MARGIENARY

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us; that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, when the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace....

Sayang, I was not able to take a picture of the dish I cooked for the first time today but here's a look-alike courtesy of this webpage.   It was a belated birthday dinner for B.  We had 10 guests (three of whom are below 10 years old) hehe, my cousins who are always the first to taste my experimental dishes.  (Experimental in sense that they are recipes that I have never tried before.)  We had a baked chicken drowned in a mixture of butter, honey, and prepared mustard, plus a sprinkle of curry powder, and salt.  My, my, was it so good, my young cousins were fighting over chicken bones. Hmm, where is Christmas?  For some reason, Christmas is a bit off base for me this year.  I put up my Christmas tree as early as September to help me get into the 'Christmas mood' but I can't seem to get into it yet. There've been lots of activities and some major setbacks which had probably caused this lack of Christmas spirit.  But Oh well, it doesn't matte...

Sayang, I was not able to take a picture of the dish I cooked for the first time today. It was a belated birthday dinner for B. We had 10 guests (three of whom are below 10 years old) hehe, my cousins who are always the first to taste my experimental dishes. (Experimental in the sense that they are recipes that I have never tried before.) We had a baked chicken drowned in a mixture of butter, honey, and prepared mustard, plus a sprinkle of curry powder, and salt. My, my, was it so good, my young cousins were fighting over chicken bones. Hmm, where is Christmas? For some reason, Christmas is a bit off base for me this year. I put up my Christmas tree as early as September to help me get into the 'Christmas mood' but I can't seem to get into it yet. There've been lots of activities and some major setbacks which had probably caused this lack of Christmas spirit. But Oh well, it doesn't matter... that's just a feeling. The reason for the season is not for m...

It is 1:03AM and this is just another sleepless night. I sooo feel very sick today due to a picture in Facebook that a cousin had commented on which in turn appeared on my screen when I checked my facebook page today. I cannot seem to shake the image of a little boy's body in a dirty plastic basin, with his intestines hanging out of his bare tummy... and with his little head in another container! What sick sick person would do such a thing!!! At first, (and even until now) I was telling myself that the photo was probably photoshopped. But then it seems too real as there are no visible signs of manipulation. It is just soooo UNTHINKABLE! People who posts pictures that are so graphic like that specially in webpages like Facebook should do necessary precautions not to subject their friends or the friends of their friends to a viewing of it without consenting to view it. I wasn't meaning to look at it but it was a picture so my eyes naturally gravitated to it, and it was rig...

It is 1:03AM and this is just another sleepless night.  I sooo feel very sick today due to a picture in Facebook that a cousin had commented on which in turn appeared on my screen when I checked my facebook page today.  I cannot seem to shake the image of a little boy's body in a dirty plastic basin, with his intestines hanging out of his bare tummy... and with his little head in another container!  What sick sick person would do such a thing!!!  At first, (and even until now) I was telling myself that the photo was probably photoshopped.  But then it seems too real as there are no visible signs of manipulation.  It is just soooo UNTHINKABLE! People who posts pictures that are so graphic like that specially in webpages like Facebook should do necessary precautions not to subject their friends or the friends of their friends to a viewing of it without consenting to view it.  I wasn't meaning to look at it but it was a picture so my eyes naturally grav...

So Bong and I decided to ride to Solano on his bike to eat lunch yesterday and to check out the new SM grocery store (yes, not the SM Mall, just the Savemore Grocery store)--if they have my favorite Golden Crown butter (which, to my dismay, they don't), and to see if they have the Pao Tsin Dumplings station (I'm so thrilled they do).  We decided to eat lunch at the Food Fiesta Restaurant in Bayombong and then went on to Solano afterwards. There were loads and loads of people that I just bought frozen green peas, bought some steamed dumplings and ran out from there gasping for fresh air.  On our way home, Bong made the observation that the many people there were not really buying anything.  Most were holding a piece of Nova chips or clasping a bar of bath soap, and none was really pushing a cartfull of stuff as one would expect.  I even saw a frozen 2kg Purefoods Hotdog shoved in between cans of infant formula and other stuff shoved into the wrong places, as if peopl...

My heart is bleeding today for a cousin of mine whose 'fiancee' is getting married to another. I just got a call from him asking me what happened. Yes, asking me what happened because I was kind of the one who was in communication with the girl while we were all waiting for her to make her decision. The decision we were waiting for was the "yes, but not right now" kind of thing. We did not expect that it was going to be a "No, because I'm getting hitched to another man!" I just can hear the hurt in his voice and I can kind of feel his pain... so intense, and inexplicable that I do not know what to say to comfort him, so I just told him that I was so furious for him when I heard the news. What do you say to someone whose heart is breaking right at the moment you are talking to him, and whose dreams of family shattered right before your eyes (or ears)? What can one do but have her heart bleed too. If it hurts me so much like this, how much more for ...

The Kalanguyas have a cultural practice called "Tanga" (with stress on the first syllable). This is done by inviting oneself into the house of another for a meal. In the past, when somebody comes to your door and that person says he is 'timanga,' you don't have a choice but to let him in and feed him at least three meals. They are usually children but usually, a parent accompanies them. I remember when I was a little girl, I had a pet chicken. One evening, we had visitors, a young boy and his mother. I was surprised because my grandmother was hurrying to cook rice when we usually eat sweet potatoes for supper. My grandfather also was burning chicken feathers on the fire. The next morning, after breakfast, the mother and son left, with my pet chicken tuck under the young boy's armpit. I went to my grandmother and cried my heart out. She explained to me that the boy wanted my chicken. "Tinang-an to," she said. So I learned that one cannot r...

The Kalanguyas have a cultural practice called "Tanga" (with stress on the first syllable).  This is done by inviting oneself into the house of another for a meal.  In the past, when somebody comes to your door and that person says he is 'timanga,' you don't have a choice but to let him in and feed him at least three meals.  They are usually children but usually, a parent accompanies them.  I remember when I was a little girl, I had a pet chicken. One evening, we had visitors, a young boy and his mother.  I was surprised because my grandmother was hurrying to cook rice when we usually eat sweet potatoes for supper.  My grandfather also was burning chicken feathers on the fire. The next morning, after breakfast, the mother and son left, with my pet chicken tuck under the young boy's armpit.  I went to my grandmother and cried my heart out.  She explained to me that the boy wanted my chicken.  " Tinang-an to,"   she said.  S...

While my B was in Manila some weeks ago, I received a text message from him asking what would I like as a pasalubong. I told him to just buy me anything, and he said there is nothing called anything anywhere in the mall so I told him to buy me a movie that he thinks I would like. So he came home and my pasalubong was a DVD of the Julie and Julia movie. I enjoyed it although I found it dragging in some parts but still I was impressed with the premise of cooking a whole cookbook and blogging about it. One recipe that stuck to me after I finished watching the movie was the beouf bourguignon. It's probably because I was fascinated with the name. It sounds to me like a procedure that people at the salons do to your hair. :) So after the movie, I googled Julia Child, read up on her, then googled the beef recipe and studied at least four versions of it. I thought it would be something interesting to do so I saved the webpage and promised myself that I'll sacrifice a week budget when m...

While my B was in Manila some weeks ago, I received a text message from him asking me what would I like as a pasalubong. I told him to just buy me anything, and he said there is nothing called anything anywhere in the mall so I told him to buy me a movie that he thinks I would like. So he came home and my pasalubong was a DVD of the Julie and Julia movie. I enjoyed it although I found it dragging in some parts but still I was impressed with the premise of cooking a whole cookbook and blogging about it. One recipe that stuck to me after I finished watching the movie was the beouf bourguignon. It's probably because I was fascinated with the name. It sounds to me like a procedure that people at the salons do to your hair. :) So after the movie, I googled Julia Child, read up on her, then googled the beef recipe and studied at least four versions of it. I thought it would be something interesting to do so I saved the webpage and promised myself that I'll sacrifice a week budget whe...