i got this message from this kabbalah website i subscribe to. message from the universe - from the universe to me and now to you.
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Sunday, August 30
Anybody who ever made a difference in this world went through a struggle to find their real purpose. Don't dump all over yourself if you are feeling lost and worthless. It's a sign you're looking for your path.
Today, don't run to fix yourself when you feel broken. Stay with the discomfort. Walk through the fire and you'll find everything you need inside yourself. And yes, you will survive.
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Sunday 30 August 2009
Tuesday 25 August 2009
sometimes adventure can be kind of lonely
here i am one week away from starting my kitchen apprenticeship. i am quite excited, but yet again i am reminded at how lonely it can be starting another adventure by yourself in a foreign city.
i am reminded yet again of the distance between myself and everyone i hold dear to me. my family and my friends are all scattered in various parts of the globe. i have very few here in london with whom i share that sense of history with.
no one knows me here like my old friends and family do.
when i meet new friends, i have to hold back the compulsion to tell them as many things about me as i can in an effort to get them to know who i am. i know you cannot build these things overnight. these connections i have with the people i love - they are either built from blood or years and years of fighting, sharing, arguing, crying, winning and losing together.
right now, it seems to me that everyone is just so far away. and i am here typing my innermost thoughts out on my computer.
i recently saw 'adam' the movie and i was struck by how relevant it was to my life right now.
there is a part in the movie where adam reveals why he wanted beth to move with him to california and it wasn't the reason that beth was desperately waiting to hear. as a result beth refuses to go and adam is tortured at the thought that his life raft wasn't moving with him to california. in the end, adam simply decides to move, in spite of all of his fears. he moves to california. beth stays in new york. adam finds himself in california. beth also finds herself in new york.
i wanted to find myself again which is why i ran away to london. but in finding myself, i had to lose that physical connection - the comfortable availability of everyone i loved back in asia.
i think sometimes that is what we need - we need to lose the distraction of the 'beths' in our lives so we can focus on what it is that our 'adam' really needs.
but it doesn't change the fact that sometimes, finding our adam can be quite lonely, and that many times when you are alone, you just want, even if for the space of a few minutes to have one of your 'beths' sitting beside you to tell you it will be alright.
Sunday 23 August 2009
I Am Magic and So Are You
i am a magic dreamer. i believe in envisioning a life that is big, bright and full of life. i believe in big things. i believe that little things can contain big things and have big meanings - if you care enough to stand still for a moment and see them in the palm of your hand.
i am audacity. i ask for what i want and when i ask for it, i know i will get what i want. anyone can have what they want. as long as they are clear on what they want, they are willing to take inspired action and listen to messages from the universe. you don't have to give up anything to have what you want because everyone is entitled to have what they want. this is a generous universe presided over by a generous God.
this is why you do not have to covet what other people have. there is no need to be envious or jealous or harbor hatred in your heart that someone has what you think you also deserve to have. there is room for all your desires and wishes to come true - just like everyone else's.
we all find what we believe we will find.
if you believe that you have to cut off your arm to achieve what you want, then you will cut off your arm to achieve what you want.
i on the other hand, believe that all i have to do is hold out my hand to receive what i want.
receiving, just like giving, is an art. it is a virtue. in order to get what you want, you must know how to receive.
also, i like to give off the impression that i like to question everything in this world. in truth, i operate pretty much on blind faith. i question dogma, i question bigotry, i question intolerance and i question simply because i like to know facts and i like to reassure myself that my ability to remember things remain somewhat sharp. everything else i take pretty much on knowing that after all is said and done, everything will be alright. really, let me tell you, everything will set itself right.
my life generally, is one pretty much about operating on blind faith. instinct. intuition.
when i have an idea, i pretty much go with it and don't question why. it is only when i look back that i begin to see patterns - how i met this person who helped bring me to point b, that took me to point c and so on.
there is nothing such as coincidence in this world.
ralph waldo emerson said 'two people who are destined to meet apparently do so by chance. at exactly the right time'.
and i don't mean this purely in a romantic way, but life in general.
people who we need at a specific point in time will find their way to us when we need them exactly at the right time. we just need to recognize and accept that whoever is in our life at this time, whether we like them or not are meant to be there. everyone in our life is a messenger bearing a note from the universe. we cannot discount nor question - is it a big message or small? the bottomline is - it is a message. if you can't understand it now, keep it in the back of your mind and when your soul is ready to listen to the answer, you will understand without having to expend the effort to do so.
i understand now what eckkhart tolle was trying to say about the power of now.
take heart - for what you are looking for is also looking for you.
Friday 21 August 2009
Rant-i-sode 1.0
it's a friday night and instead of going out to drink with friends, i decided to just head on home. i had a healthy dinner of broccolini and chestnut mushrooms with oyster sauce. and my ubiquitous bowl of honey cheerios eaten without milk. i also stood over the packet of snickers on the kitchen counter, listening to the chocolate bars snickering at me 'you know you want me, you KNOW you want me' and me chanting 'i can resist...i will resist...' an hour long bath, jammies and into the bed with my laptop. and i can still hear the fucking packet snickering all the way from the kitchen.....yes you damn snicker bars...i WANT you like i WANT clive owen but it doesn't mean i'm going to have you.
once upon a time there was a woman who always ordered only ceasar salad in every restaurant she ate in. she had virtually eaten every version of it available - with grilled shrimp, with iceberg lettuce, with bottled dressing, with freshly prepared dressing, with grilled chicken, with romaine lettuce, with and without croutons, tossed in a wooden bowl, tossed in a glass bowl, with garlic, without garlic... you name every version of it and she had eaten it. ceasar salad. that's all she ever ate. the weird thing is that, she always wondered at the other stuff that people ate. and why they enjoyed eating them so much. she even said she was envious at the stuff that other people ate and sometimes jealous that they were enjoying all different sorts of things. when asked however to try other things, she always said no and proceeded to order ceasar salad yet again.
