I Eat Everything with Rice, a Filipino Dining Tutorial by Mikey Bustos

We always talk about food. Just take a peek at any social networking site - Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, blogs etc. - and you'd definitely see a post related to food. Whenever I have guests from other countries I require them to gain 5 pounds before they leave and threaten that I would tell immigration not to let them exit unless they gain weight. Of course, I'm just being funny, but I'm happy to say that a lot (if not all) of my guests say we have great food (they haven't sampled my cooking yet!).

And yes, I eat everything with rice. I get cranky if I don't have at least one rice meal in a day. It's a must! And I guess, my body craves for it. And I just realized that all of our local dishes are best eaten with rice (adobo, kare-kare, lechon etc. -- I can't imagine eating those without rice). Sweetie sometimes eats some meals without rice and to this day I cannot imagine how he does it - mashed potato just doesn't do it for me.

Anyway, Mikey Bustos has become a favorite Youtube star of mine and I just couldn't stop laughing over his "Filipino Dining Tutorial". He's got it down pat and even has the same Corelle plate as my Mom's! Haha! Pinoy na Pinoy! Watch this -

Bahala na si Batman and Other PInoy Expressions

I think every culture has it. I mean every country has its special sauce of expressions. Malaysians say lah at the end of each sentence. Latinos say jeje instead of hehe. Australians are fond of using the word mate like how our Cebuanos say bai.

Little words but these are nuances that friends from other countries do not "get" when we speak them. Weird lang talaga ako. Anyway, this post actually came up when I was exchanging emails with dYu because of the Wika2007 blog writing contest which I have not started judging (accckk!). So, here are some of our favorite Pinoy expressions I could come up with:

1. Bahala na si Batman - sino nga ba si batman? (who is batman?). Normally said when we are at a bind, pressured or harassed.

2. Toxic/ngarag - favorite expression in the office or school connoting stress.

3. Wala lang - literally means nothing but could mean a thousand things especially when a girl says it to her boyfriend.

4. Hehehe - connotes being sheepish or sometimes being unsure of something said. It's also normally the ending in every chat message.

5. Uyyyy! - one of my favorites. This expression is used for teasing and is supposed to elicit a red-faced negating response.

6. Kiber - the equivalent of "whatever" (now how come I haven't gotten around to doing that "whatever" video... soon... soon... my videographer got sick when we were in Boracay).

7. Ano baaaaa - what gives? Ano baaaa

8. Toinks - the act of hitting ones self or another but only figuratively.

I'm sure there are many, many more Pinoy expressions that I've missed, but these are just some I use everyday. Care to share any more?

I am Filipino and Proud to Be One!

The other day I posted about the best "Pasalubong for the Pinoys Abroad". Why? Because I wanted to basically share that we take for granted a lot of simple stuff (this goes for those who live here in the Philippines). Living abroad is not only about missing loved ones. It's about being far away from your homeland. Try celebrating Christmas in another country and you'll learn to appreciate singing our local Christmas carols. Believe me, we were all crying during Christmas eve while singing "Ang Pasko ay sumapit tayo ay magsiawit nang magagandang himig...", by New Year I already locked myself in the bathroom out of depression. I just wanted to go home.

And my Filipino colleagues who were born and raised abroad always come to me to learn more about their roots. Actually those who are abroad have more yearning to be home. They might be better off, but they always tell me that they always feel something is missing. Home.

Jake the Miserable left a really nice comment on the Pasalubong post the other day, he said -

Pero ate, it's pretty interesting that you actually choose to stay here in our Motherland when most of our people are really pushing through to work and live outside. I also choose to stay and die here here, helping this nation through my own small ways. Abah, Batang Maynila ako. Nyehehe. Medyo pangarap ko nga lang makabisita sa Japan.

I have always been emphatic about staying home. I blogged about this a few months ago and my stand stays. It would take a lot to uproot me from here. Matinding negotiations yun. I have very high respect to those who are forced to go abroad to earn a living for their families. I feel their sadness whenever I'm in an airplane with them. I feel the sadness of their loved ones when I do trainings for educators and kids whose parents are abroad. I am sad too because I basically grew up an only child because my brother and sister left when I was still in elementary school. I missed out a lot on them because they've lived in other countries for more than half of my life already. And I wish that I had my nephews and nieces around to annoy as well. Sigh.

