When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I make tea
Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I try to immerse myself in an activity that requires a lot of physical motion and very little critical thought. Working in the kitchen is one such activity. I made masala chai, which I like doing from scratch. Masala chai is Indian spiced tea. It’s made by brewing black tea with […]
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Trying a foraged puffball and living to write about the experience
This isn’t a post about watching a puffball explode. It’s about eating it.
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Cold brewing my own coffee
Sometimes, when I can tell what I’ll be craving for breakfast the day before, I’ll make a small batch of cold brew coffee. Nothing fancy. I’ll just let coffee grounds steep in the Fresh press in the refrigerator overnight and enjoy iced cold brew coffee in the morning. Cold brew coffee tastes smoother and less […]
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My Manila Biennale experience
As romantic as this sounds, for a brief moment, people got to see Manila the way Carlos saw it: not just as a random city, but a dynamic place filled with life, potential, and art.
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Starting a new journal
Finished my old journal (Filed Notes) and starting a new one. This particular Field Notes journal took exactly one month to finish. Quite an achievement for someone who tries to fit everything in neatly, with as little overlap as possible. It’s also the journal I started drawing in. It’s taken me years to finally put […]
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Failed champorado equals okay tsokolate
This may look like a delicious chocolatey drink topped with powdered milk, but it is actually the result of a failed experiment. I was trying to make champorado, but didn’t have malagkit, so I used brown rice. This resulted in forever al dente rice swimming hot cocoa. Now I know why using sticky rice is […]
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A friend sent me patis from Malabon
You can tell that someone is into food when they send you condiments for fear that your food is bland.
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Relishing the minutes it takes to make my morning coffee
I know that I can live without coffee; I’ve done it before, with no ill effects. But the question is, why would I want to?
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Canned goods as agents of plausible deniability
It’s a lot of mental and physical labor, labor I don’t always have the time, energy, and sometimes resources to spare, but it’s necessary if I want to take responsibility for this aspect of my life.
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Breakfast food is comforting any time of day
It’s a kind of sympathetic magic: that like will beget like, that eating food meant to fuel one for the rest of the day imbues one with the optimism of the start of a new day.
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