hey - if all you ever want to try and eat is ceasar salad, don't wonder why ceasar salad is the only thing you know.
i keep thinking about someone who i recently met and keep wondering at the reasons why we met. i tell myself there is never such a thing as coincidence. ralph waldo emerson said 'two people who are destined to meet do so, apparently by chance, at exactly the right time'. i love that line because it hints at the magic of two people meeting - and not just romantically but that every person we meet on this earth is a magical moment. i keep wondering why. it is never apparent to us why we meet people, sometimes it comes later, sometimes never. this one....i am waiting to hear why...because it felt magical when we met and i am sad if the story of how we met has met its end.
cheetos. i am desperately craving cheetos. and cheese flavored doritos. and sour cream and onion pringles. i am desperately craving the ones made in the states because they taste the way cheetos and doritos and pringles should. full on sodium shock. the ones here in london taste like sawdust - i have never tasted blander junk food in my entire life. bland junk food is the worst in the world. when you eat junk food like cheetos, it should rightfully taste like you just ate five years worth of salt in one packet all in one satisfying go. and end up with your fingers coated with cheese powder that you lick off after you lick the wrapper of the remaining powdered cheese dust. otherwise, what's the point? please God...someone, anyone ship me some cheetos. and cheese doritos. and sour cream and onion pringles. and while they're at it, tell them to include poppycock popcorn with almonds and skippy super chunky peanut butter. i swear my kids will be allowed all of these as much as they want. sodium authorities - go stuff it. sodium - i want to be full of it.
the five building blocks of essential nutrition for women's health and happiness: salt, sugar, fat, bags and shoes.
once upon a time there was a woman who always ordered only ceasar salad in every restaurant she ate in. she had virtually eaten every version of it available - with grilled shrimp, with iceberg lettuce, with bottled dressing, with freshly prepared dressing, with grilled chicken, with romaine lettuce, with and without croutons, tossed in a wooden bowl, tossed in a glass bowl, with garlic, without garlic... you name every version of it and she had eaten it. ceasar salad. that's all she ever ate. the weird thing is that, she always wondered at the other stuff that people ate. and why they enjoyed eating them so much. she even said she was envious at the stuff that other people ate and sometimes jealous that they were enjoying all different sorts of things. when asked however to try other things, she always said no and proceeded to order ceasar salad yet again.
hey - if all you ever want to try and eat is ceasar salad, don't wonder why ceasar salad is the only thing you know.
i keep thinking about someone who i recently met and keep wondering at the reasons why we met. i tell myself there is never such a thing as coincidence. ralph waldo emerson said 'two people who are destined to meet do so, apparently by chance, at exactly the right time'. i love that line because it hints at the magic of two people meeting - and not just romantically but that every person we meet on this earth is a magical moment. i keep wondering why. it is never apparent to us why we meet people, sometimes it comes later, sometimes never. this one....i am waiting to hear why...because it felt magical when we met and i am sad if the story of how we met has met its end.
cheetos. i am desperately craving cheetos. and cheese flavored doritos. and sour cream and onion pringles. i am desperately craving the ones made in the states because they taste the way cheetos and doritos and pringles should. full on sodium shock. the ones here in london taste like sawdust - i have never tasted blander junk food in my entire life. bland junk food is the worst in the world. when you eat junk food like cheetos, it should rightfully taste like you just ate five years worth of salt in one packet all in one satisfying go. and end up with your fingers coated with cheese powder that you lick off after you lick the wrapper of the remaining powdered cheese dust. otherwise, what's the point? please God...someone, anyone ship me some cheetos. and cheese doritos. and sour cream and onion pringles. and while they're at it, tell them to include poppycock popcorn with almonds and skippy super chunky peanut butter. i swear my kids will be allowed all of these as much as they want. sodium authorities - go stuff it. sodium - i want to be full of it.
the five building blocks of essential nutrition for women's health and happiness: salt, sugar, fat, bags and shoes.
Tuesday 18 August 2009
Good Eats in London 2
i just realized my memory is not as good as it used to be - i realized i left out quite a few of the places and things i like to eat in london. or maybe, it was masked by the fact that i wrote it in a flu haze.
whatever, these are the other places i remembered i liked:
Kulu-Kulu Japanese Restaurant - i discovered this when my good friend arnold took me. somewhere off a back alley on regent street. it's like upmarket yo-sushi (yo-sushi is a place to go to ONLY if you are in between life and death i.e. I NEED sushi and I DON'T CARE if it's semi-bad). the sushi though are puzzlingly huge. it's like japanese tasting sushi for the size of big white people. at very friendly prices. try the spinach bundles with sesame seed butter as it is very good.
nagomi - round the bend on a back street from bond street tube station. they do japanese home cooking style food so for idiots who think all japanese food is raw, this is a good place to get yourself un-ignorized. or rather educated. (why am i inventing words? because this is MY BLOG)
the fried rice with slivers of pickles, the aubergines, the stewed pork belly......i swear every child whose mother can cook like this needs to give their mums a five carat ring of their mum's stone of choosing every christmas. my friend makiko took me here. and guess what? she said her mum cooks WAY better than nagomi does. i believe her.
ashish' lamb taxi driver curry - i tasted this once and only once when my bestest friend kumuda was living in thailand. her husband ashish learned this from a taxi driver in india. i can only remember that you first make a paste out of chilis, shallots and ginger as i was the one who chopped them all up. and that you don't trim the fat from the lamb (who is the idiot who said you MUST trim fat from lamb?!!!! die idiot! die!). we ate this with potatoes sauteed in butter which kumuda then sprinkled with salt and gram masala and rice. ABSOLUTE HEAVEN. i tried replicating the bloody thing and frankly couldn't get it right. this is why i am saving up to go to goa this christmas. first to finally kiss kumuda's super baby twins in person (and hug and pinch and spoil and play boo with) and second to eat more of this curry and hopefully learn how to do the dang curry right. ok i didn't eat this in london but again - this is MY blog.