And that's why I was really upset when I read about the article that Malu Fernandez did. I do not wish to rehash it here because I don't want any of it here in my blog, you can read up on it at Tingog.com. All I can say is I am at a loss for words and am very sorrowful over the comments she made about our brothers and sisters who are abroad. I definitely do not find what she wrote humorous. Na-ah, not at all. Nakakapikon. As in, pikon na pikon ako kasi just the other day andami kong kasabay na OFW ulit sa airplane. And it is sad that we are losing a lot of our best people to other countries.

I am definitely proud to be Pinoy and will never be ashamed to say that I am one and I'm definitely planning to wear that yellow shirt wherever I go (especially abroad!). And, if ever, I ran into someone like her I'm just going to stare back and raise my brow. Helloooo, go be a citizen of another country if you're not proud to be pug-nosed, brown and simply Pinoy.

This definitely made me cry today. Hmpf.

What about you? Why are you proud to be Pinoy?

My Top 10 Favorite Pinoy Chocolates and Biscuits

I love listening to OPM, watching Filipino movies and I am very, very Pinoy! And while working I eat Pinoy food. A couple of months ago I brought lots of Pinoy delicacies for my colleagues to sample, who would've thought that Chocnut would be such a big hit that they brought it back to the US?

Here's my top 10 all-time favorite Pinoy snacks (though some aren't available anymore):

1. Chocnut! I noticed today at the SM Hypermarket that there are more than one copy cats of Chocnut already and Hany changed their packaging, but I still love Chocnut. Chocnut!

2. Serg Chocolate! I've been craving for this since two weeks ago. I don't think they make any anymore sniff sniff. So I tried out the new Goya chocolate. It's good! Try it.

3. Chocolate Mallows. Oooohhh yummy.

4. Hi-Ro. My Mom used to buy me a lot of these when I was a kid. I have not seen any at the SM Hypermarket lately.

5. Happy. Remember that biscuit? I think it was replaced by Jolly. But there wasn't any Jolly either.

6. That Animal Biscuits thingy. I don't remember the brand name, but it was one of my favorite baons too.

7. Marie! Did you know that a pack is just PhP9.25? It may not be filling, but it's something to munch on.

8. Skyflakes. Even with the onslaught of competitors, I have been brand loyal to Skyflakes. It's yummy with anything.

9. Nissin Eggnog. Sometimes nakakasuya, but Miguel used to love this as well when he was a toddler. I remember when Rico (Yan) was my classmate, he would grab some from me. I think he used to endorse it.

10. Chocolate Crunch. It would break my heart if they took this off the shelf. Can't live without. LOL.

Addendum... from Paul... FlatTops! Oh how could I forget! I was like eating some just a few hours ago.

What about you? What's your favorite Pinoy snack?

Tambay

One of the things I enjoy in my work is being exposed to other cultures. I remember a few weeks ago I was on break with the other CCs and we were all on the phone. One was talking in Thai, the other Urdu, then Vietnamese, Malay and I was wailing to my best friend in Filipino. A few months ago we used to put our calls on loudspeaker and we'd try to decipher what the conversation is about. I usually understood Francisco's LQ with his girlfriend in Spanish.

One of the things we talked about is "gimmicking". In Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia it's basically the same with what we do. Friday night after office drinking sprees or weekend dinners with friends at a resto or home.

I wonder though if they have the tabing kalye chill. The band of bloggers were at Markku's birthday bash last night. It was a typical Pinoy birthday bash with Markku's friends, Markku's brother's and and sister's friends, friends of his parents, relatives, neighbors etc. There were many, many guests so Abe, Jayvee, Sasha, Rico, Marc, Sharms, Gail and husband Marc, and I took over the frontage for some very Pinoy tambay gimmick.

Photo taken by Rico using Abe's cam: