I love to laugh. Maybe because life's so busy, and it's easier to be serious. I don't know, I'm not here to psychoanalyze; I took an Engineering course for goodness sake.

But I do want to share a blog I found: Randomness With Enthusiasm. It's a riot; the writer uses topics on free Google ads to make up posts for comedy's sake. They're just crazy! Some of the humor may offend slightly though. Nothing perverse but there were some jokes on Mormons and polygamy. I guess you just have to remember it's all in fun. :)

Speaking of fun, I've been spending a lot more time with my family lately. Not that I don't spend time with them to begin with, but it is summer, after all.


There are a whole bunch of us, in fact (about twenty or so on my father's side of the family). We usually just watch TV, talk, and enjoy good food. Spending time with family for family's sake can be really destressing, and one of our conversations comes to mind.

Well, last Sunday, we were eating out with the whole church, and we were sitting with the pastor's wife and her kids. She was trying to get them to eat in the way of all mothers crusading for healthier children. So...

P's Wife: Come on, just eat! Look at KD (we all look at my er, overweight cousin), he's very... strong. And healthy! Don't you want to be strong too?
Ken (a cousin): All right, let's work on our synonyms everyone! Strong, healthy, round, fat...

We all just burst into laughter. I mean, Ken's smile just screamed "Kindergarten teacher!" What can I say?

Comedy's fun. Just don't go too far and get a grip. :)



After about two weeks of saying nothing and leaving my blog plastered with pictures of Vietnamese food, I am back. It's been real crazy, actually, pretty busy considering it's summer. But at least I'm doing things I really want to do, right?

Anyway, I was working.


Yep, that's work. I was manning the Redemption Booth --- or Giver of Freebies --- with these two interesting people in a really big sale two weeks ago. Actually, there were others helping out but they weren't available for pictures. If you missed the sale, oh well... It was grueling though.

Which is why I then got a fever right after it was over. I, my sister (who hasn't been working so I can't get why she had it at the same time), and a bunch of other people I met in the sale shared this predicament. It must have been a virus. I felt like a doctor when I said that.

Seriously, my brain was just drained. I couldn't really get out of bed, much less string words together for the dear old blog. It's been a long time since I lost my appetite; I haven't been eating properly until today (when I promptly scarfed more than five slices of pizza but that's another story).

The sale was fun though. I met a lot of people, made some new acquaintances and good friends... (This is where you scroll back up to view the flattering picture of people with their best faces on.) Relationships and stuff like that. I also people-watched, and let me tell you, there are so many colorful people that show up for big sales. Some even shouted at me and almost ruined my day. That's work for you. :)

It's so nice to be really well now though. I can cook again! ^_^

You Are an Excellent Cook

You're a top cook, but you weren't born that way. It's taken a lot of practice, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of learning. It's likely that you have what it takes to be a top chef, should you have the desire...

I took this quiz and it's right on the mark. I just thought I'd post it here since I already mentioned food anyway. :)


This post is going to be a little long; I've been gone a long time.

I just came back from another church conference. We have the Southern Conference every year, and people from different churches converge to focus on relationships with God. This year, we were hosting it though and there was a lot to do: a lot of typing, violin playing, laminating, and basically making sure nothing went wrong.

It was a really beautiful one. The topic was eternal life, and how God gave it to us to use even now. Jesus said in the Bible that He came to bring us life in the full, and that applies to the now too. We all have eternal life; we just need to make it function (read: spend more time with God and depend on Him). That was really cool to hear.

We also studied how heaven is like from the Bible, and it's more than I could ever have imagined. I always thought it would be a little boring but it's definitely motivated everyone to put more effort in our Christian lives.

I didn't take a lot of pictures of people though. No time, really. We were always practicing for meetings, or trying to get some shut-eye. It was a great way to spend part of my summer though.

Speaking of which, summer's almost ending. I mourn and grovel but I'll probably be just as busy in school anyway. I might as well enjoy it. In the Filipino language, huling hirit na! It means it's the last chance or something like that. I'll miss my flipflops though. *sigh*



For the past few days (or was it a week? What's the date today anyway?), I've been busy. Really.

