Hello There!

Let me tell you a little something about myself…

I have illusions of grandeur, when it comes to food, though I am not from a place where the delicious salmon on my plate was just caught that morning (or the day before and the day before that, for that matter). I don’t have the leisure of visiting chic European-style farmer’s markets (read: Salcedo Market) on the weekends. I get my food from either a chain of grocery stores that attempt to emulate the ones in the USA, or a wet market, complete with a merry band of black flies.

And yet, I remain to have illusions of grandeur. I’d like to explain why:

I’ve lived in the Philippines all my life, so I have witnessed the progression of gastronomy here from the 1990’s to present. That isn’t saying much, as anyone who has been alive and aware from 1990 onwards would also have an idea of the progress of food. But I’d sure like to share what it was like for me.

The 1990’s was my childhood, so I wish to share glimpses of 1990’s food from a simple perspective: I grew up considering McDonald’s and Jollibee Spaghetti pretty much a staple of my diet. The boom of fast food franchises from around the world was looking good, but not as intense as it is now. This is to say that the chains back then actually had more of a staying power. In fact, a lot of them were still open until a decade later, when the industry started to become less and less forgiving. Other than that, I ate mostly a mixture of Chinese food and Americanized food. That being said, I grew up with a palate that was friendlier to foreign foods, rather than the local fare.

Back then, I only knew salty and sweet. I wasn’t much familiar with bitter, tart, etc. And so, quite evidently, my meal preferences were limited. This dismayed my mother, who derisively called me a picky eater. (I totally deserved it!)

There is no glamorous story as to how I started to learn to love the art that is food. It was gradual and caused by my exposure to travel and different cultures. Tasting new foods became a way of escaping the mundane. Sampling each country’s local delicacy became a way of getting a better sense of the culture. It started to feel like if I appreciated the food of a certain place, then I felt like I could really be there. The same goes for Filipino food and how I learned to appreciate it.

The closest I came to a grand slam epiphany was the summer I spent part-time working for my cousin who ran a wedding cake business. The experience was utterly exhausting, but well worth it as I felt that I had done something definitely worthy of the time and effort. To this day, when I have finished making a dish, I still wind up surprised and thinking, “Hey, I actually did that!” And I honestly believe that that sense of wonder keeps me hooked on everything that is food.

As you can see, I tend to romanticize food. I am completely under the notion that all the ingredients, the processes, and the outcomes are, in themselves, points of interest. That is how I've come to have illusions of grandeur.

And so, it is most fortunate that I chose to enter a culinary arts program in college, which immerses me into the world of the food industry. With this blog, I hope to share my insights, what I learn in school, and what I experience firsthand in my journey through life as a foodie. :)

Until Next Time,