Ensaymada cravings

Okay, so this morning, Auster had a baaaad craving for ensaymada. Which made him curse Dayton for not having a franchise of Goldilocks nor Golden Coin.

I told him, f*&%$ Goldilocks. I can make ensaymada in less than 30 secs. I heard him murmur, “yeah, right” under his breath. As a cook by profession, he probably thought I’m talking about making one from scratch. Oh heck no.

We have a dozen of kaiser rolls lying on the dinner table. I grabbed two of those, along with the butter dish, sugar container, and a resealable bag of fancy shredded Colby-Jack cheese. I put thinly sliced butter on top of each kaiser roll, sprinkled some sugar and Colby-Jack cheese on, put them in the microwave for 15 seconds and voila! Instant ensaymada. Auster loved it with his morning coffee.

Lazy Sunday morning

I woke up to the sound of clanging metals. Checked the time on my cell phone and it was already 8:30 am. I usually wake up at around 6 but today I had a bad case of migraine and thought I’d stay under the sheets for a little longer. Tried to ignore the sound but it went on and on and on… So I just decided to get up. After making the bed, I went to the kitchen to check what was going on. I found Auster there, who appeared to be beating the shit out of a metal bowl. I asked, “wutchu doin?” imitating the way his niece, Yuna, poses a query. “Making a holiday sauce,” he answered mocking my previous ignorance of one of the mother sauces, the hollandaise. I knew he was going to make Eggs Benedict. He’s been craving for it for days.

I love Eggs Benedict when done perfectly। It doesn’t take a genius to make it but it does take a little bit of patience to get it right. The usual culprit is the hollandaise sauce. When done hurriedly you could end up with a “broken” sauce, which is a heterogeneous mixture of the ingredients. Or you could end up with a sauce that is too eggy, too lemony or too buttery.

No wonder Auster was whisking the sauce vigorously। He wanted to achieve that perfect, homogeneous egg-butter mixture with the perfect lemony zing। And he did.

Another great breakfast from Chef Auster!

Here’s the finished product:

Anniversary dinner

After failing to persuade me to dine out, Auster decided to cook for our anniversary. Finally, it’s his time to impress me with his culinary expertise. He was pretty ambitious with his menu in mind: bacon-covered scallops for amuse bouche, filet mignon with demi-glace and tilapia filet with bacon/butter sauce (his version of surf ‘n turf) as main course, and crème brulée for dessert. Well, I was swept off my feet, it was better than I expected! It was better than eating out at an expensive restaurant. I ate every single garnishing and licked the sauces down to the last drop. Yeah, it was that GOOD!

Here are some of the pictures:

My new passion:

Cooking!

I do believe, like Chef Gusteau in Ratatouille that “Anyone can cook.” Though I must add, “some better than others.” Like other skills, it is learned. Although a part of me believes that it could be an innate talent.

For the first 25 years of my life, I have never had much fervor about cooking. I’ve always thought of it as messy, greasy, and stinky. I’m not much of an adventurous eater, and I get wrinkly-nosed at the slightest smell of an unfamiliar aroma.

My mom was actually worried about what I’ll eat, when I move out. She knows I’m not a fan of fast foods. She felt a relief to learn Auster is a cook. Sad to say his expertise is in Hawaiian, Italian, and Japanese cuisine – he knows diddly-squat about Filipino cuisine. Also, he already cooks for a living, I don’t want him to still cook for me when he gets home.

My first entrée was adobo. It’s simple and easy. Even my brother loved it, and even told my mom “This is how I like my adobo.” LOL. Mom cooks it a little different – she adds raisin to it.

So far, Auster has not complained about my cooking, and actually occasionally comments something like “this is better than your mom’s…” It’s a little bit of a challenge cooking for someone who knows how to cook.

(Pre-)New Year Celebs

Dec 29th – Mylene’s place – food, drinks, videoke
Dec 30th – Millicent’s place – dinner
Dec 31st – Uncle Rey & Kathy’s place – food food food!
Jan 1st – Beatrice’s place – New Year & Kwanzaa – Kenyan cuisine!
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Mylezzz! We had so much fun last night! Btw, hindi pa rin pumapalya yung boses mo, talo pa si Nina(?). Puro 99 eh noh. *We’re not worthy, we bow down to you* hehehe
Thanks again! sorry, it seems like we trashed your place.
Thanks to tita & tito, sa uulit-ulitin. lols

I’m glad Alexz came over, too. Namiss ko ang kakulitan nya.