waitrose roasted chicken - they always get it right. ok sometimes the chicken is a bit overdone from the rotisserie but that's why you should only ever eat the thigh and leg portions. if you're too lazy to cook, get one from waitrose with some of their cheese tortellini spinach salad and a tiny tub of haagen dazs. you're set then for a good dinner. if you have leftover chicken breast meat, chop it roughly, nap it with some mayonnaise, throw in some fine chopped gherkins and onion, salt, pepper and voila - chicken salad for a sandwich. you can top it with some arugula and tomato.
theo randall - at the hotel intercontinental in mayfair. rustic italian food at non-rustic prices but oh so UBER yummy.
sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream - when i first tasted this i thought 'God save the queen'. i like it really soaked in toffee with some of the dates still in the mixture. i am such a sticky toffee pudding whore i order it all the time when i see it on the menu and even the supermarket ones from sainsbury's and m&s can never escape from me. every winter, i stock up on m&s (my favorite supermarket brand for sticky toffee pudding) plus their madagascan vanilla clotted cream ice cream. as long as i have both, i can be snowed in till kingdom come.
the great british strawberry - served with mounds of whipped chantilly cream. again, God save the queen for this annual wimbledon summer treat.
leong's legend - i discovered this place walking around in chinatown for a new chinese place to eat at other than gerrard's. try the pork with sticky rice and the stewed pork belly...they do pork right and trust me that is high praise for a filipina who is obsessed with piggy things to eat.
the blueberry pie at paul's - i usually eat only blueberries out of a box, fresh. i can't stand them baked into pastry but this one i make an exception for. oh and blueberry cheesecake. and blueberry muffins. (ok i may have been too hasty at saying i hate them baked into things...)
there is also this vietnamese place arnold also took me to. the name escapes me. EVERYTHING on their menu is EFFING GOOD and AUTHENTIC and CHEAP. again home style. i will write about it again when i remember the name. i know how to get there if you were with me but i can't remember the name of the place!
olympic cafe - this is a small, cheap and cheerful place on lower marsh street about 5-10 mins walk from the waterloo tube station. they sell home cooking style chinese, singaporean, malaysian and thai dishes. again, EFFING GOOD and CHEAP. the thai dishes are authentic tasting i can certify. the rest...i don't think are authentic but are good anyway. the spicy singaporean noodles and the duck on rice hits my spot every single time. and each only costs £4.50.....
pearl restaurant and bar - oh so pretty french food. this is where i first tried the leek terrine (kind of like a lasagne made of spring onions) and i couldn't understand it. i also had the rabbit ballotine (a bit dry if i remember it right) but this was saved by the molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and the caramel sauce that was painted onto the plate. i remember thinking (as i was trying to scrape as much of the caramel off the plate onto my fork to eat with the cake) 'why couldn't they have just slathered this on the whole cake? it would've made my CENTURY.' but i quickly banished my plebian thoughts...and admired the million pearls strung out on strings dangling from the chandeliers....ahhh....i felt when i walked in, this is truly a restaurant for an empress....hehehehe......if i were to be honest, i was more admiring of the decor and the prettiness of the food than the taste. however we can fix that since i'll be working there soon.
hmm...i think i need new discoveries for my list. time to find more good eats!!!!
whatever, these are the other places i remembered i liked:
Kulu-Kulu Japanese Restaurant - i discovered this when my good friend arnold took me. somewhere off a back alley on regent street. it's like upmarket yo-sushi (yo-sushi is a place to go to ONLY if you are in between life and death i.e. I NEED sushi and I DON'T CARE if it's semi-bad). the sushi though are puzzlingly huge. it's like japanese tasting sushi for the size of big white people. at very friendly prices. try the spinach bundles with sesame seed butter as it is very good.
nagomi - round the bend on a back street from bond street tube station. they do japanese home cooking style food so for idiots who think all japanese food is raw, this is a good place to get yourself un-ignorized. or rather educated. (why am i inventing words? because this is MY BLOG)
the fried rice with slivers of pickles, the aubergines, the stewed pork belly......i swear every child whose mother can cook like this needs to give their mums a five carat ring of their mum's stone of choosing every christmas. my friend makiko took me here. and guess what? she said her mum cooks WAY better than nagomi does. i believe her.
ashish' lamb taxi driver curry - i tasted this once and only once when my bestest friend kumuda was living in thailand. her husband ashish learned this from a taxi driver in india. i can only remember that you first make a paste out of chilis, shallots and ginger as i was the one who chopped them all up. and that you don't trim the fat from the lamb (who is the idiot who said you MUST trim fat from lamb?!!!! die idiot! die!). we ate this with potatoes sauteed in butter which kumuda then sprinkled with salt and gram masala and rice. ABSOLUTE HEAVEN. i tried replicating the bloody thing and frankly couldn't get it right. this is why i am saving up to go to goa this christmas. first to finally kiss kumuda's super baby twins in person (and hug and pinch and spoil and play boo with) and second to eat more of this curry and hopefully learn how to do the dang curry right. ok i didn't eat this in london but again - this is MY blog.
waitrose roasted chicken - they always get it right. ok sometimes the chicken is a bit overdone from the rotisserie but that's why you should only ever eat the thigh and leg portions. if you're too lazy to cook, get one from waitrose with some of their cheese tortellini spinach salad and a tiny tub of haagen dazs. you're set then for a good dinner. if you have leftover chicken breast meat, chop it roughly, nap it with some mayonnaise, throw in some fine chopped gherkins and onion, salt, pepper and voila - chicken salad for a sandwich. you can top it with some arugula and tomato.
