I’m back to cooking. So this past Friday when I arrived, it was already past dinner and I just reheated what was in the fridge. Yesterday was thankfully a day I didn’t have to bother with cooking because my mom’s cook was there. But today, I’m back to feeding my brood.

I had two-day old rice in the fridge that is almost frozen and a plastic container of kimchi—only the juice was left and one cabbage leaf. So I made a “sort-of” kimchi fried rice because all I had was the juice. I raided my fridge for leftovers and reworked them to serve my kids.

Speaking of cooking, I was alerted by Twin I about this video of Uncle Roger (comedian Nigel Ng) reacting to a botched adobo cooked on Food Network. I was shaking my head during the entire video because it was so wrong.

There are so many versions of adobo as it varies from one family and region to another. But the basic building blocks of it are: vinegar, soy sauce, lots and lots of garlic, peppercorn, and dried bay leaf. That’s it. You can add potatoes (my version from Batangas) and cook until the liquid had reduced and the meat has become so tender. They call it “dry” adobo. In Cebu, they add boiled eggs and let it marinate in the sauce together with the meat. In Samar-Leyte, they add a bit of onion and a bit of brown sugar to neutralize the sourness of vinegar. It’s a popular dish to preserve meat, just like rendang in Malaysia-Indonesia, but instead of vinegar, they use a lot of bird’s eye chilis to preserve meat.

But this abomination of an adobo made by this guy on Food Network is beyond comprehension. Uncle Roger is right, Filipino food is not spicy so it is just so wrong to put habanero peppers there. Lemon for acidity is 🤦🏻‍♀️ just noooooo. The essence of adobo is the vinegar. There is also a version of “white adobo” in which soy sauce is really scant (can’t remember which region this came from, I think from the North) which is cooked to preserve the meat while traveling on foot over mountains. Again, Uncle Roger is right in saying Filipinos love vinegar that’s why it was so stupid to use lemon in it. The taste is very, very different and it’s no longer adobo. We cook paksiw (vinegared meat/fish) to recycle leftover roasted pig and to cook fish that easily goes bad if not fried or cooked in vinegar. That’s why we love our vinegar (from sugar cane or coconut), food easily goes bad in this tropical heat. That’s why we have claypots for paksiw; metal cooking pots react to vinegar and it makes the dish taste differently. Claypots are best for everything with vinegar, or tamarind (sinigang), and for rice.

And once again, Uncle Roger is right in complaining about parsley. Who the heck puts parsley in it??? It will taste like grass.

So there, I got it off my chest. I’m not a chef; I’m just a home cook but I take food very seriously. I watch how the old cooks on Youtube or hawkers stalls in Asia (wherever I am visiting) cook stir fried veggies or fried rice on woks. The shape of the wok helps differentiate the temperature of the cooking surface and that keeps food from getting burned even though they’re being cooked on high heat. That’s why I bought the traditional wok for my Asian cooking because the magic lies in it its structure, how it is made.

For a non-chef food critic, Uncle Roger has my respect. A Malaysian-Chinese who knows his Asian food.

That said, I should learn how to make nasi lemak, which is also served in Muslim Mindanao, and order sambal again because I can’t make it from scratch.

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Meanwhile, I saw this at WHSmith at Changi T2 when I was browsing through reading materials that I could buy for my 4-hr plane ride.

I ended up not buying anything because I remembered I was supposed to watch Everything Everywhere All At Once. Which was a good decision because a magazine costs SGD 12.50. For that price I could buy several books from Big Bad Wolf (which I completely missed last month because I was sick) or from Booksale.

I took the selfie photos of me (from the other day and this) wearing the sets so I can show my bestfriend, who wanted to see my jewelry haul after I told her about the expo. She said she loved it and they were really a steal for the price I quoted to her. She said she was also a magpie for leaving Singapore last month with a couple of Pandora purchases 🤣. That’s why we’re besties; I think we’ll end up in the poorhouse because we will be encouraging each other’s frivolous shopping.

Anyway, I was traveling for 12 hrs yesterday and it was such a drag. I left the hotel at 8:30 am and arrived at my own home at 8:30-ish pm last night. We were delayed by 30-45 mins yesterday since the runway in NAIA was congested so my plane had to hover around Manila Bay until it got clearance to land.

