I am hosting a giveaway for Nakano Seasoned Vinegar where you can win a $25 gift card, a full sized bottle of seasoned vinegar and a recipe booklet. Check out my food blog to enter!

There has been a whole lot of Filipino bashing online the past week and most of them have been from Filipinos. I haven’t written about the hostage crisis nor Miss Universe because… well, I just had no strong opinion for either event. I didn’t feel that either event really defined MY or anyone else’s Filipino-ness. They were simply unfortunate events that became bigger that they would ever have been had it not been for the ease of communication provided by the internet and social networking medias. I mean no disrespect for the people who lost their lives during the botched hostage crises, the tragedy touched me immensely. But I also think that neither event reflects or represents the whole country, its people nor its culture.

Thanks to Nick for sharing in his blog, I finally found a commentary that I can agree with. This is written by Trixie Cruz-Angeles titled What do you mean “Only in the Philippines”?, which mirrors much of what I had been thinking. Here is the main point of her blog post:

The vultures can’t resist jeering and insulting. Stupid media. Stupid cops. Stupid Mendoza. Stupid by-standers. The Filipino nation is stupid.

Excuse me?

Our ancestors believed in the concept of an afterlife when many other peoples of the world were still figuring out how to make stone tools. Our forebears crossed the Pacific years before the Vikings crossed the Atlantic. They cultivated rice when many others were still living in caves. They had the first revolution in Asia that united no less than three disparate linguistic groups through a leader named Diego Silang whose wife became his successor. This nation produced women leaders and warriors when much of Europe still considered the female gender as mere chattel. My country abolished slavery two hundred years ahead of the so called New World. My country, whose history and treasures remain mysteries to its own children, cannot and should not be defined by the mistakes of yesterday’s events
And we will not be defined by this tragedy. But we must learn from it. And the first lesson should and ought to be not to add any more hurt to a nation prostate with grief. So much blood ignites so much passion. But we can either flagellate ourselves until there is nothing left of our self esteem. Or we can turn this into an impetus for change. Real change.

So, I will mourn today. I will grieve for all the victims, yes Mendoza included. I will mourn for all the ignorance that makes an embarassing display of itself in times of crisis. I will mourn for the good men and women of the PNP who feel the brunt of the national outrage, but who will go to work tomorrow and still go after the bad guys, still keep us safe. I will mourn for media persons who must live with the effects of their live broadcasts.

But after that, I will choose hope and faith in my countrymen.

This is my favorite shot in the series of nest photos. See, a couple of robins started building a nest in our garden early in the spring. We were amazed that they didn’t build their nest high up in the tree like they normally do. Instead, they built it quite low, on the ledge of our grape trellis. Low enough that if I hold up my camera, I could see into the nest. I managed to capture shots of the eggs until the nestlings hatched and flew from the nest. Check out the photos in our backyard.

I’m posting the Food Quote Meme on this blog this week just because this was our funniest meal time this week. Earlier this week I made pork chops and spinach for dinner. It was an uneventful meal, one that we have at least once a month because it’s fast and easy to prepare after I get home from work. While we were eating dinner, my daughter received a picture text from her Aunt Sherry. Her Aunt Sherry and cousin Valerie were at Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion having dinner and they sent a photo of their entree, Rustic Grilled Pork Tenderloin (photo #1).

My daughter Jade, like most of us in the family, loves food. We become most animated when talking about food. So to tease her, her aunts would sometimes send her photos of what they’re eating especially if it’s something really good or if it’s something that they know she would drool over. So when my daughter received photo #1 in the middle of our mediocre pork chop dinner, she picked up the biggest pork chop from the pile on the platter in the middle of the table and plopped it onto a similarly shaped plate as the one the tenderloin was served in, and sent it to her aunt.

Sherry and Valerie had a good laugh over that humongous piece of fried meat in the middle of the plate (photo #2), with Valerie texting back with: “OMG, what the heck is that?” By this time, we too were all giggling while we were eating. Sherry and Valerie were at their table at Roy’s too, giggling over the comparison and attracting the attention of other diners with their silliness.

A few minutes later, they texted again. This time with a photo of their dessert (photo #3), Roy’s Famous Chocolate Lava Cake. Well we hadn’t finished eating our pork chop dinner yet and I didn’t cooked anything for dessert anyway. So we were scrambling for ideas on what to send them next. Then we had an idea! Jade pulled out another square plate and drizzled some Hershey’s chocolate syrup. I grabbed an apple from the bowl at the center of the table and cut it in half then plopped it in the middle of the plate. Jade took a photo (photo #4) with her cell phone and sent it back to her aunt and cousin. They texted back, “OMG, we are dying here!!! This is hilarious!”

We were also laughing so hard, I had tears in my eyes, imagining those two in their fancy schmanzy restaurant and Jade had a comeback for every dish they sent. LOL! Her Aunt Sherry made the collage of the photos they sent back and forth and she said, “LMAO during dinner was priceless….. made dinner more fun and enjoyable!”

It sure did. We had a great dinner and I bet we didn’t even pay as much as they did.