theo randall - at the hotel intercontinental in mayfair. rustic italian food at non-rustic prices but oh so UBER yummy.
sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream - when i first tasted this i thought 'God save the queen'. i like it really soaked in toffee with some of the dates still in the mixture. i am such a sticky toffee pudding whore i order it all the time when i see it on the menu and even the supermarket ones from sainsbury's and m&s can never escape from me. every winter, i stock up on m&s (my favorite supermarket brand for sticky toffee pudding) plus their madagascan vanilla clotted cream ice cream. as long as i have both, i can be snowed in till kingdom come.
the great british strawberry - served with mounds of whipped chantilly cream. again, God save the queen for this annual wimbledon summer treat.
leong's legend - i discovered this place walking around in chinatown for a new chinese place to eat at other than gerrard's. try the pork with sticky rice and the stewed pork belly...they do pork right and trust me that is high praise for a filipina who is obsessed with piggy things to eat.
the blueberry pie at paul's - i usually eat only blueberries out of a box, fresh. i can't stand them baked into pastry but this one i make an exception for. oh and blueberry cheesecake. and blueberry muffins. (ok i may have been too hasty at saying i hate them baked into things...)
there is also this vietnamese place arnold also took me to. the name escapes me. EVERYTHING on their menu is EFFING GOOD and AUTHENTIC and CHEAP. again home style. i will write about it again when i remember the name. i know how to get there if you were with me but i can't remember the name of the place!
olympic cafe - this is a small, cheap and cheerful place on lower marsh street about 5-10 mins walk from the waterloo tube station. they sell home cooking style chinese, singaporean, malaysian and thai dishes. again, EFFING GOOD and CHEAP. the thai dishes are authentic tasting i can certify. the rest...i don't think are authentic but are good anyway. the spicy singaporean noodles and the duck on rice hits my spot every single time. and each only costs £4.50.....
pearl restaurant and bar - oh so pretty french food. this is where i first tried the leek terrine (kind of like a lasagne made of spring onions) and i couldn't understand it. i also had the rabbit ballotine (a bit dry if i remember it right) but this was saved by the molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and the caramel sauce that was painted onto the plate. i remember thinking (as i was trying to scrape as much of the caramel off the plate onto my fork to eat with the cake) 'why couldn't they have just slathered this on the whole cake? it would've made my CENTURY.' but i quickly banished my plebian thoughts...and admired the million pearls strung out on strings dangling from the chandeliers....ahhh....i felt when i walked in, this is truly a restaurant for an empress....hehehehe......if i were to be honest, i was more admiring of the decor and the prettiness of the food than the taste. however we can fix that since i'll be working there soon.
hmm...i think i need new discoveries for my list. time to find more good eats!!!!
Friday 14 August 2009
The Rise of The Empress Apprentice
no - i am not about to face the squadron of alan rice nor donald trump.
i haven't written anything in my blog of late because i have not been in my head as much or as my good friend cathy says about me, i didn't have anything torturing me so i felt i could not write.
which isn't necessarily true because on a daily basis, i encounter my daily angst in varying degrees of why am i here and what am i doing the rest of my life.
i guess to some extent - cathy is right. i don't write if i don't feel like it. when i am in the mood to write, it's as if something takes over me and i am not really lucid, but i feel like some otherworldly being in someone else's body typing away.
when that happens, i end up writing something really funny or quite good judging from my hopelessly supportive and encouraging friends' reactions.
anyways, i've changed my blog's name.
last thursday, i interviewed with chef jun tanaka to apprentice in his kitchen for maybe 1-2 days a week. he invited me over for an interview. i guess what i said suitably convinced him of my desire to learn to cook professionally - so he accepted.
chef jun tanaka runs pearl restuarant and bar which is an uber hot french restaurant with an award winning wine cellar. he was trained by albert roux and marco pierre white among other 3 star michelin chefs he trained with.
starting september, i will be working in his kitchen 1-2 days a week. if i don't kill myself with exhaustion that is, as i will still be doing my 5 days a week job which pays the rent and the bills (well barely).
it is an unpaid apprenticeship. even freshly graduated culinary students are unpaid - how much more someone completely untrained?
i can hear all your various reactions now. from 'well finally! you're going to do what you've wanted all along' to 'huh? i never knew she wanted to cook?'. hey, i've been with my therapist for a year and a half now and i just told him last week i wanted to cook.
how does that connect with studying for my mba and selling luxury make-up in the middle of a recession? i don't know really and i don't care to try and make sense of it.
all i know is i am so grateful for all these opportunities, which seem far and few during regular times, much more in the midst of a recession where unemployment has risen to levels higher that post world war 2.
and all it took was one email. and one interview - where i told him that a preserved human brain has the consistency of foie gras and that cat protein fibers look exactly like chicken (a throwback from my days when i thought i wanted to be a doctor). and that after working for 10 years in advertising, i looked around me and discovered i had 4 advertising books - and 163 cook books and a collection of food magazines lovingly preserved and stashed in order of publication. i also go around telling people that the top three chefs in order of number of michelin stars are: alain ducasse (25 stars), joel robuchon (18 stars) and gordon ramsay (12). the only american on that list comes in fourth - thomas keller of The French Laundry (7) and he trained under alain ducasse. i am designated chief family cook during holidays and whenever i am at home in manila. my friends always want to come to my house when i tell them i am in the mood to cook. i love going around markets - when i travel that is all i want to do. beautiful eggplants, dirt encrusted mushrooms, cheese and meat displays excite the hell out of me. i can tell you about the differences in beef in america, europe, australia and asia arising from their feeding process. what is my passion? no shit sherlock.
