life we chose and we need not explain that to everyone with whom our personal story has no meaning. But vis-a-vis this conclusion is the happy realization that there is no straight line in leading our lives, so being married like being unmarried has no guarantees for what happens in the future, to our happiness. But while you will feel so confident with your decisions in life, by reading the book, one can get aquainted with the history of quilting, appreciate how it greatly contributed to the American culture, and also feel how the law greatly changed the lives of women. On page 188, the Philippines was even mentioned there. But the movie, as I can ...

The Time Traveler’s Wife By Audrey Niffenegger 2003, debut novel I saw this movie (2009) a long time ago and wanted to read the book right away. The story line is so compelling that I wanted to deeply connect with the book from which the movie was based. It appears that this was the debut novel of the author, and I admired her writing more for a very good start. I have not yet checked whether she has other titles under her name. I am so drunken by the no-fuss storytelling of a raw love story tested by instability, time and faith. I love how the author used the storytelling through the eyes of the two main characters, Clare and Henry. It was a complete love story from childhood up to old age of Clare. I love the poems sprinkled along the way as I read. I love how science was used in order not to make this one a magical realism. I love the rawness of the language employed by the author. She made me feel that these two people are in love like other humans, only challenged b...

Under the Tuscan Sun: At home in Italy By Frances Mayes Memoir, hardbound, 280 pages I believe there is no review on this 1996 book without mention of the film version. I, for one, have seen the film first starring Diane Lane before I read this book. Thus, I am setting the record straight here: they have different storyline although the house is the gravitating factor in both. Of course, I have to mention that the film is inspired by the book. Mayes said that her book came out from the notes she has taken down and mementos she had saved for four years when she and her husband purchased the Bramasole (To yearn for sun) property in Cortona, Italy. As I go on with the book, I wished for a map of the whole Tuscany to at least understand the route taken by the writer and a sort of map of the Cortona town. Thanks to google, I had clearer picture while reading the book. Tuscany is an Italian central region with Florence as its capital province while Cortona is a town in Are...

Not that I really expected to take this small book seriously from first read up to last, I was just so amused as well as too embarrassed to know more about how lawyers behaved or displayed their strategy in court hearings in the past and to feel ridiculous to discover that in the history of lawyering, someone has to defend a sow and a mouse among others! This and more serious stories from this little big book of trials!

By GERLIE M. UY My cousin sent me a surprise gift: a heavyweight cookbook! My thoughtful cousin Beth spoils me to the max!!! Thank you  Nang Beth! The book that will inspire my upcoming 2012 cooking... Another pose with the heavyweight book...woosh!!!