Ube jam is either a rock concert with a weird name or something you spread on everything from pan de sal to your finger. Actually ube jam is something I spread with my finger on everything. And then I lick the thing I spread it on. Sometimes I just spread the jam directly on my tongue, saving precious time and energy.

How to make ube jam:
1) Melt a lot of butter in a wok. Throw in two cans of milk.
2) Throw in a bag of sugar.
3) Throw in some purple.
4) Find some ube.
5) Crush the ube and then plop it in the mixture.
6) Inject yourself with insulin. Check your blood pressure. You're gonna die.

There's nothing like grilling chicken parts (from wings, intestines, to feet), throwing them on banana leaves, and eating them with a cup of rice, vinegar spiced with calamansi, and chili peppers. You can find restaurants that serve plates like this all over the Philippines (fork and spoon optional). If that doesn't gush your salivary glands, please by all means enjoy your warehouse-raised KFC chicken breast cancer... with no rice.

(Read as if narrated by David Attenborough or Yoyoy Villame)

Good evening ma'am/sir, and welcome to another episode of "Wildlife Discovery Channel Planet." Today we will be following the elusive sea urchin, or as the locals here in the visayan region of the Philippines call them, spikey-ass balls (swaki'). Here in my hand is one of these spikey-ass balls, and next to it, a cute-ass orange star fish that i'll probably end up eating as well.

Thanks for joining me on "Wilderbeast Discoverer Kingdom World." Tune in next time when we go to Africa and drink elephant poop water.

Finding Red Horse beer stateside is like trying to find that piece of meat stuck in-between your teeth but can't because it's somewhere in the back of your mouth where your fingers can't reach it. It was a dry year until February when a new shipment of Red Horse finally arrived in Seafood City markets in Northern California. Unfortunately we don't get the grande bottles imported but the stallions (small bottles) are better than nothing. That and water.

It stopped showing up in stores this past year so finding them back was a big deal to me and my family. It was like the end of a drought and marked the beginning of spring. This beer is smooth yet strong, just like real red horses would be, if they existed. White unicorns would probably be passive and flamey. If you still can't find them try Jamaica's Red Stripe. That beer is good with sinugba (grilled stuff). And don't forget the floss.

I know, it comes in champorado flavor too! If I find cup-o-sinigang-catfish I will die.

Skip the "organic" section at your local market. Just raise, kill, grill, and eat your own meat. Nothing says organic more than having to chase your food around and then cut it's head off. It's even more organic when you use charcoal from coconut shells and banana leaves as plates. If I could, i'd make my own beer out of soil and rocks but im not gonna go there.

Im not a hip, suit-wearing, 1st-class-flying, bluetooth-ear-piece-wearing, sushi connoisseur but I know good, cheap food when I eat it. How? Because they call me the food whisperer. Food talks to me.

$11.95 for a sushi buffet isn't hard to find in California, unless of course you're looking for one in the middle of the desert in a small college town with a name like Davis. If for some reason you are, be sure to check out Fuji's sushi boat buffet when you're there. The sushi is good but the long lines on the weekends make me wanna roundhouse kick something.

After a whole bunch of failed attempts to make my own binignit (or ginataan or coconut milk rice porridge) I went ahead and bought the "3 minutes and it's done" stuff.

It's not bad and definitely not as bad as my "3 hours and it's nasty" stuff. My dream is to one day open the greatest Filipino restaurant in the world, and at this rate, that restaurant will be serving nothing but cup-o-noodles.

Because I can't drink two at the same time. Really I tried. Anyway, im back from the Philippines, the only difference is my mom stayed home this time to retire and stay with family. I don't know whether I should party my ass off or go to a corner and cry like a baby monkey. Either way, alcohol is involved. If I don't post within the next few days, tell the police my body is floating in a pool of my own tears. At a club in Miami.

« February 2007 | Balik sa homefage | April 2007 »