i wanted to hit myself 'why didn't i even bother thinking that before?!'. i guess though, when you are ready, the teacher will come. when you are ready, the universe will show you how.
i think what happened to me was that i never thought that a job was something you truly loved to do. somehow, i had it in my head that a job was supposed to be something you worked at, not necessarily what you loved. you could like it, or maybe even love bits of it but it didn't necessarily have to touch your soul or turn you on so completely you could talk about it till the cows came home. so that's the role my jobs took in my life.
i also thought a job, as long as you were climbing the ladder, you were getting a promotion, getting more people under you, more countries under your responsibility, you were getting more money, you drove a fancy car, it allowed you to shop like a mad woman - that was what a good job was. well okay - i had a good job. i had many, many good jobs. but i NEVER loved any of them.
because i didn't love any of them - i took them all for granted and even hated them because some of them made me hate myself because i knew i was just doing those jobs because of the money, the title and the sheen of grandeur those jobs gave me.
they fed my image but not my soul.
and it is amazing that i had to run away to london and learn to realize that for myself. somewhere, sometime during my stay here, i finally had the courage to start doing something i truly LOVE.
i think it also wasn't just that i had a different perception of what a job was.
i think i was also afraid of what i loved. many of us, know what we want, what we love, but we are also afraid of going for it for whatever reason. i was afraid because for too long, i thought i was going to be less if i didn't have what i previously thought i needed to have.
anais nin said 'And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.'
i am living proof that you can convincingly tell many people one thing, when in fact in my heart, i was holding onto something completely different.
why i kept holding it inside for so long - i don't know. and i don't care to rationalize why it took me this long.
i know now, for sure, i want to cook. just like i want to write.
i wrote once in my facebook headline 'If it's not mad, passionate, addictive, life changing, spiritually uplifting love that makes you believe you can change the world (or something like it)....it's not worth it.'
cooking here i come. The Empress Apprentice is here.
i haven't written anything in my blog of late because i have not been in my head as much or as my good friend cathy says about me, i didn't have anything torturing me so i felt i could not write.
which isn't necessarily true because on a daily basis, i encounter my daily angst in varying degrees of why am i here and what am i doing the rest of my life.
i guess to some extent - cathy is right. i don't write if i don't feel like it. when i am in the mood to write, it's as if something takes over me and i am not really lucid, but i feel like some otherworldly being in someone else's body typing away.
when that happens, i end up writing something really funny or quite good judging from my hopelessly supportive and encouraging friends' reactions.
anyways, i've changed my blog's name.
last thursday, i interviewed with chef jun tanaka to apprentice in his kitchen for maybe 1-2 days a week. he invited me over for an interview. i guess what i said suitably convinced him of my desire to learn to cook professionally - so he accepted.
chef jun tanaka runs pearl restuarant and bar which is an uber hot french restaurant with an award winning wine cellar. he was trained by albert roux and marco pierre white among other 3 star michelin chefs he trained with.
starting september, i will be working in his kitchen 1-2 days a week. if i don't kill myself with exhaustion that is, as i will still be doing my 5 days a week job which pays the rent and the bills (well barely).
it is an unpaid apprenticeship. even freshly graduated culinary students are unpaid - how much more someone completely untrained?
i can hear all your various reactions now. from 'well finally! you're going to do what you've wanted all along' to 'huh? i never knew she wanted to cook?'. hey, i've been with my therapist for a year and a half now and i just told him last week i wanted to cook.
how does that connect with studying for my mba and selling luxury make-up in the middle of a recession? i don't know really and i don't care to try and make sense of it.
all i know is i am so grateful for all these opportunities, which seem far and few during regular times, much more in the midst of a recession where unemployment has risen to levels higher that post world war 2.
and all it took was one email. and one interview - where i told him that a preserved human brain has the consistency of foie gras and that cat protein fibers look exactly like chicken (a throwback from my days when i thought i wanted to be a doctor). and that after working for 10 years in advertising, i looked around me and discovered i had 4 advertising books - and 163 cook books and a collection of food magazines lovingly preserved and stashed in order of publication. i also go around telling people that the top three chefs in order of number of michelin stars are: alain ducasse (25 stars), joel robuchon (18 stars) and gordon ramsay (12). the only american on that list comes in fourth - thomas keller of The French Laundry (7) and he trained under alain ducasse. i am designated chief family cook during holidays and whenever i am at home in manila. my friends always want to come to my house when i tell them i am in the mood to cook. i love going around markets - when i travel that is all i want to do. beautiful eggplants, dirt encrusted mushrooms, cheese and meat displays excite the hell out of me. i can tell you about the differences in beef in america, europe, australia and asia arising from their feeding process. what is my passion? no shit sherlock.
i wanted to hit myself 'why didn't i even bother thinking that before?!'. i guess though, when you are ready, the teacher will come. when you are ready, the universe will show you how.
i think what happened to me was that i never thought that a job was something you truly loved to do. somehow, i had it in my head that a job was supposed to be something you worked at, not necessarily what you loved. you could like it, or maybe even love bits of it but it didn't necessarily have to touch your soul or turn you on so completely you could talk about it till the cows came home. so that's the role my jobs took in my life.
i also thought a job, as long as you were climbing the ladder, you were getting a promotion, getting more people under you, more countries under your responsibility, you were getting more money, you drove a fancy car, it allowed you to shop like a mad woman - that was what a good job was. well okay - i had a good job. i had many, many good jobs. but i NEVER loved any of them.
because i didn't love any of them - i took them all for granted and even hated them because some of them made me hate myself because i knew i was just doing those jobs because of the money, the title and the sheen of grandeur those jobs gave me.
