Hello Childhood!

Remember that scene in Ratatouille when Anton Ego took one bite of Remy's Ratatouille and immediately the most feared food critic remembered his mom's cooking and was immediately transported to his childhood.  This week I had a ratatouille of sorts, not from Mamu's cooking, but from all the "street food" that I had.  If you must know, like any other good intentioned parent, Mamu forbade me from eating street food with the usual reason, "you don't know how the food was prepared."

Well, I had my fair share of street food, behind Mamu's back of course.  I never got sick nor suffered from food poisoning.

First off, I had Chocnut, the quintessential Filipino candy that's part chocolate and part peanut, hence the name chocnut.  Though, not really considered as street food, this sweet treat is available in your friendly sari-sari store.  Mamu never really understood my fondness for Chocnut, which she describes as "lasang chalk".  I never tasted chalk so I really don't have a point of comparison.  One bite from this easy to shatter into powder treat and I'm transported to the days where I would play patintero, piko and jackstone with my neighborhood playmates.

I got up early one morning and heard a familiar call.  "Tahooo!  Tahooo!"  I all but ran to the gate in my not so presentable pantulog and answered "Manong Taho!"  Taho is fresh silken tofu drizzled with arnibal (dark sugar syrup) then topped with sago (tapioca balls) and peddled by ambulatory vendors with aluminum containers balanced on their shoulders.

Taho was the only street food allowed in our house and enjoyed at breakfast until Mamu heard this rumor that some vendors add plaster of paris, which I think is some sort of chemical used to the casts of fracture victims.  Since then, taho was banned from our house. 

Finally, the big kahuna of childhood street food.  I just had scramble!  I was in SM walking around when I saw a queue.  I was trying to figure out the cause of all this anticipation when lo and behold!  It was Ice Scamble.  The scramble of old but now available in a more sanitized version.  I joined the line and when finally it was my turn I told Ate Scamble, no topping (now you have a choice between rice crispies, chocolate spinkles and marshmallows), just powdered sugar.  I'm a scramble purist.  Then she poured a Brown Cow like container, I was expecting chocolate syrup but alas, it was stawberry.  Oh well, you can't have it all.

Hmmm...how to describe scramble?  It's this pink ice dessert peddled on the streets by Manong Scramble that's topped with powdered milk and Brown Cow chocolate syrup.  Come to think of it, I never really gave much thought on what goes into a cup of scramble or how it's made.  All I know is that it came from a scramble machine.  As to what a scramble machine is, I have no idea.

Scramble in all its pink glory!

One spoonful and I was in elementary again, waiting in anticipation for Manong Scramble to finish churning his machine.  I took my cup and happily walked all the home.  I stopped before the last street going to our house then threw the cup (I wasn't as environmentally conscious then) because I knew Mamu would go ballistic on me.  I knew her pet peeve when it comes to street food is scramble.  I greet Mamu and she asks me how my day went, I told her that it was a happy day.  She smiles at me, I smile back, that secret smile of knowing that I just enjoyed scramble all the way home.

It's so nice to stroll down memory lane again.

Pinoy Care Box

When my brother came home a few months back, we welcomed him with a care box of Filipino grocery items.  It contains his favorite chichirya, Boy Bawang, Century Tuna, Lucky Me Pansit Canton, Purefoods Corned Beef, Taba ng Talangka, Reno Liver Spread, Chocnut, Flat Tops, just to name a few.  It's practically a sari-sari store in a box.

Long story short, he wanted to travel light and decided to leave the box behind.  He only took a few items with him.  The noodles and some of the canned goods are still in the pantry as I write.  Oh well...it's the thought that counts.

An American Choir Sings a Filipino Classic

Don't you just love it when a foreigner tries his best to speak Tagalog?  So imagine my reaction when I saw this video on YouTube.  Don't let the title fool you though, this video has nothing to do with Glee and don't bother waiting for Charice to appear, wala siya dito.

Aliw no?

Contest Alert!

Manila Blogs, one of the go to sites for Manila's blogging community is celebrating their 5th anniversary with a bang.

They're giving away a brand new cellphone!

The Nokia C3 is designed with the blogger in mind.  The full QWERTY key makes typing easier.  Nokia Messaging also gives 1-click access to e-mail, chat, and social networking platforms. It also has WIFI which means you can be connected anywhere 24/7.  Visit Nokia for more information about the Nokia C3.

For more details on Manila Blogs Nokia: It's My Life Contest just head on over to their website.

Good luck to everyone!

Alas! Everything Comes Together

Last month I got a call from Direk asking me to do a script for a product launch of one of their clients. He explained that this is a different event because the client wanted to incorporate a mini stage play in their launch. They wanted to do something along the lines of Camelot which they have been using for their sales and marketing blitz. Having grown up on the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table I just did very minimal research and submitted a script two days later. After a few minor revisions here and there, I never heard from them again.

Then on the first week of August I got another call informing me that the script was approved and that I was requested to watch the final rehearsal at the office.

A week after, we were in Greenhills for the final dress and technical rehearsals.

