The Countdown begins...

one more week until vacation...i wish it was now. i'm ready for one so badly.

tomorrow i will be stuck in the cafeteria all day (period 1 thru 7 which means 7:10 am to 3:20 pm) registering the current 10th graders for their schedules for next year. what fun! well, at least i get to leave during lunch! next week, classroom presentations for the juniors! joy!

today i had a sandwich at starbucks. i am not normally a sandwich eater. in fact i don't even consider a sandwich to be real food. but i had a starbucks gift card that i figured i'd use so i wouldn't have to spend my own money. my co-workers and i went to the eastlake shopping center for lunch - they had greek, and i (being the lone dissenter) went to starbucks. got my 'rustic turkey sandwich' on cibatta (that's probably spelled wrong) bread with lemon aoli, red pepper strips, tomato, lettuce and havarti cheese. it was actually pretty decent, which is saying a lot for me. one of the workers recognized me because he was my student and graduated about 5 years ago. my first batch of students are now in their late 20's. i feel old...

pasta boy finally found a picture of shogun at prom. his date wore a red satin dress with huge balloon like sleeves. shogun looked like a baby and had much longer hair at the time...we'll have to show you soon lotus. : )

our 20th high school reunion is next year. we didn't even go to our 10th. don't know if i'd want to go for the 20th. i see only those who i care about (basically all of you 'regulars') and don't give a shite about the rest of them. yeah, like i really care about all those people who thought they were all that then.

i made spam fried rice last night. i was lazy and only used 3 extra add-in ingredients (peas, corn and green onion). i normally used more for color and texture (diced carrots, diced red bell peppers, chinese sausage, fried egg strips, tiny shrimp), but it was late and i wanted to make a quick meal for the child. fried rice is always a hit with her. : )

in other news:

• doesn't anyone else think that paris from american idol looks like gary coleman in drag?
• ace young can't sing - looks can only get him so far...look at elliott - he's pretty damn ugly (looks like the goatboy from 'narnia') with f----d up teeth but he can carry a tune (he's pasta boy's favorite)!

looking forward to:

my new haircut next week, food shopping for a new recipe I want to try, watching some DVD's i haven't had a chance to see, pick my toenails and payday tomorrow!!!!!

I love food...

I've been trying to cook something different each week for the family unit...last week it was afritada (Philippine tomato based stew with meat, peas, and potatoes) and pinakbet (hard core native Philippine tomato and shrimp-paste based pork stew with vegetables such as long Chinese beans, bittermelon, kabocha squash, Filipino eggplant [not the big fat round kind, but the long, thin purple kind] and okra). Well, I cheated with the afritada because I used a packaged mix for the sauce instead of making it from scratch, but WTF. It still tasted good. The shrimp paste is called bagoong and it's nice and pink and heavily redolent of fermented shrimps. You can even see the tiny shrimps in there with their beady black eyes. Yum. Growing up, I've always liked pinakbet, especially the bittermelon, which is definitely an acquired taste. The more bitter the better! The bittermelon kind of looks like a green schlong with venereal disease with nicely tapered ends. Lovely.

What made making the pinakbet so easy was Seafood City's pre-cut vegetable tray. Yeah, I cheated there too. It saved me a lot of chopping time with the vegetables. If I bought the vegetables separately, I would have had way too much bittermelon, long beans and eggplant leftover for the portion I was making. At Seafood City, they have these cool pre-cut minivegetable trays for pinakbet and sinigang. They're perfect. So, if you're lazy like me, get those trays!

Today I made a pork dish of which I don't know the name in Tagalog. It's pork shoulder with cabbage. I sauteed onions and garlic in oil, then added the chopped pork shoulder. I seasoned it with black pepper and patis (Philippine fish sauce), then added a tiny bit of water, turned the heat to low, then covered it and braised it for about 25 minutes. After the meat was tender, I added half of a small cabbage sliced into strips and let it steam for about 5-7 minutes. It was pretty damn good. It passed the taste test with Pasta Boy and the child (who has yet to acquire a nickname for this blog). However, the child said, "I like the meat Mommy but not the spinach (she meant the cabbage)." Today, she also helped me season some chopped roasted potatoes. She used our ball pepper grinder, the kind you squeeze with your hands, then it grinds the pepper . She enjoyed that very much.