And for the nth time Bryan, I wasn’t drunk. Hello, it’s just Tilt noh? Hehehe. Grabeh naman kayo. Plus I didn’t have the rash, so the alcohol content must really be low.

Carlo, I was surprised you know songs by Spandau Ballet. It’s so weird, knowing that you have this gothic style going on.

Jackieeee, ang kulit mo talaga. Nakakatuwa ka!

Rizza looks like Mt. Krakatoa exploded on her! Sobrang red, andaming anik-anik. hehe. Sorry, we annoyed the heck out of you before we picked you up.

Baby girl Marge, I took a pic of you while you were sleeping soundly. Hehe will post it later.

Charlie, ba’t hindi ka kumanta? Nagpa-practice ka pa yata sa shower before you went to Mylene’s place eh.

Si Erick, madaya, parating antaas ng score eh pareho ko namang out-of-tune!

Rod, puro ka naman PSP!

Kuya Fila, hindi mo kinanta yung parati mong kinakanta ah, yung parating pang “closing remarks”… hehehe. Si Bryan nagsabi nyan, nde ako.

Chicken wings & meaty conversations

As promised, Beatrice treated us (Janet, Louie & I) to Rooster’s right after the finals. We had some hot & donkey hot chicken wings and some potato skin fries and boy were they yummy!
Janet & Beatrice are originally from Kenya, and Louie was born in the US but he is of Hispanic descent (mestizo). So we had this cultural diversity going on. We talked about our native delicacies – Kenya’s ugali (dough-like substance made of corn flour or maize and water) & nyama choma (burnt meat); Authentic Mexican dishes and how they are different from the ones sold at US restaurants like Don Pablo’s; and of course Filipino dishes like adobo, sinigang (my fave), etc. We had a conversation about the cultural shock we went through when we moved to the states and so on. Janet mentioned her observation about how people here in the states easily open up to other people. They tend to overshare information even if you just met them. And she mentioned about this lady she met one time, who matter-of-factly said she got crabs. We were like “oh no, she didn’t!” And then there are those morbidly obese individuals who dress up with all their flabs flying all over the place. I don’t mean to be rude or anything but come on now. And then there’s this thing about people here who just pass gas in front of other people. And Beatrice was like “in our place, that would be unacceptable!”

And then we talked about environmental policies: the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, SUVs vs. hybrid cars, energy-efficient homes, etc.

And of course, we ranted about our 304 class and how incompetent our professor was.
Beatrice invited us to go to their house in Columbus for New Year but I don’t know if I’ll be going.

Consummatum est

It’s true, for the final examinations this quarter at least.

F@%# it! The pathophysiology final exam was a killer!

I wasn’t really prepared for the finals, or will I ever be. I was just like, “give me the test questions and let’s get it over with.” I breathed a sigh of relief after the Adults ERI.

My classmates and I went to Applebee’s right after the finals. There were 19 of us who went. Five of our classmates didn’t come. I ordered baby back ribs, fries and a strawberry smoothie. They were calling me “baby girl” for not ordering an alcoholic beverage. I told them I have a really bad hypersensitivity reaction to ingested alcohol – urticaria and/or pruritus. When my order came, OMG, I got so embarrassed! It looked like an order for 3 people! It was only 10 bucks so I thought it would be just a small quantity.

Jill started a whisper relay. The message was “Louie went out of the room 2 times during the test.” When the message got to Micah (who was drunk) it became “Louie is a bisexual.” When Jenny whispered the message to me, what I heard was “Louie buys sex” you know, like in prostitution. Then finally, when the message reached Louie, the message went back to “Louie is a bisexual.” LOL my classmates are crazy. And to think they’re supposed to be professionals (all are 2nd- or 3rd-degree-takers).

BEACON dinner

Yesterday we had dinner with all the 3 BEACON groups. The students who graduated last year, who just finished their first year in the workfield; those who are graduating this quarter; and us the third group, who are just finishing up our first quarter in the program. Some of our professors were also there, including Latanya Davis, Dr. Keister & of course Dr. Praeger. I brought mom and Rizza with me. Going to Villa di Giovanni was crazy! We got lost and I kept on calling Beatrice and Janet, who were also lost. At first we went to a pizza place named “Giovanni” but apparently it was not the right place!