My mother will be staying with us over the holidays, she's on a low sodium and low fat diet so I'm trying to brush up on my healthy cooking. I've done two wonderful tilapia dishes so far (they'll be posted

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a kilo and a half of fresh clams not knowing exactly whether I would use them for a pasta dish or a soup. By the time they had been soaked and cleaned, I

This is an update of the Chateau Verde article originally published in September 25, 2006.)Last Friday, December 18, my family went to see the U.P. Lantern Parade. I was a U.P. student for eight years (four years undergrad, four years

Two weeks ago, my husband and I went to the Dapitan Street flea market for a little shopping. If you haven't heard, Dapitan is a haven for bargain shoppers. Everything from furniture to Christmas wreaths can be found there. But

The thing about stir fries is that they cannot be cooked in advance. Which makes them none-too-ideal dishes for large gatherings especially if, like me, you prefer to distribute the cooking over several days so that you don't look and

Some readers are wondering why there haven't been cake and dessert entries since I came back from my nine-day vacation. A strange thing, some think, considering that the Holiday season is well upon us. I will be doing a lot

My mother has a cousin who cooked delicious sinampalukang manok. She would make a huge pot each time and it always amazed me how she could strip the leaves from the tiny branches so fast. I cooked a pot of

Even before All Saints' Day, I'd already gotten a number of requests for holiday menu ideas. If my readers' concerns are anything by which to judge the mindset of most Filipinos, I'd say it's true that we really mean to

And so I bring home a taste of Phuket. Last Saturday, I cooked this chicken and pineapple rice and my daughters and I had it for lunch. I would have cooked it days earlier, heaven knows how excited I was

I thought about starting a separate blog for Holiday menu ideas, but, what the heck? There's no reason why they can't all be published here. That way, you won't have to switch from one location to another. No need to

It's Immaculate Concepcion Day, a holiday for many schools, including Alex's which is not even a Catholic school. Go figure. Anyway, it means no one got up early and there wasn't much time to prepare lunch. I thawed a pack

Aboard the Legend of the Seas, there was one night at the Romeo & Juliet Dining Room when my friend Osang ordered an onion and cheese tart for her appetizer. I ordered my favorite — escargots with pesto and cream.

The name of the dish is long but both the list of ingredients and the cooking procedure are short. I've done a meatless version of this dish and my daughter Sam loved it. The addition of beef in this version

I like trying new things. We were doing our weekly grocery shopping several weeks ago when I saw this jar of chili garlic sauce with ginger on the shelf. The brand is unfamiliar although the combination of spices is something

All throughout my childhood, my grandparents' house was the scene of countless family reunions. During preparations for Christmas, my younger brother and I would run all over the grounds watching everyone cook, picking and tasting meat and sweets even before

According to one of the Thai cookbooks I own, a dish called prawn and corn fritters is a popular street food in Thailand. I didn't see anyone selling this dish in Phuket but that didn't stop me from doing my

When people ask what I think of Phuket, I tell them the food is simply fantastic. It's an answer that weirds out many because I know that the question is just another way of asking whether I agree with the

A few weeks back, my husband and I had lunch at Causeway Seafood Restaurant and we chanced upon a dimsum item that we had never seen there before — steamed fish head. As far as I could tell, the ingredients

Like miso soup? So do we. It is great in its simplest form — with just tofu and wakame — but did you know that miso soup can be a base for so many variations? A couple of weekends ago,

Some people like their fried chicken without breading; others prefer to enjoy it with a coating of flour, bread crumbs, corn meal or even crushed corn flakes, Southern style. "Southern", of course, refers to the Southern states of the United