It's been a hard days night...

...and I've been working like a dog.

It is high time for everybody, New Year's Eve is just around the corner. But here I am, toiling over tons of reading assignments. I guess this is the new definition of vacation for us students.

mainit na sabaw

RIZAL mentioned two Filipino dishes in Noli me Tangere: tinola and sinigang.

Back then, tinola and sinigang were considered delicacies served only during special occasions and gatherings. Some are only lucky enough to have a taste of these sumptuous dishes in the rare occasions that they are invited to dine with the rich and famous -the tight upperclass circle of the likes of Capitan Tiago. This is because common folks don't have the luxury of time and resources to prepare such meals. Since supermarkets that sells frozen precut chicken parts were not yet in existence back then, cooking tinola entails one to slaughter, dress and poach that chicken in the backyard that he has been feeding and fattening for a couple of months.

TINOLA
- native chicken, freshly slaughtered
- upo or papaya, handpicked
- luya, crushed
- dahon ng sili, from the garden
- paminta, sibuyas at bawang
- patis, pampalasa


SINIGANG
- hugas-bigas
- kamatis
- kamyas
- talbos ng kalabasa
- gisantes (sweet pea)
- paayap/sitaw (cow pea)
- ayungin, straight out of the water

So next time you are supping a warm bowl of tinola or sinigang, consider yourself lucky to be considered among the well-to-do of the past.

*photos not mine.

CHAPTER I. I am born

WHETHER I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station would be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

- "David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens

Hear the thoughts, experiences and rants of this highly developed bipedal Homo sapien with opposable thumbs trying to make a mark in the world one day at a time.

*photo is not mine.