I've been looking at a lot of my Filipino cookboks lately comparing the different recipes. It seems to me that Filipino cooking is pretty easy. All you do (for a lot of the recipes) is saute garlic and onions (or garlic, onions and ginger, or even tomato) as a base, then add the meat and/or liquid and vegetables. I may not be as good of a cook as my mom just yet, but I'm getting there.

I wonder what I'll try making this week...

Great food at Superman's baby's party. I especially enjoyed the fried squid, the fried chicken wings, roast beef with gravy, the Chinese puff pastry with meat inside, the fried lumpia, the Vietnamese vegetable salad with pork, and the fried rice with chinese sausage. All that fried sheeyit be good! Supermom's mom made leche flan, which was also very delicious. Nothing like chasing fried food with a sugar, egg yolk and dairy concoction. Mmmm...I love going to Filipino parties (or any ethnic party) because there's always going to be good food. No crappy American food there.

By the way, fried food = fried farts.

Desert Island Discs

To counter balance my previous blog, I've compiled my desert island discs (those of you who remember the free Pulse! magazine they used to give out at Tower Records will know what a DID is) for your enjoyment, derision, and/or indifference:

Top 30 DIDs (classic/hard rock category):
(in no particular order)

*Van Halen - Van Halen
Van Halen - Van Halen II
Van Halen - Women and Children First
*Van Halen - Fair Warning
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II
*Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV (aka Zoso)
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
*Def Leppard - High 'n Dry
Def Leppard - Pyromania
*AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
AC/DC - If You Want Blood, You've Got It
AC/DC - Highway to Hell
AC/DC - Back in Black
Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien
King's X - Gretchen Goes to Nebraska
Motley Crue - Too Fast For Love
Motley Crue - Shout at the Devil
*Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
*Boston - Boston
Boston - Don't Look Back
*Queen - A Night at the Opera
Queen - A Day at the Races
Queen - News of the World
Rush - Exit Stage Left
*Rush - Moving Pictures
Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
Judas Priest - British Steel
*Gun 'n Roses - Appetite for Destruction

I consider all of these solid albums packed with kick ass music. If they were on cassette, I would not even fast forward any song. Yes, most of my selections don't go past 1984 (with the exception of GNR's 'Appetite' , Satchmo's 'Alien'(circa '87 - when hair bands and heavy metal ruled the earth) and King's X's 'Grechen' (circa '89). I don't consider a lot of new music as listenable. Call it a rut, butI'm comfortable with my music. All else sucks ass!!! kidding. No I'm not....Those entries marked with an asterisk are my top 10.

Other Random DID's:
The Cult - Electric
U2 - Boy
U2 - October
U2 - The Unforgettable Fire
Prince - 1999
The Smiths - Singles
The Cure - Staring at the Sea
Echo & the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
The Beatles - any album (except the White Album)
The Replacements - Don't Tell a Soul
The Police's first 3 albums - Outlandos d'Amour, Regatta de Blanc, & Zenyatta Mondatta

Favorite Soundtracks:
Cry Baby
Saturday Night Fever
The Princess Bride
Car Wash
Donnie Darko
Foxy Brown (blaxploitation flick, music by the late, great Willie Hutch)
De-Lovely
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
Bride & Prejudice (Hindi version)
This is Spinal Tap
Kansas City

Musical Genres, Groups/singers that really grate on me, or are soulless entities and should be wiped from the face of the earth:

Air Supply and other faceless acts from the 70s
Coldplay
anything "EMO"
Alanis Morrissette & any similar female singer with a horrid voice
Ricky Martin
JLo
the genre of nu-Metal
the genre of neo-punk (ex: whiny Blink 182 and their copycats)
C & C Music Factory & pretty much all '90s dance music
all American Idol winners and runner-ups
most of the 'Best New Artist' Grammy winner (ex: Taste of Honey, Starlight Vocal Band, Mariah Carey)
and the KidzBop series

That is all...let the hate mail begin

Hello there ladies and gentlemen...

Hello! I just did a short 'test' run, but now I erased it...

Just wanted to say Hello to Eternal Lotus, Shogun, Ronin, Superman, Thane, and The Missy Show...

It's 9:50 pm...raining outside...not looking forward to work tomorrow, but alas, must pay the bills...

pho with flank...good
flank with gristle...bad
gristle with vein...worse