The event itself is a show within a show. There’s a live event hosted by Mellow Touch DJ Ingrid Nieto, then a couple of VTRs (video presentation which we call OBBs) to serve as teasers for the play, then the stage play and finally a performance by Jeffrey Hidalgo.

The whole event coming to life is really a combined effort of everyone involved. A lot of people don’t realize this. While I did the script for the stage play, the live event and OBB script was done by another writer . All the video materials are edited for a very long time, just as an example, a one- minute VTR is edited for a couple of hours, for this event, we had three so it took the editor more than four sleepless days to complete all the video materials. The creative director and production designer conceptualizes the stage, backdrop (background), basically, the overall look for the whole event. The production director sources all the technical requirements which include the technical staff and equipment. The technical staff sees to it that every nitty gritty detail (lights, sounds, camera,etc.) are all in place. The talents (voice, stage and hosts) breathes life into the show. And of course, the director combines all these elements together. Everything is subject to client's approval. When the client decides that they don’t like what they see, everything is revised. With their approval, it’s all systems go.

Here are some behind the scenes from The Quest. Most of the pictures were taken during the final rehearsal as I was busy backstage during the event.

The stage: During set-up

During final rehearsals

Part of the stage (taken backstage), a few minutes before the show.

Some of the actors being made-up

The big reveal...

Merlin the Great "Medician" played by Arkin

The Great Ching Kee played by Fourth
Lord Maharajah played by Von

Prince Slavic played by David

Rest Questor played by Luani

The whole cast

Direk, giving directions

During the final rehearsal, a day before the event, Direk was told that the clients liked what they saw so they’re planning to bring the event to five key cities nationwide.

A successful event, like this one, is really something to rejoice about.

Goodbye President Cory

In behalf of Mamu and our whole family, we would like to express our deepest condolences to the family of President Cory Aquino.

Tita Cory, thank you for restoring the freedom that we now enjoy, thank for waking us up from from our cynicism and reminding us that we should expect honesty and integrity from our leaders, most of all, thank you for believing that "the Filipino is worth living for."

Rest in peace Madame President.

Harry Potter and the Senior Citizens at the Movies

Most of my friends have seen Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on its opening weekend. Blame it on my lack of foresight, I didn’t make reservations earlier and by July 15, it was close to impossible to find tickets.

Being a Harry Potter fan and having read all the books more than twice (this is really is an understatement) I badly wanted to watch the movie. This dilemma just left me with two options: one, watch the movie alone and two, watch the movie with Mamu.

Mamu doesn’t know anything about Harry Potter, as in nada, so it's practically like watching the movie alone. Plus, she has this habit of sleeping halfway through the movie, any movie (even the ones shown on TV) for that matter. But she told me that she has this senior citizen privilege of watching movies for free on Mondays and Tuesdays but only be for the first full show.

I figured with her senior citizen privilege it’s not so bad even if she sleeps throughout the movie, at least I have company. She dozed off after 15 minutes and I had to nudge her a couple of times.

Our total bill for the movie is 160.25 pesos, 160 for me and 25 centavos (I guess for the taxes) for Mamu.

We entered the theater at 12:55, it was almost deserted except for a sprinkling of a few white haired movie goers.

At the comfort room, 90% of the ladies are of Mamu’s age or older. I haven’t seen this large a gathering of old people in one place, at least not in a mall. I even told Mamu that maybe she should get to know a couple of these ladies so that she would have her own set of movie going friends. They can get together every Mondays or Tuesdays!

After the movie, which I enjoyed by the way, especially the Christmas attack on the Burrow because that scene wasn’t in the book, I asked Mamu if she understood the movie. She said “No!” and asked me why was everyone in the movie flying. I patiently explained that the movie was about witches and wizards and the term flying applies only when their on broomsticks, otherwise the proper term for it is “apparate” and “disapparate.

Patience though, in this case, is not a virtue, because after telling her all I know about Harry Potter, she looked at me and said “I still don’t get it.”

Movie poster is courtesy of moviesonline.ca.

A Bookworm’s Bargain Haven

My search for the latest issue of Preview Magazine(the one with Maricel Soriano on the cover) led me to National Bookstore POB (Previously Owned Books).

Nestled on the second floor of National Bookstore in Quezon Avenue are literally racks and racks of bargain books.

I checked out the quality of the books on display and a lot seemed brand new albeit the yellowish paper. I think these are volumes of old stock that National Bookstore just wants to get rid of. Checking out the selection I noticed that some of the books there were the ones put on sale in some of their branches. Now I know where the unsold books go.

I went around and checked out the prices, most of the paperbacks (a lot of which are romantic novels) are from thirty to one hundred pesos. Hardbound volumes start at a hundred. The more popular authors are more expensive though, I found an unknown James Patterson novel with a two hundred plus peso price tag. The priciest books there are leather bound bibles, in yummy bright colors I might add, which goes for 699 pesos apiece.

Whenever a bookstore overwhelms me, my first instinct is always “go toward the classics”. I saw a lot of Shakespeare, some Thomas Hardy and one of my favorites Iliad all at 30 pesos. I almost bought Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the d’ Ubervilles. But I remembered the stack of books I have in my room that I have yet to read.

So I went home empty handed. Well... looks like I just have to come back another time.