This is precisely why we should have this freaking airport rehabilitated ASAP. We shouldn’t be wasting expensive jet fuel flying around in circles above Manila Bay because we only have one runway. We also shouldn’t be spending hours lining up at the check-in counter to drop our bags even though we already did the online check-in. We shouldn’t be stuck at the immigration gates because of human ego—in the case of the BI officers who are fond of power plays. Why can’t we have nice things like these, like a very smooth check-in process and immigration clearance because everything is automated?

But then, idiot Filipinos keep voting for dumb and corrupt people who reflect their own values. Then they turn it into a class war. Choosing non-corrupt and straight-shooting people is deemed elitist by the idiotic electorate. 🤦🏻‍♀️

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Yesterday’s delayed landing allowed me to sort of finish Everything Everywhere All At Once. It was an absurd and hilarious movie and yet it made me tear up. The plot sounds so fantastic and it’s hard to describe on paper but at the core of it is about family. Especially Asian families with generational trauma caused by unfulfilled expectations. Asian families tend to put you in a box and if you don’t fit in that box that generations before you have maintained, you are tainted and deemed not deserving the love and praises of your parents, of your ancestors. I understand why people walked out of that movie—it was chaotic. These are the people who are not exposed to anime storytelling, which can involve jumping from one universe to another so casually. The people who are not exposed to post-modernism, to art that is borne outside of the box, will hate it. It has a brilliant script and great cast. I fully approve the Oscar awards given to these people.

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As a side note, I got annoyed when SIA served us with this Singaporean ice cream.

J used to call me this and at that time I was tolerating it because he was being playful with me. I had that twisted reasoning in my head that “at least he is being affectionate towards me”—that beggars-can’t-be-choosers mindset—because I didn’t feel loved and I accepted any loose change thrown my way. He always thought of me as a cow in some way or another. That’s how he made fun of me. I was nothing more than a cow to him. I never received flowers or nice gestures from him whereas the woman he cheated on me with (whom my girls stalked on social media) showed off the flowers he gave her (my girls had shown me), the beer he had with her on that balcony table that I had made for him which I paid for. He didn’t treat me nicely; I was not special. I was just always a cow.

I will never let anyone treat me like or call me a cow ever again.

I hate this ice cream.

I was there as journalist, not a customer. I was weak. I could have bought more stocks but…oh well.

So I went to the Singapore International Jewelry Expo at Marina Bay Sands and I was in search of interesting companies to feature.

The stalls from some Indian companies display some gaudy designs, which disappointed me because India is one of the top 5 largest buyers of gold—they have a long history of jewelry-making. I was expecting more stupendous designs.

Of course I gravitated to the booths that offered “more affordable” jewelry but most of the exhibitors there are retailers and wholesalers of really expensive ones so my pockets don’t have many to choose from. Most of them are selling at eye-watering kind of prices. Like the Japanese cultured pearl necklace being sold for a discounted price of SGD 3.5k each, which the owner said is already cheap.🤦🏻‍♀️

Why did I splurge? Because I wanted to soothe myself. I wanted to comfort myself because this week hasn’t gone well. Just like in the past weeks. I’ve got no one to tell me that things are going to be fine, that I didn’t do anything wrong. That next time, I just need to shut up and let things fly over my head and ignore the things I couldn’t control. I’ve got to pat myself on the back and tell myself I’m doing ok and I’m not a bad boss or a bad journalist. When you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, you just seek ways how to validate yourself if you don’t have anybody to give you that. Love thyself. I have done self-flagellation for so long.

At least I got three potential stories from this expo.

Speaking of stories, this was the last training day and hopefully things will go smoothly from hereon.

Going back home later today…

I had another skirmish with APAC boss and it’s not even my fault. The journo/editor that I am helping train asked so many questions about editing, why did I do this, why did I do that in one or two samples of stories that I showed her. To make things easier and not spend too much time explaining, I said I will cc you in the story drafts I’m currently working on, just to illustrate.

I did that this morning and a few hours later I received an email from boss, reprimanding me for going into her turf. Like—I didn’t even know there was such a thing. I mean, the trainee asked and asked…to keep me from spending too much time answering her questions, I just said “I’ll just send you a copy of what I’m doing so you would understand.” I can’t brush off her questions, can I? I’m already there in person so why not be helpful and answer her queries??? 🤦🏻‍♀️

So annoyed that I needed to go out and destress.

I walked from where I was lounging to push away the dark cloud hanging over me. I looked for a place where I can buy snacks for my kids and for those who are helping look after my kids.

