i miss discovery travel and adventure - a food post

I've been watching a lot of cooking shows on the Lifestyle Network and ETC lately, to fill in the gap of Discovery Travel and Adventcha, a channel Skycable no longer carries (I would love to write to Skycable about this matter but I'm not the one paying for my own cable and we all know what happens after I announce that I will write a letter of complaint, so let's not pursue the issue). The ones in ETC are kinda lame, but Lifestyle has some great cooking shows. The best is this fabulous woman named Nigella. I love Nigella. She's this beautiful big woman who cooks the most scrumptious looking food and she looks like she's super enjoying the food she's eating when she's done cooking them. That's how food shows should be. I know I'm always hungry after I watch an episode.

I've been eating a lot lately. I think because my parents were rather worried about my purported anorexia that I have to stuff my face every chance I get to keep everyone relaxed about the topic. Beyond eating a lot, I'm also cooking a lot. Jacqui is laughing at me when I start cooking after watching people cook on TV but I don't care, it looks good and I'm not on a diet. I'm also loving that my culinary skills are slowly improving. Sure, they may not be complicated meals, but just you wait, I'll be cooking stews in no time.

You'd love stews, wouldn't you?

Anyway, if I had one complaint about Nigella, it's that she sometimes mumbles when she explains how to cook something and she made this cool orange flavored ice cream but I don't know what white powdery substance she put in before she put cream. Was that flour? Baking powder? Cornstarch? How am I gonna make orange flavored ice cream now?

Right now, I want to cook some tikoy. I've been thinking of tikoy a lot lately, I guess because it's Chinese New Year and a lot of tikoy is on display in stores. I'll buy some over the weekend and fry them at home. I haven't bought tikoy yet because Jacqui said to wait and see if any of her Chinese students give her some. And then my sister has a rare ditz moment, today of all days: the MRT breaks down and she doesn't know how to commute to La Salle from the weekday house, so she goes home and calls the school to let her students know she's not making it to class. So if there ever was any tikoy, we won't be seeing it anytime soon, if at all.

Speaking of Chinese food, I had dinner with the rents and sibs at North Park on Macapagal Highway two nights in a row over the weekend. I had never really eaten at North Park before, not even the one on Makati Ave, as I'd always be in Hap Chan instead. Anyway, it was my first time to try their soft tofu with mushrooms and brocolli flowers, which is the best thing I've eaten in any Chinese restaurant, super rivalling Hap Chan's garlic brocolli. I thought eating there the very next night would kill the experience, but I realize that the food there is made of sterner stuff.

Also, can I just comment that the comfort rooms in that building are the best public rest rooms I've ever been in, better than the ones in Greenbelt. These have handheld bidets (are they still bidets if you can hold them and aim? I refuse to call them mini-showers)! What gas station rest room has bidets in each stall (oh yeah, there are four stalls)? I hope they remain well maintained.

Back to food. Right now, I want to eat lumpia but I have to wrap it. My mom makes the meat mixture and she sent it over with lumpia wrapper. I'm an expert at wrapping lumpia. But I have never made the meat mixture before though. I can actually picture it in the future, asking my mom for lumpia to wrap to feed my kids. Right now, they remain in my fridge, unwrapped (the lumpia, not my kids). I haven't had time to wrap any, I've been doing too many things (I swear, going online is as addictive as coffee and sex, there should be some study made and some form of cure created). I'm going to wake up early tomorrow and have some for lunch.

(Meaning I should go off to sleep now. Goodnight!)