(When I get the time, I will post the different recipes concocted by Villasis people, most of them women, with eggplant as the main ingredient. I tasted some of them during the cookfest and they were really delicious. The winning piece is a little difficult, or maybe time consuming, to prepare. But my friend Vir Maganes who is from Villasis, found it really worth the P5,000 cash prize. I asked the winners what they will do with the money and they said they will give it to the barangay council. I asked, “But why? It’s your money, you should do what you want with it. Maybe start a livelihood project… They just smiled and said they will think about it. Its not much but… Hurray to the women of Villasis!)
VILLASIS, Pangasinan — This agricultural town in eastern Pangasinan is set to prove that eggplant — its main agricultural product — can be cooked in a hundred ways.
During the cookfest during the Third Talong Festival on Friday, 22 recipes with eggplant as the main ingredient were prepared and cooked by representatives of the barangays. This brought to 65 the number of original recipes featuring the versatile vegetable prepared by the townsfolk, said Libradita Abrenica, the town's first lady and chair of the town fiesta's executive committee.
Abrenica said during the first and second runs of the annual festivals, there were 21 and 22 recipes entered in the cookfest. When the number of recipes reach 100, the local government will publish a recipe book, she said.
"The entries get better yearly.Before, the entries were simple ones. But they are getting much versatile and there are unusual entries, the presentation are much better, too," Abrenica said.
The first prize was bagged by Puelay village with its recipe Hidden Talong Mix. Estela Bautista, the group's leader, explained that she got inspiration from butsi, those small rice cakes with fillings like mongo and ube.
She said quail eggs are hard-boiled, halved, and the yolks are removed. The eggs are then filled with mashed eggplant (broiled), then coated with a mixture of mashed eggplant, shredded carrots, chopped hotdogs and pork, spices and seasonings. Then these are rolled in uncooked glutinous rice and coconut milk then steamed for 45 minutes. The Hidden Talong is paired with nutririous malungay juice, a concoction of boiled malungay leaves, honey and calamanci juice.
The second price was the Eggplant Con Yugghort (Camarutan), while the third was a tie betwen Eggplant Pizza (Zone I) and Nazi Guring con Talong (San Nicolas).
The winners got P5,000, P3,000 and P2,000 prices, respectively.
The other entries are also gastronomical delights — talong bopis, eggplant nugget, pinausukang talong, eggplant salad, eggplant sarciado, talong rings, fritters, fried eggplant with rolling bread crumbs, siomai na talong, ratata, salad.
"These recipes prove that eggplant is really a versatile vegetable and I am proud that the residents are able to come up with different recipes adopted to local taste," Abrenica said.
And if there's one thing that parents with picky kids should be happy about, these are recipes with vegetables but which children will surely love to eat.
Four of the five judges were Villasis residents already living abroad, including Fe Prado Nardini who, together with her husband Giulinao, operates a restaurant called Ristorante Pizzeria "I Nardini" in Toscani, Italy.
Nardini said she was bringing some recipes to Italy and teach her husband how to prepare them.
"Our restaurant faces a camping area where different nationalities like Dutch, English and German, come. They are experimental when it comes to food, and I hope to introduce the eggplant recipes to them," she said.
 

He was never married and he never officiated a marriage. But Archbishop Oscar Cruz have seen so many broken marriages that he knows the reasons  why husband and wife wanted the knot untied.  

            And the reasons could range from serious case of impotence to petty quarrels over crumpled pillowcases. It does not matter how long a couple had been married before they want out – which is from one week to years. It does not matter, too, if the couple belonged to the moneyed class or if the husband is a jeepney driver and the wife, a laundrywoman. The number of men and women filing for annulment is also about the same. Read more

Marsha
It’s such a queer name. And it’s not because it’s the name of a character in the 70s and 80s hit television show John and Marsha.

It’s not a queer name because it is a feminine name. It is a queer name because it was the name of my dog. And my dog was a male.

Marsha silently died in its sleep on February 9. A day before that, Jenny, the household help, told me he refused to eat. Whatever little he ate, he threw up. I gave him antibiotics and some water with sugar and salt. Then water with hydrite. I forced him to drink milk. As if to please me, he would drink a little then will leave me. I knew he was really weak when he laid down on a wet part of the porch. He hated that, always tried to find dry place. I followed him around, patting him, trying to comfort him. Read more

Call me a feminist in reverse. Many women I know are struggling to
"free" themselves from the bondage of housekeeping, mothering and other
traditional women's roles. They want to join the working force, okay,
have a career outside of the house.

 These women have  been complaining about having to keep the
house clean, feed the children, keep them clean and healthy, discipline them
wash the clothes, iron the clothes, cook food three times or five times a day, feed
the dogs and the cats.

Read more

One night, as we were about to hit the sack, my son asked me: Mommy, why are my armpits emanating a metallic smell?

