How very interesting – a knitted wedding! (I remember Nest telling me about this when we saw each other a few days ago.) Everything, from the bride’s gown, wedding cake, flowers and confetti were knitted, and it all began with this invitation for contributions from knitters all over the UK. Check out the photo galleries here and here.

***
Ahh yes, more kitchen adventures coming right up…



My Arn and I discovered C2’s Salted Egg Rice last year when our dining companions Carlo & Nina made us try it. Since then dining at Shang has been a no-brainer, SER plus a varying viand became our default meal. But because it would cost too much to keep going back everytime we had a hankering for it, I tried my hand at making a homemade version. Arn thinks I’ve quite succeeded, thank you. So here’s how my version is done:

1. Drizzle about a tablespoonful or two of EVOO in a pan.
2. Drop in some chopped garlic and a few slices of anchovies. Let it sizzle for a few minutes.
3. When the garlic turns golden, toss in a diced salted egg (or two if you like). Let the egg “melt” a bit.
4. Dump in a bowlful of cooked rice. Mix it in with the egg and garlic. The rice will turn yellow-orange but don’t worry, that’s a good thing.

That’s it! And because we had some in the ref, I sprinkled shredded squid flakes on top to add a little crunch. Try it and then let me know if you like it. (:

***
By the way this is totally unrelated but the picture on the right shows the banana bread muffins I made this week. Hehe, I just wanted to put it on the blog because they came out pretty (and yummy too). Recipe c/o Lori B.
***
So I’m off to Cebu with the WE team tomorrow. In the meantime please visit this link and let me know if you’d like to order any of the items we’ve put up for sale. (:

How I wish I had ideas as creative as these when we were tasked to recycle junk into something useful back in grade school*:



A vinyl record fruit bowl, a motherboard cd case, a vinyl record cover bag, scrabble-block cufflinks, and a telephone cord bowl. Of course, back then the items these are made of weren’t junk at all. In fact, a motherboard was a rare commodity, if it even existed in the Philippines at all, in the early DOS system 80s.

I remember blogging about it years ago but, here again are the instructions on how to make a vinyl record fruit bowl.

*So what was my recycled project? A pencil holder made out of an evaporated milk can wrapped with a randomly-ripped Panorama mag cover which I then coated later with clear nail polish. It was such a no-brainer; about 90% of my classmates did the same thing using different objects.

***
Arn and I have been living here in QC for a year now and our house, which used to belong to my late aunt, is slowly evolving to suit our needs and personalities. Not exactly DIY (since we hired a carpenter) but here are samples of cost-cutting renovating techniques.

Remember how we installed shelves almost everywhere last year?


The top row shows before and after shots of the staircase landing which we turned into a library/sitting room. The bottom shows how our office looked before we had shelves and a built-in computer desk unit installed. Surprisingly, these didn’t cost too much: materials + plywood + carpenter’s fee for a week’s work = less than P5k for everything, tadah! At furniture shops, the same amount will only buy you a coffee table.

This year, since our combined collection of CDs and casettes are already running out our ears, we had more shelves built in the hallway leading to the office.



So now, instead of being piled up unused in what we call our “box room”, the most-played CDs are in the living room in prefab towers and the rest are in storage in the hallway. Again this didn’t cost too much: plywood (P700) + carpenter’s fee (P400/day) + miscellaneous materials = about P2k

More next time.

***
Shucks, and I thought Martha was a goddess for coming up with her neat-o shirt-folding technique. I’ve been employing it ever since seeing her demonstrate it on the Today Show. It turns out that the technique originated in Japan.


Indeed it makes sense, origami has been part of Japanese culture for ages. By the way, these stills werenabbed from the really enjoyable demo video. Turn up your speakers now!

Here’s how to do it:
a. Lay the shirt flat on a work surface.
b. Pinch the shirt on the side opposite you at two points, the (1) shoulder midway between the sleeve and neck and (2) halfway down the shirt, parallel with your other hand.
c. Still holding the two points, cross your right hand over your left, bringing the shoulder down to meet the shirt’s bottm hem and grab the hem with the finger that crossed over (without letting go of the first pinch).
d. Lift the shirt , uncross your arms without letting go and pull the fold. The shirt will (amazingly) do a flip.
e. Lay down the sleeve on your work surface.
f. Fold it over to reveal a neatly folded shirt.

The directions sound complicated but trust me, it only takes about 3 seconds to do per shirt! I’ve never folded laundry any other way after learning of this technique. (If my instructions aren’t clear, you can always view the Japanese lady’s demo. It’s much more fun that way too!)

Hear ye! My Arn‘s next book is coming out in a few months. Here’s the teaser:

More details to follow in the next few weeks. Incidentally he’s been updating the news section of his site so stay tuned for updates.

Please feel free to post it on your blogs. 🙂

***
Has anyone seen the new BPI commercial? A friend sent us a text last night saying that The Mythology Class is in it. We haven’t seen the ad but I know we have director kuya twin Quark to thank for the product placement. 🙂

***
Cool link of the day: Cooking by Numbers. Just tick the box beside items you have in stock and voila – you’re given a list of meals you can prepare. A boon for the kitchen-impaired (i.e., me).

Yup, since our mag is currently being printed (and my editor and her hubby are away in HK celebrating their wedding anniv – have fun, Marbs!), I’m using this healthy pocket of free time to polish my housewifely skills.

As someone who’s never held a syanse til she turned 31*, my adventures in the kitchen these past couple of years have been nothing short of… educational. Arn will gladly tell you about the time I served him a half-cooked tangigue fillet: the surface had baked to a nice golden brown so I plopped it to a plate, drizzled lemon juice over it and proudly served it to him. It turns out that it still hadn’t thawed completely so the meat inside looked – and tasted – like sashimi. :p

That was two years ago so I think it’s safe to say that I’ve now mastered a few toss together-and-mix recipes by heart. Here are some easy dishes I prepared last week: shrimp and egg salad sandwiches on ciabatta (with wasabi-mayo dressing, naks), oatmeal raisin and/or choco chip cookies (I use Alton Brown‘s The Chewy as base, it’s very basic and the cookies always turn out really good), sloppy joes (Arn’s favorite! It’s really just a chunkier, spiced-up version of bolognese sauce so you can spoon it into buns), and my friend Sheila‘s shrimp and garlic pasta (sauteed in butter, mmm!).

*My mom, a true-blue Pampanguena, is a spectacular cook and she reigned supreme in our kitchen so I didn’t feel compelled to learn til I got married.

***
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet: Wellie welll, I wasn’t even aware that a sequel to this underground phenomenon was in the works. Here’s a link to the trailer for Clerks 2, featuring older — and healthier — versions of our favorite shopkeepers Dante and Randal. (via Carlo)