they fed my image but not my soul.
and it is amazing that i had to run away to london and learn to realize that for myself. somewhere, sometime during my stay here, i finally had the courage to start doing something i truly LOVE.
i think it also wasn't just that i had a different perception of what a job was.
i think i was also afraid of what i loved. many of us, know what we want, what we love, but we are also afraid of going for it for whatever reason. i was afraid because for too long, i thought i was going to be less if i didn't have what i previously thought i needed to have.
anais nin said 'And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.'
i am living proof that you can convincingly tell many people one thing, when in fact in my heart, i was holding onto something completely different.
why i kept holding it inside for so long - i don't know. and i don't care to rationalize why it took me this long.
i know now, for sure, i want to cook. just like i want to write.
i wrote once in my facebook headline 'If it's not mad, passionate, addictive, life changing, spiritually uplifting love that makes you believe you can change the world (or something like it)....it's not worth it.'
cooking here i come. The Empress Apprentice is here.
Wednesday 5 August 2009
oversleeping
i think i have overslept in the past few days and the result is that i am now unable to sleep. when i was sick, i was sleeping 12-14 hours straight and felt like i needed more. five days of doing that in a row and now i am wide awake and haven't slept a wink in 24 hours. this is crazy.....
for lack of anything else to do, i decided to take random pictures in the park. and i am glad i did. i thought it was 6am when i went out but as i started taking pictures, i realized, dang....this is too dark for 6am in the london summer. then i checked my cellphone and bloody hell it was 5am.
i am glad i saw the park when light hadn't fully come. ordinarily, it is filled with screaming children, couples holding hands walking or sitting on the grass oblivious to the screaming children, picnickers and rollerbladers. it was as if i was looking at an entirely different park to one that i knew. my singular memory of it prior to this was a noisy, busy, crowded place. at 5am in the morning, it was deathly silent, lonely. i could feel the park thinking inside its head, wondering what were the kinds of people who would be coming today, the trees stretching their arms anxiously awaiting the gossip that would filter from all the talk and the grass bracing itself for the arrival of the bus and car fumes.
and then i started seeing those headlines flash in my head - 'walker raped in park at 5am in the morning'. i quickly gathered up my things and headed out of there.
i suppose when we see things or people only in one light, we really see them only in a singular dimension. perhaps we like to do that because we like to preserve the memory of who we think they are. in a sense though that is quite shallow, because that would be failing to appreciate the wholeness of something, or someone in all the different kinds of light we could potentially experience them. i suppose it is just natural human impulse to want to preserve or see things in as beautiful a memory as we want it to be. however, even if things turn out to be dark or lonely in a different light, that should only serve to enrich how beautiful they are. things can still be beautiful - even in the dark, even if they look lonely or even menacing.
i also took a photo of a dandelion. i remember once someone told me, 'you remind me of those wildflowers that you can't pick because if you do, the fluff flies away. people get hay fever from it'.
hmmm....i am a dandelion....i give people hay fever.
for lack of anything else to do, i decided to take random pictures in the park. and i am glad i did. i thought it was 6am when i went out but as i started taking pictures, i realized, dang....this is too dark for 6am in the london summer. then i checked my cellphone and bloody hell it was 5am.
i am glad i saw the park when light hadn't fully come. ordinarily, it is filled with screaming children, couples holding hands walking or sitting on the grass oblivious to the screaming children, picnickers and rollerbladers. it was as if i was looking at an entirely different park to one that i knew. my singular memory of it prior to this was a noisy, busy, crowded place. at 5am in the morning, it was deathly silent, lonely. i could feel the park thinking inside its head, wondering what were the kinds of people who would be coming today, the trees stretching their arms anxiously awaiting the gossip that would filter from all the talk and the grass bracing itself for the arrival of the bus and car fumes.
and then i started seeing those headlines flash in my head - 'walker raped in park at 5am in the morning'. i quickly gathered up my things and headed out of there.
i suppose when we see things or people only in one light, we really see them only in a singular dimension. perhaps we like to do that because we like to preserve the memory of who we think they are. in a sense though that is quite shallow, because that would be failing to appreciate the wholeness of something, or someone in all the different kinds of light we could potentially experience them. i suppose it is just natural human impulse to want to preserve or see things in as beautiful a memory as we want it to be. however, even if things turn out to be dark or lonely in a different light, that should only serve to enrich how beautiful they are. things can still be beautiful - even in the dark, even if they look lonely or even menacing.
i also took a photo of a dandelion. i remember once someone told me, 'you remind me of those wildflowers that you can't pick because if you do, the fluff flies away. people get hay fever from it'.
hmmm....i am a dandelion....i give people hay fever.
Monday 3 August 2009
Why I am Here
i am writing this post because i have been living now for three years in this land and for the first time in my life, i have finally made the decision to live here. let me clarify - for three years i have existed in london. today, i have decided to live in london.
as my therapist said, 'you may be in london but in reality, you are still in heathrow, waiting to take a plane ride somewhere else only you know'.
only the Empress lives in a suspended state of life like she does.
i know now, i am here. finally, i am really here. it doesn't matter what the reasons are. i am here. and that is all that matters. time now to stop avoiding the unavoidable. time now to live.
i went through all my old blog entries and unearthed this post when i left leo burnett. that was when i ran away. i just packed it all up and ran away - to where i was running i didn't know. what i was running away from? many, many things. demons, disillusionment, a broken spirit, a meaningless life, a general flat emptiness. so i ran away to london.
i re-read this post that i wrote five years ago. the lessons are still the same. fortunately, in the span of three years that i have lived here, i have begun to find myself again...
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July 26, 2004: 32
One day I woke up and discovered I had turned 32. The last time I looked, I was 23 and I had to wonder myself how I turned from 23 to 32 without even looking.