My sis-in-law bought and gave me this blouse for my trip here so, here I go, road testing it.

Thank God for family to cheer me up.

Such a gloomy day.

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After the obvious corruption at Dept of Tourism that cost us PHP 49m, here comes another agency.

This government is remaking everything so that Marcos’ asssociates can have kickbacks. Just like what they did to that horrible DOT campaign.

Nothing is wrong with Pagcor’s old logo and it has been the logo for several administrations. Why the need to rebrand and redesign???

In no time, Filipinos started making fun of the new logo that was obviously copied from Petron. My kids could make better logos than this unknown graphics company that sprung out in June 2023. Paid PHP 3m for a kid’s ouput.

Jokes aside, here’s the real story behind this shit.

That’s what they did with the Tourism shit we had/are having, only it cost PHP 49m and the recipient of the kickback is a talentless cousin of Liza Araneta Marcos, the first lady.

Oh Philippines, how I hate thee. How I hate the thing you have become. I am really crossing out people who have voted for Marcos and Duterte.

I trained two journos on different time slots today. I was working until past 7 pm and Lord knows how exhausted I am. But I didn’t want to go back to my hotel because for some reason I am lonely. I used to be ok with just being the introverted me spending nights alone in my hotel room. But this time it’s different. I’m not sure why. So I went to Orchard because it’s where a lot of tourists congregate outside of Sentosa. Do I just need the human vibe? But I hate crowds and being with strangers. Maybe because I’m hormonal right now due to my period.

I bought a jersey jacket yesterday because it’s cold in the office and at the airport/plane.

And this is what our CEO told us in an email last night:

It’s the inverted yield curve that bugs everyone a lot, which indicates recession. Our CEO’s refusal to budge regarding hiring is because of this yield curve—he believes that the recession is/will be severe. News stories have been harping about the lower unemployment rate in the US, indicating a jobs recovery. However, everyone forgot that we came from a high base as a result of the pandemic (many lost their jobs as the lockdowns hit consumers) and it’s only now that jobs are beginning to see an uptick. But the inverted yield curve indicates that investors are dumping short-term bonds for longer ones because they’re pessimistic about the near-term future. Ergo, they will not be investing—that’s why a firm that I wrote about that has been raising capital for their emerging markets fund since 2021 had to cut its target by more than half and they’re still trying to convince investors that it’s ok to place their bets on developing countries.

That’s on the high finance front. But on the real economy, people are not spending as much because everything has become expensive but the wages have not caught on.

I’m sleepy. Ciao!

Aaaaand I got two stories today 👏 but most of my day was devoted to admin stuff that is driving me nuts. At least I had my PH reporter’s trip to Cebu for a three-day conference approved. I’m still struggling with the other trips for my other reporters that I must push for approval. 😕 When overall business climate is shit, it’s hard to have every single request for activities that will cost a lot of money approved.

Because the world is still battling with this sticky high inflation rates. Possibility of recession (maybe already in recession) depends where you are in the world. But it can’t be denied that all central banks now are like firefighters—they’re digging through their policy tool kits for whatever they can throw at inflation to tame it. So far they haven’t been that successful. They have stemmed the somersaulting rates but the full effects of these rate hikes are still being unraveled in the real economy. Many now are struggling with the increase in their home and auto mortgage. Many companies are laying off workers, especially SMEs and the startups. Even the large global funds are struggling to raise new capital or many are being forced by their investors to cash in on their portfolios—so many of them are forced to sell despite the harsh conditions and large valuation mismatch.

Let’s see how things will progress this week. I just want to go gallivanting; I’m so stressed. I learned from one of our sales teams during our call this afternoon that some of our clients have cancelled their subscription because of the lack of Thai content. So it’s a chicken and egg situation. 😩

Whatever am I going to do? It’s a constant struggle everyday.

I feel like it’s a failure on my part; but then management and I don’t see eye to eye. Sometimes I just want to be brainless; like those social climbing bitches who do not care about the world around them and just sip their cocktails while taking selfies with duck lips. It’s so stressful to care too much; to be passionate about my profession and the world around me. To be hyper-aware of what’s happening to the world.

Maybe that’s what attracts me to freediving—it’s just between me, my breathing, and the sea. Some troubles melt away and the world is shut out.

I need to paint now but I didn’t bring my kit. 🙁