I've been out with friends, cooking, doing errands, playing my violin, and other reasonable things to be doing in the real world. But in the back of my mind, the thought "I've got to make that blog post" has been niggling at me. Maybe writing on blogs read by almost nobody is a neurotic tendency. In other words, I must be neurotic.

The logic in the last two sentences must have been faulty, but I can't seem to figure out why.

Anyway, I'll hurry and finish writing this so I can move on to better and bigger topics (Cooking! Antics! Real life!), and calm myself in some psychologically obscure part of my personality.


The first restaurant that comes to mind is one named Restaurant Chateau (I think), and is a cozy little nook of more than three floors in Ho Chi Minh City. If you want to know how to get there, I am unfortunately unable to help you with that since I slept through the ride on the way there.

I think this restaurant would win Best Design or Most Creative if I had been giving out awards. The fact that I am not giving out awards is sad and beside the point.

I mean, look at their food (and don't pay attention to the humans).

Roosters and dragons populated our table in different edible forms. The first picture up there was of spring rolls & calamares aptly named "Appetizers", the second was a dessert of fresh fruits, and the third was some sort of fried rice. It was all good, actually, and that's all I have to say on it. I was horribly full when we began the meal anyway, so I don't think my taste buds or my stomach were really affected by the dishes. I was satisfied even before I began! And I don't like that.

The non-existent Strangest Dish Award goes to the "Great Ball of Rice" we had on one of the islands on the Mekong River. You've got to see it to believe it.


A real ball made of sticky rice fried to perfection. *gasp* Seriously, it was the first time I saw anything like it. Everyone in the group just had to take out our cameras; it was like celebrity food. We would have gotten autographs if it could write. OK, so that was pushing it a bit.

Seeing our looks of stupor and utter ignorance, the waitress poked it with a knife and it deflated like a hot air balloon. She then sliced it into small portions, and we each got a piece (or two depending on capacity). I didn't really like it; I thought it tasted just like... sticky rice. No real taste. But my mother adored it and scarfed down many pieces so I guess it all depends. Food is relative. (That was profound; I've got to store that bit of information for my grandchildren to mull over.)

Another wonderfully strange one was flambeed beef with onions. OK, so that didn't sound very unusual until a coconut arrived instead. While we looked on, liquor was poured over it and then lighted up by the ever helpful waiter. It was like a little bonfire.


It was then opened...


and...


Voila! Beef and onions. I don't think other places do it quite like that, and the beef and onions were quite tasty. The beef was soft and the onions weren't too strong. This was in a romantic little eatery whose name I forgot. It was about a block away from the Liberty restaurant (see previous post) though.

The same restaurant flambeed our bananas for us. Though I don't think the flames are really clear in the picture, just a violet afterthought.


It tasted warm and syrupy. There was an alcoholic aftertaste but that was to be expected. It was good.

Anyway, Vietnam seems to have a thing for stuffing food in coconuts. Here was our soup from Restaurant Chateau.

It really surprised me. My first thought was "Is this soup?" Then I dug around in it a little and found that it was. There were pork cubes, potato cubes, carrot cubes, and some other cubed unidentifiable vegetables in clear fragrant broth. Oh, and the smell of cilantro, of course. The Vietnamese seem to adore cilantro, and it's good that I do too (though my sister and my mother detest the poor thing).

I love soup.

Well, so that ends my post. *claps excitedly and somersaults in her mind in a very teenyboppy way* Whew! Long but satisfying. Never will I mention Vietnamese food again. Well, that last sentence was the last time I planned on mentioning it. Of course, "nevers" are usually made to be broken while eating a pie of crow.

What does crow taste like?



I'M BACK (again)! I went off to Vietnam with my sister, my mom, and my aunt for four days. We saw the sights (including crawling in dark tunnels used by soldiers in the war), shopped until we almost dropped from exhaustion, and of course, enjoyed the food.

Yeah, the food was one intriguing factor in our trip. I mean, we do have Vietnamese cuisine to enjoy at home but it's just different when you eat Vietnamese food in Vietnam. Haha, am I making any sense? Suffice to say, the food fascinated me enough to take a few shots with my camera, and a food post was born...