I surmised that perhaps the problem was that I wasn’t even looking at all. In between, had metamorphosed from the strange, psychotic child with the strange I.Q. into this psychotic wonder woman, with the strange I.Q. I lived a life that was fairy tale meets kitschy diva drama of breakdowns, passion, survival and perhaps, loosely do I use the term, redemption.
While suffering from near poverty, 2 nervous breakdowns, 7 years of countless prescriptions for Prozac, Ritalin, Epival, lithium aka Depakin chloride, Trazodone, Thorazine, a string of therapists, endless hours of personal introspection and talks with well meaning, hopelessly supportive and empathetic friends – I managed to reach the apex of my advertising career in record time for such a late starter.
You see - I am living proof that psychos walk around all the time, holding down regular jobs, attending meetings and talking like regular people.
I’ve done the regional posting where I practically lived on planes and got paid money so I would ignore the fact that work had taken over my life completely. There wasn’t any time or space for my personal life. With the exception of work, everything else stood frozen in time and that included my ovulation.
People talk endlessly about how women are transformed into angry, weeping, lashing, melancholic banshees when they get their period. The flipside is you must wonder what happens to a woman when her periods suddenly stop in conjunction with her life.
There I was living on planes, hopping from one hotel to the other, with a fancy regional director title on my name card, presiding over a team, shopping like mad with my credit cards that were my welcome badge in any designer store I walked into and walked out of with various goodies, more money in the bank than I thought I would ever have, while working 15 hours a day Sunday to Sunday.
A year and a half later, my apartment still remained an empty white shell begging for some sign that a being lived there. When I started to pack to return to Manila, I discovered heaps of clothes and boxes of shoes with tags attached to them. All were unused. Some fit and some didn’t. I could not even remotely remember when or why I bought them all.
One day during a meeting, I thought out loud as my brand manager tried to cajole me into paying attention during the meeting –“ Someone tell me again why I am doing this. If this is such a great job, why am I so miserable?”. It was then that I got up and told my boss I quit. And just like that I went back to the meeting feeling like someone had pulled out a thorn the size of a sequoia tree from my chest.
Don’t think that having that size of a thorn pulled out of you makes it all stop. A thorn that size will leave a gaping hole in you that will bleed so badly. It will leave you in so much pain you wouldn’t even be able to decide between staunching the blood to dress the wound or just lying down there to die.
I actually did both. Being the depressive diva that I am, at first I decided to savor the pathos of almost having had my soul sucked completely out of me. I spent the first 2 weeks in my bed, surrounded by 8 large pillows, lolling about like a baby. 3 days of lying in bed, the first of a series of thoughts started coming to me – my God, how wonderful fabric softener smelled like and how wonderfully soft it made the sheets. Two years of my advertising life I spent trying to sell truckloads of detergent to all the housewives and laundry women of the Philippines and this thought occurred only to me after I had left the business. Other people stop and smell the roses. I stop and smell my newly laundered, freshly changed sheets.
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the career hasn't been the same since i packed it all up. in fact, i am still a-wavering and a-wandering about what to do next.
however, i am happy to let you know that every time since i wrote this, after i ran away and found myself in london, i have stopped and i still smell my newly laundered, freshly changed sheets.
Sunday 2 August 2009
Henna Hands
ah, finally the antibiotics have kicked in on the fourth day and i am feeling almost like my usual self (whatever that is).
i am not working in the next four days so i have the luxury of doing nothing really. ordinarily, i would be stressed planning what to do, under the misguided notion that i must plan everything out in order that i would feel like i made the most of my holiday. i usually end up feeling overactivitized, regretting having done too much when i should have done nothing and feeling frazzled like i need another holiday just to undo the effects of the overplanned vacation.
so i decided today, i would just do what felt right.
two wardrobe changes later, i found myself at the V&A museum looking at the flier announcing an Arabian nights theme. of course, the food exhibit really caught my eye and i had arrived just in time for when it started. when i got there, the food exhibit was really more two tables where they were displaying nuts and dried fruit (which suspiciously looked like products i usually see at the nuts and fruit aisle at sainsbury's and waitrose). they were giving away olives, hummus and flatbread. i was shattered.
i was thinking - whole sheep roasting on a spit, pigeon in bstila, beef simmering to utter melting tenderness in a tagine and couscous slowly softening and cooking over gently simmering lamb flavored with a million arabian spices. i was hoping to find an arabian grandmother bossing about a brigade of cooks, so harassed at the prospect of entertaining a british crowd around their exhibit, their veils would be half hanging off their heads, sweat glistening on their foreheads as they feverishly focused on demonstrating how to make bstila. bstila, is a very thin pastry like a piece of lumpia wrapper prepared by hand over a searingly hot plate (similar to a crepe maker). the plate is heated to around 200 degrees centigrade. the bstila maker then takes a piece of wet dough and painstakingly applies it like a paste, evenly and thinly on the searing hot plate, by hand producing a thin, sheer pastry veil in a matter of seconds. it takes years to master this skill, enduring second degree burns along the way. it would have been amazing to watch someone do this.
my fabulous imagination i think is often the source of fabulous disappointment.
i often find myself, anticipating things and more often than not, i begin to paint or visualize certain things in my head about what i would find. sometimes, it is exactly as i thought it would be. sometimes more fabulous than i thought it would be. more often than not, it is not what i thought it would be.
so i sat in the cafe instead and had a coffee and a carrot cake. coffee is my reliable panacea to all the ills of my world. the carrot cake was forgettable but it was saved by two layers of cream cheese frosting. as i sat at my table, an arabian family sat at the table across me to rest. they had a toddler with them - a little boy with a fabulous mop of curly hair and big beautiful dark eyes with lashes that looked like someone applied an entire bottleful of mascara to them.
