toping!

Where I live, it is impossible to find decent crusty bread. One or two bakeries make baguettes—French bread, they’re called. The French would be insulted, tough and desiccated those things are. If you need bread to go with pasta or make sandwiches, the only other alternative is tasty bread. That’s just how it is. In fact, most people I know have no problem with that. Same here. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not really that big a deal. [more]

“It was so sad,” my friend A. was saying last night. “Every time they played that Jose Mari Chan song—you know, the one with lyrics from Ninoy’s poem—I couldn’t help but cry. So sad. I won, though. Not that much, but there were too many Cory combinations to bet on.”

I almost choked on a peanut. Gamblers—they’re so “with” the times, sometimes outrageously so. I gather that during the past two days, bookies had refused to take bets on 3-1-8—for 3:18, the time (local) of the former president’s death. They were not taking a chance on an obvious choice for millions of bettors. [more]

Pentacle—check. Dagger—check. Full moon in background—check. Bride from Hell having a bad hair day—check. One look at that poster and you know this is definitely not a Woody Allen movie. Are you kidding? That girl looks creepy as a freaking can of caterpillars. [more]

When I was seven or eight my aunt took it upon herself to introduce my cousin to proper pancit. I guess it was a matter of maternal pride for her after she discovered that Tingtong and I were regularly gorging on pancit sold outside the school, right under the stand of acacia trees at the rear of the town plaza where Na Terê and Na Titang held court over their ramshackle food emporia, cajoling us to part with our five- and ten- and twenty-five-centavo coins in exchange for neon-colored biscuits, sticky candies and boiled bananas—and, of course, for pancit, which was the house special and thoroughly enjoyed by all. [more]

I have seen people raise their brows when served monggos (mung beans) as a sweet porridge instead of the savory dish they are accustomed to. “You’ve never had this before?” I would ask, incredulous at the fact that they have been missing out on one of the best things in life. “Oh, you’re in for a treat; you’ll see.” [more]

That ain’t red, all right: Braised purple cabbage

Ma’am Zony was our high-school choir mistress. Yes, I was once in a choir, even though I was (still am) tone deaf. But choir membership meant exemption from physical education class, which I loathed with every lazy bone of my 90-pound body, and if I had to move heaven and earth to get into the club, well then so be it.

Not that I had to. I was friends with Ma’am Zony’s daughter, a fact that outweighed my musical limitations. Ma’am was no fool, but she had a soft spot for losers. Once you saw past the piano-banging and the smoke (for she smoked a lot), she was all heart: Corazon was her given name.

To the rest of the campus, though, she was simply The Violet Lady. Boy did she love that color. From her car to her clothes, she was a walking monument to purple mania. [more]

For some people it’s a dinnertime thing, but in my case it’s just as I’m about to drift off into my siesta. At that fateful moment when I blissfully let go of wakefulness and all its attendant worries—that’s when the phone rings. And it almost always turns out to be the most inconsequential call, too.

“Hello, sir,” says an impossibly cheery voice, “this is [name of telemarketer] from [name of company] and I want to tell you about [name of product/promo]…”

What the—? Hello?!? Which planet are these people from? What makes them think that I’m even remotely interested in what they have to offer? [more]

Lately the cook has taken to watching her favorite teleserye in my room. It’s about two guys who are in love with the same girl, the twist being that they turn out to be brothers (half-brothers, actually—they have the same father). One is dirt-poor and the other rich, and both their mothers are continually at each other’s necks; it pays to familiarize yourself with the “down” volume button of your remote control for the confrontation scenes, which are frequent.

Anyway, the father dies (whether from a bullet to the head or the exasperation of having to deal with such shrill women, I’m not altogether sure—maybe both) and the mommas promptly fight over the money. That’s after they get into a brawl over the coffin. Such Amazons, those women: no finesse whatsoever. Their own mothers are no better. But then them fighting genes have to come from somewhere, no? It makes you wonder about those boys. [more]

People read for a variety of reasons. I’m talking about reading as a voluntary act, as opposed to, say, reading the Noli or Fili as a class requirement; you’re not supposed to do a report/be quizzed on a book and love said book, too—that’s perverse. For an author to be required reading almost always unfairly ruins that author for legions of students. García-Márquez didn’t enchant as much when Bernie Oloroso, a wonderful teacher, made us write about No One Writes to the Colonel; same with Solzhenitsyn (not that he could enchant as much as sober you up), assigned to me by the equally wonderful Shanta Krishnaswamy—I was as miserable reading The Cancer Ward as any of its characters. Hey, a lot of kids were miserable with Rizal, too. [more]