We ate in restaurants with different sizes, atmosphere, and even architecture. From a large tropical gazebo with straw on the roof to a quaint romantic French-inspired place, the food was surprising. Or this is just possibly ignorance again.


First off were the spring rolls we got in the Liberty Restaurant at Ho Chi Minh City. Spring rolls, it sounded really safe. After all, there was a familiar Chinese dish with that name. It wasn't so easy, apparently. The rolls arrived with different fresh veggies like lettuce and beansprouts (which are all I remember), vermicelli, and rice paper. I wrapped up my first roll with determination. Yes, I was determined to make a mess by ruining the rice paper.

My second attempt was braver, and tasted much better. The sensation of chewing lettuce with sprouts, spicy sauce, meat, and vermicelli was foreign but... pretty good. That's all I can say about it, though, haha.


The same restaurant served us fish fillet with salt and pepper (yeah, I copied that off the menu card :D). Now, I normally hate fish fillet so when I say it was good, it WAS good. The fish was not dry (unlike what generally happens with fried fish fillet I eat at home), and the skin had just the right amount of crust in it without being soggy. I didn't even have to dunk it in sauce! I'm so abnormally happy about that; I just don't understand it.

I take my food seriously enough that it's funny.

But back to the food already, I know.


This was beef stirfried in ginger. And it tasted like pretty good beef stirfried in ginger, whoopee. No surprises there. Or maybe it's because I can make beef stirfried in ginger. Hm... It was a good picture though, so I just had to include it.

And yes, this was just one meal. Here we are standing in front of the restaurant.



And here we are not standing in front of the restaurant.



I'm going to have to break this food thing into a lot of posts. This is pretty long to read as it is.

Yes, it's over. The first meal, anyway. Did I mention we were pretty full? :)



A few entries ago, I laughed about the absurdity of tying cherry stems up with your tongue. Then I go to 43 Things, and find people who want to master this tongue-tripping technique before they die. Evidently, I am very ignorant.

With the help of Google, I found some "how to tie a cherry stem with your tongue" articles in less than a minute. That's technology for you; everyone's so helpful.

Anyway, one needs a cherry first. (This is one of those 'duh' moments if ever I was in one.) You put the stem in your mouth, and... here. It seems a waste of time and space to type out something already published on the internet. :)

People seem to prefer red maraschino cherries, which are the only kind of cherries we seem to get in my area. The first time I ever tasted an honest-to-goodness fresh cherry was about a year ago. How sad.



But I digress (as usual).

I'll not be tying up cherry stems anytime soon though; I can't seem to garner the effort. All I'm up to is eating the cherry.

Lazy, I know. :)



I thought this might interest whoever actually reads what I'm posting.

The Girl Who Ate Everything is a hilarious blog on --- what else? --- food trips. It's like a food critic with a sense of humor; here's someone who eats as much (more?) than I do and lives to tell about it.

It's crazy (in a good way) which is just my cup of tea! :D



One of my summer resolutions is to use the computer much less than I normally do. This was decided after calling to mind all the bug-eyed days and nights I spent in front of this blinking screen doing nothing (important).

I'm succeeding, actually.

It may also be because I have replaced this electrical innovation with another: a gas stove.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is correct. A miracle has happened. I have learned to cook.

I don't know why I didn't start this years ago. OK, so I attempted by learning to cook with my two talented grandmothers, but doing it myself at home seemed quite a chore. And now, I'm actually cubing potatoes for fun.

Maybe cooking doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment for most people, but in my house, it's nothing to sneeze at. That's because no one cooks: those who don't know stay ignorant, and those who do have no time to do so. I went through kindergarten subsisting on sardines and other canned delectables. My health was improved by my grandmothers --- otherwise two avenging angels --- in the later years, but leftovers can only go so far. I can't describe the excitement that would sweep through me as a child when my Mom made her spaghetti annually.

And it actually seems to pay off. My parents say I'm not half-bad, and sometimes I'm actually good. Not that I'm a gourmet chef now or anything, but wow... Who'd have thought raw meat would actually reside in our freezer? Or that we'd actually go grocery shopping because we planned to cook? Who knew I'd learn to turn on the stove one day?