He's almost 14, that age when many bodily changes take place. I plunged into a lecture about growing up, puberty, hormones, the works. When I finished, his only comment was: "How do I get rid of this smell?

Again, a lecture about cleanliness and using deodorants or the always reliable tawas.

Son: HOw many days will I be using deodorants before the smell's finally gone?

Me: Maybe forever.

Son: But I have been scrubbing my entire body each time I take a bath.

(He takes a bath at least twice a day. He also rubs alcohol on his armpits, his way of getting rid of the metallic smell).

Me: It's not enough. You still need deodorants.

(He finally slept)

I think we're never free from those lotions or sprays or whatever so as to not emit that "metallic smell." 

Wonder what our forefathers use when deodorants were not in vogue yet.

When the world was young and I was also younger, water could have been plentiful but it was scarce in the house. My family lived in a village not reached by water systems and we did not own a poso (pump well) until I think I was 9 or 10.

Young as we were, my sisters and I had to fetched water from a neighbor’s flowing well, about  70-100 meters away. No, we never complained, it was just a fact of life for us. We were always happy when our father was home (he worked mostly in Manila) as he would fetch water instead.

We were very happy when a nearer neighbor put up a well. We thought we need not carry pails of water over long stretches of road anymore. But the neighbor (the lady of the house) turned a little haughty every time she saw us coming. We felt bad about it, but again, we thought to be at the receiving end of haughtiness was a part of being poor.
Months later, our father was able to raise enough money to build our own well. Great, now we did not have to fetch water from the neighbors anymore. But we still had to carry water from our own well to the house as father did not have enough money to set up running water system in the house yet.

It was about the same time when we had our own well that father constructed a two-storey house for the family. But it was long before we had running water in the house.
Let’s go back to that time when we had to fetch water from the neighbor, the farther one.

My mother knew the difficulty of carrying water in buckets. I can’t remember her fetching water and the chore fell on the little girls’ frail shoulders. But I can remember how she saved and saved every drop of water that was brought into the house by us.

For instance, whenever she took a bath, she sat on a wash basin so that the water she used would be collected. She used the water to wash clothes, then she used the used water to clean the bathroom (which was called batalan). The water used for washing clothes went into watering the plants. Some plants of course, died because of the chemicals.

Fast forward to 2006: I already have my own house with running water.  (I’m still dreaming of the day when hot or cold water would flow from my faucets). But I’m always conscious of saving water and using as little water as possible. I would always tell my house helper to conserve the precious liquid, and my nagging is helpful to an extent. But not enough.

There was a time when my older son (maybe he was five) was already conscious about the scarcity of water. He would say “Save water, the Earth is running out of it.”
But that was a long time ago. He is not so conscious of it now. The two brats (13 and would be under the shower for long that I would  always reminisce of the time when we carried buckets of water as young girls. I’m planning to buy big basins which I would put under the shower to collect the water. Then maybe use it to water plants. I hope the plants won’t die.
 

There was this couple that had been married for 20 years. Every time they made love the husband always insisted on shutting off the light. 

Well, after 20 years the wife felt this was ridiculous. She figured she would break him out of this crazy habit. Read more

Have you ever spoken and wished that you could immediately take the words back…or that you could crawl into a hole? Here are the Testimonials of a few people who did…. Read more

Summer means the sun’s up and scorching. It means fruits of different shapes, colors and shapes and tastes. And it means the profusion of bougainvillea flowers in riotous colors along the roads and in the yards and the parks and the resorts and wherever you may be.
 
Even the leaves of bougainvillea have different colors –some with white designs, some with light green, some with really dark ones. A closer look at the leaves would reveal fine designs such as very rounded leaves or jagged leaves.

But bougainvilleas are best admired from afar. Their beauty shines with the sun and their colors are more vibrant and dazzling to the eyes. They come in hues of white, yellows, the palest to the most vivid pink or red, oranges, violets and many other colors of the rainbow.

No, they are not as delicate as roses nor elegant as orchids. And they don’t have that fragile scent of the sampaguita. They are hardy flowers – living with the rain and the sun. And I don’t think they ever needed fertilizers or pesticides. They bloom where you plant them, as long as their roots are firmly planted on the ground.

Yes, bougainvilleas are like the Filipinos. They are sturdy and they shine with the rain and live with the rain wonderfully. They shine where you plant them, even in the hottest zones of Saudi Arabia.

If I could have my way, I will have bougainvilleas as the national flower of the Philippines. After all, sampaguitas are nowhere to be found anymore and there seemed to be no efforts to propagate them. (Although, yes, I admit its a little difficult to spell bougainvillea)

 I ain’t seen any sampaguita plant for quite a long time now. Unlike bougainvilleas. The beautiful bougainvilleas.