his cheeks were bulging and he had an ecstatic look on his face. i realized, he had stuffed his mouth with the sugar cubes available for free, in the jar that sat at his family's table. as he turned around, he realized, EVERY table had a jar of sugar cubes. a look of momentary panic crossed his face then he ran to the table beside mine, which was left open by the previous occupants, and started filling his pockets with more sugar cubes, like he had just found aladdin's stash of gold nuggets. i wanted to take his picture and post it- cheeks filled to bursting while he was busily stashing away more in his pockets, but i was afraid i would be faced with an irate mother and have to face questioning for taking the photo.
i caught his mother's eye and we smiled at each other, amused at her son's antics.
there i was nursing my disappointment over an overimaginized exhibit and here was a little boy who found his treasure in a jar full of free sugar cubes.
the family then left. a few minutes after they did, another family came and sat two tables away from mine. the mom was feeding her two children chocolate cake and appreciative 'YUMMY!!!' was emanating from both the kids much to my amusement. their daddy arrived (from the loo visit i suppose) and took them to the food stand to get more tea and cake i suppose. when they got back, the little boy (whose name was mustafa if i overheard it right) was attracted to the same jar of sugar cubes and was begging his mummy to eat some. his sister saw me working on my laptop, typing this and she volunteered, 'You can take a picture of my hand (showing me the mendhi she had done on her hand) and put it on your computer if you want'. her name was fatima (as i heard from her mum).
i definitely wanted to do that. so snap of a photo i did. her little brother came long and of course demanded i took his photo as well. so here they are both on my blog and they are fantastic.
disappointed imaginings of an arabian feast be damned. i was quite alright after that.
i am not working in the next four days so i have the luxury of doing nothing really. ordinarily, i would be stressed planning what to do, under the misguided notion that i must plan everything out in order that i would feel like i made the most of my holiday. i usually end up feeling overactivitized, regretting having done too much when i should have done nothing and feeling frazzled like i need another holiday just to undo the effects of the overplanned vacation.
so i decided today, i would just do what felt right.
two wardrobe changes later, i found myself at the V&A museum looking at the flier announcing an Arabian nights theme. of course, the food exhibit really caught my eye and i had arrived just in time for when it started. when i got there, the food exhibit was really more two tables where they were displaying nuts and dried fruit (which suspiciously looked like products i usually see at the nuts and fruit aisle at sainsbury's and waitrose). they were giving away olives, hummus and flatbread. i was shattered.
i was thinking - whole sheep roasting on a spit, pigeon in bstila, beef simmering to utter melting tenderness in a tagine and couscous slowly softening and cooking over gently simmering lamb flavored with a million arabian spices. i was hoping to find an arabian grandmother bossing about a brigade of cooks, so harassed at the prospect of entertaining a british crowd around their exhibit, their veils would be half hanging off their heads, sweat glistening on their foreheads as they feverishly focused on demonstrating how to make bstila. bstila, is a very thin pastry like a piece of lumpia wrapper prepared by hand over a searingly hot plate (similar to a crepe maker). the plate is heated to around 200 degrees centigrade. the bstila maker then takes a piece of wet dough and painstakingly applies it like a paste, evenly and thinly on the searing hot plate, by hand producing a thin, sheer pastry veil in a matter of seconds. it takes years to master this skill, enduring second degree burns along the way. it would have been amazing to watch someone do this.
my fabulous imagination i think is often the source of fabulous disappointment.
i often find myself, anticipating things and more often than not, i begin to paint or visualize certain things in my head about what i would find. sometimes, it is exactly as i thought it would be. sometimes more fabulous than i thought it would be. more often than not, it is not what i thought it would be.
so i sat in the cafe instead and had a coffee and a carrot cake. coffee is my reliable panacea to all the ills of my world. the carrot cake was forgettable but it was saved by two layers of cream cheese frosting. as i sat at my table, an arabian family sat at the table across me to rest. they had a toddler with them - a little boy with a fabulous mop of curly hair and big beautiful dark eyes with lashes that looked like someone applied an entire bottleful of mascara to them.
his cheeks were bulging and he had an ecstatic look on his face. i realized, he had stuffed his mouth with the sugar cubes available for free, in the jar that sat at his family's table. as he turned around, he realized, EVERY table had a jar of sugar cubes. a look of momentary panic crossed his face then he ran to the table beside mine, which was left open by the previous occupants, and started filling his pockets with more sugar cubes, like he had just found aladdin's stash of gold nuggets. i wanted to take his picture and post it- cheeks filled to bursting while he was busily stashing away more in his pockets, but i was afraid i would be faced with an irate mother and have to face questioning for taking the photo.
i caught his mother's eye and we smiled at each other, amused at her son's antics.
there i was nursing my disappointment over an overimaginized exhibit and here was a little boy who found his treasure in a jar full of free sugar cubes.
the family then left. a few minutes after they did, another family came and sat two tables away from mine. the mom was feeding her two children chocolate cake and appreciative 'YUMMY!!!' was emanating from both the kids much to my amusement. their daddy arrived (from the loo visit i suppose) and took them to the food stand to get more tea and cake i suppose. when they got back, the little boy (whose name was mustafa if i overheard it right) was attracted to the same jar of sugar cubes and was begging his mummy to eat some. his sister saw me working on my laptop, typing this and she volunteered, 'You can take a picture of my hand (showing me the mendhi she had done on her hand) and put it on your computer if you want'. her name was fatima (as i heard from her mum).
i definitely wanted to do that. so snap of a photo i did. her little brother came long and of course demanded i took his photo as well. so here they are both on my blog and they are fantastic.
disappointed imaginings of an arabian feast be damned. i was quite alright after that.
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