I'm enjoying my summer. :)

I love to laugh. Maybe because life's so busy, and it's easier to be serious. I don't know, I'm not here to psychoanalyze; I took an Engineering course for goodness sake.

But I do want to share a blog I found: Randomness With Enthusiasm. It's a riot; the writer uses topics on free Google ads to make up posts for comedy's sake. They're just crazy! Some of the humor may offend slightly though. Nothing perverse but there were some jokes on Mormons and polygamy. I guess you just have to remember it's all in fun. :)

Speaking of fun, I've been spending a lot more time with my family lately. Not that I don't spend time with them to begin with, but it is summer, after all.


There are a whole bunch of us, in fact (about twenty or so on my father's side of the family). We usually just watch TV, talk, and enjoy good food. Spending time with family for family's sake can be really destressing, and one of our conversations comes to mind.

Well, last Sunday, we were eating out with the whole church, and we were sitting with the pastor's wife and her kids. She was trying to get them to eat in the way of all mothers crusading for healthier children. So...

P's Wife: Come on, just eat! Look at KD (we all look at my er, overweight cousin), he's very... strong. And healthy! Don't you want to be strong too?
Ken (a cousin): All right, let's work on our synonyms everyone! Strong, healthy, round, fat...

We all just burst into laughter. I mean, Ken's smile just screamed "Kindergarten teacher!" What can I say?

Comedy's fun. Just don't go too far and get a grip. :)



After about two weeks of saying nothing and leaving my blog plastered with pictures of Vietnamese food, I am back. It's been real crazy, actually, pretty busy considering it's summer. But at least I'm doing things I really want to do, right?

Anyway, I was working.


Yep, that's work. I was manning the Redemption Booth --- or Giver of Freebies --- with these two interesting people in a really big sale two weeks ago. Actually, there were others helping out but they weren't available for pictures. If you missed the sale, oh well... It was grueling though.

Which is why I then got a fever right after it was over. I, my sister (who hasn't been working so I can't get why she had it at the same time), and a bunch of other people I met in the sale shared this predicament. It must have been a virus. I felt like a doctor when I said that.

Seriously, my brain was just drained. I couldn't really get out of bed, much less string words together for the dear old blog. It's been a long time since I lost my appetite; I haven't been eating properly until today (when I promptly scarfed more than five slices of pizza but that's another story).

The sale was fun though. I met a lot of people, made some new acquaintances and good friends... (This is where you scroll back up to view the flattering picture of people with their best faces on.) Relationships and stuff like that. I also people-watched, and let me tell you, there are so many colorful people that show up for big sales. Some even shouted at me and almost ruined my day. That's work for you. :)

It's so nice to be really well now though. I can cook again! ^_^

You Are an Excellent Cook

You're a top cook, but you weren't born that way. It's taken a lot of practice, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of learning. It's likely that you have what it takes to be a top chef, should you have the desire...

I took this quiz and it's right on the mark. I just thought I'd post it here since I already mentioned food anyway. :)


This post is going to be a little long; I've been gone a long time.

I just came back from another church conference. We have the Southern Conference every year, and people from different churches converge to focus on relationships with God. This year, we were hosting it though and there was a lot to do: a lot of typing, violin playing, laminating, and basically making sure nothing went wrong.

It was a really beautiful one. The topic was eternal life, and how God gave it to us to use even now. Jesus said in the Bible that He came to bring us life in the full, and that applies to the now too. We all have eternal life; we just need to make it function (read: spend more time with God and depend on Him). That was really cool to hear.

We also studied how heaven is like from the Bible, and it's more than I could ever have imagined. I always thought it would be a little boring but it's definitely motivated everyone to put more effort in our Christian lives.

I didn't take a lot of pictures of people though. No time, really. We were always practicing for meetings, or trying to get some shut-eye. It was a great way to spend part of my summer though.

Speaking of which, summer's almost ending. I mourn and grovel but I'll probably be just as busy in school anyway. I might as well enjoy it. In the Filipino language, huling hirit na! It means it's the last chance or something like that. I'll miss my flipflops though. *sigh*



For the past few days (or was it a week? What's the date today anyway?), I've been busy. Really.

I've been out with friends, cooking, doing errands, playing my violin, and other reasonable things to be doing in the real world. But in the back of my mind, the thought "I've got to make that blog post" has been niggling at me. Maybe writing on blogs read by almost nobody is a neurotic tendency. In other words, I must be neurotic.

The logic in the last two sentences must have been faulty, but I can't seem to figure out why.

Anyway, I'll hurry and finish writing this so I can move on to better and bigger topics (Cooking! Antics! Real life!), and calm myself in some psychologically obscure part of my personality.


The first restaurant that comes to mind is one named Restaurant Chateau (I think), and is a cozy little nook of more than three floors in Ho Chi Minh City. If you want to know how to get there, I am unfortunately unable to help you with that since I slept through the ride on the way there.

I think this restaurant would win Best Design or Most Creative if I had been giving out awards. The fact that I am not giving out awards is sad and beside the point.

I mean, look at their food (and don't pay attention to the humans).

Roosters and dragons populated our table in different edible forms. The first picture up there was of spring rolls & calamares aptly named "Appetizers", the second was a dessert of fresh fruits, and the third was some sort of fried rice. It was all good, actually, and that's all I have to say on it. I was horribly full when we began the meal anyway, so I don't think my taste buds or my stomach were really affected by the dishes. I was satisfied even before I began! And I don't like that.

The non-existent Strangest Dish Award goes to the "Great Ball of Rice" we had on one of the islands on the Mekong River. You've got to see it to believe it.


A real ball made of sticky rice fried to perfection. *gasp* Seriously, it was the first time I saw anything like it. Everyone in the group just had to take out our cameras; it was like celebrity food. We would have gotten autographs if it could write. OK, so that was pushing it a bit.

Seeing our looks of stupor and utter ignorance, the waitress poked it with a knife and it deflated like a hot air balloon. She then sliced it into small portions, and we each got a piece (or two depending on capacity). I didn't really like it; I thought it tasted just like... sticky rice. No real taste. But my mother adored it and scarfed down many pieces so I guess it all depends. Food is relative. (That was profound; I've got to store that bit of information for my grandchildren to mull over.)

Another wonderfully strange one was flambeed beef with onions. OK, so that didn't sound very unusual until a coconut arrived instead. While we looked on, liquor was poured over it and then lighted up by the ever helpful waiter. It was like a little bonfire.


It was then opened...


and...


Voila! Beef and onions. I don't think other places do it quite like that, and the beef and onions were quite tasty. The beef was soft and the onions weren't too strong. This was in a romantic little eatery whose name I forgot. It was about a block away from the Liberty restaurant (see previous post) though.

The same restaurant flambeed our bananas for us. Though I don't think the flames are really clear in the picture, just a violet afterthought.


It tasted warm and syrupy. There was an alcoholic aftertaste but that was to be expected. It was good.

Anyway, Vietnam seems to have a thing for stuffing food in coconuts. Here was our soup from Restaurant Chateau.

It really surprised me. My first thought was "Is this soup?" Then I dug around in it a little and found that it was. There were pork cubes, potato cubes, carrot cubes, and some other cubed unidentifiable vegetables in clear fragrant broth. Oh, and the smell of cilantro, of course. The Vietnamese seem to adore cilantro, and it's good that I do too (though my sister and my mother detest the poor thing).

I love soup.

Well, so that ends my post. *claps excitedly and somersaults in her mind in a very teenyboppy way* Whew! Long but satisfying. Never will I mention Vietnamese food again. Well, that last sentence was the last time I planned on mentioning it. Of course, "nevers" are usually made to be broken while eating a pie of crow.

What does crow taste like?



I'M BACK (again)! I went off to Vietnam with my sister, my mom, and my aunt for four days. We saw the sights (including crawling in dark tunnels used by soldiers in the war), shopped until we almost dropped from exhaustion, and of course, enjoyed the food.

Yeah, the food was one intriguing factor in our trip. I mean, we do have Vietnamese cuisine to enjoy at home but it's just different when you eat Vietnamese food in Vietnam. Haha, am I making any sense? Suffice to say, the food fascinated me enough to take a few shots with my camera, and a food post was born...

We ate in restaurants with different sizes, atmosphere, and even architecture. From a large tropical gazebo with straw on the roof to a quaint romantic French-inspired place, the food was surprising. Or this is just possibly ignorance again.


First off were the spring rolls we got in the Liberty Restaurant at Ho Chi Minh City. Spring rolls, it sounded really safe. After all, there was a familiar Chinese dish with that name. It wasn't so easy, apparently. The rolls arrived with different fresh veggies like lettuce and beansprouts (which are all I remember), vermicelli, and rice paper. I wrapped up my first roll with determination. Yes, I was determined to make a mess by ruining the rice paper.

My second attempt was braver, and tasted much better. The sensation of chewing lettuce with sprouts, spicy sauce, meat, and vermicelli was foreign but... pretty good. That's all I can say about it, though, haha.


The same restaurant served us fish fillet with salt and pepper (yeah, I copied that off the menu card :D). Now, I normally hate fish fillet so when I say it was good, it WAS good. The fish was not dry (unlike what generally happens with fried fish fillet I eat at home), and the skin had just the right amount of crust in it without being soggy. I didn't even have to dunk it in sauce! I'm so abnormally happy about that; I just don't understand it.

I take my food seriously enough that it's funny.

But back to the food already, I know.


This was beef stirfried in ginger. And it tasted like pretty good beef stirfried in ginger, whoopee. No surprises there. Or maybe it's because I can make beef stirfried in ginger. Hm... It was a good picture though, so I just had to include it.

And yes, this was just one meal. Here we are standing in front of the restaurant.



And here we are not standing in front of the restaurant.



I'm going to have to break this food thing into a lot of posts. This is pretty long to read as it is.

Yes, it's over. The first meal, anyway. Did I mention we were pretty full? :)



A few entries ago, I laughed about the absurdity of tying cherry stems up with your tongue. Then I go to 43 Things, and find people who want to master this tongue-tripping technique before they die. Evidently, I am very ignorant.

With the help of Google, I found some "how to tie a cherry stem with your tongue" articles in less than a minute. That's technology for you; everyone's so helpful.

Anyway, one needs a cherry first. (This is one of those 'duh' moments if ever I was in one.) You put the stem in your mouth, and... here. It seems a waste of time and space to type out something already published on the internet. :)

People seem to prefer red maraschino cherries, which are the only kind of cherries we seem to get in my area. The first time I ever tasted an honest-to-goodness fresh cherry was about a year ago. How sad.



But I digress (as usual).

I'll not be tying up cherry stems anytime soon though; I can't seem to garner the effort. All I'm up to is eating the cherry.

Lazy, I know. :)



I thought this might interest whoever actually reads what I'm posting.

The Girl Who Ate Everything is a hilarious blog on --- what else? --- food trips. It's like a food critic with a sense of humor; here's someone who eats as much (more?) than I do and lives to tell about it.

It's crazy (in a good way) which is just my cup of tea! :D



One of my summer resolutions is to use the computer much less than I normally do. This was decided after calling to mind all the bug-eyed days and nights I spent in front of this blinking screen doing nothing (important).

I'm succeeding, actually.

It may also be because I have replaced this electrical innovation with another: a gas stove.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is correct. A miracle has happened. I have learned to cook.

I don't know why I didn't start this years ago. OK, so I attempted by learning to cook with my two talented grandmothers, but doing it myself at home seemed quite a chore. And now, I'm actually cubing potatoes for fun.

Maybe cooking doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment for most people, but in my house, it's nothing to sneeze at. That's because no one cooks: those who don't know stay ignorant, and those who do have no time to do so. I went through kindergarten subsisting on sardines and other canned delectables. My health was improved by my grandmothers --- otherwise two avenging angels --- in the later years, but leftovers can only go so far. I can't describe the excitement that would sweep through me as a child when my Mom made her spaghetti annually.

And it actually seems to pay off. My parents say I'm not half-bad, and sometimes I'm actually good. Not that I'm a gourmet chef now or anything, but wow... Who'd have thought raw meat would actually reside in our freezer? Or that we'd actually go grocery shopping because we planned to cook? Who knew I'd learn to turn on the stove one day?

I'm enjoying my summer. :)