Entirely of Possibility

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Wabi Sabi and the Uber Cool Collective

When Peggy showed me their travel pictures of Vietnam, I started craving for Banh Mi - that classic Vietnamese sandwich that puts veggies and fragrant herbs plus plus between a sliced crunchy baguette. Whenever I go through a chemo session in Singapore, my friend, Ging, would always take out for me a mini Banh Mi from our favorite deli. So I longed for a Banh Mi in Manila and read about Wabi Sabi from the website, Our Awesome Planet. It's one of the artsy establishments located at the Collective, a converted warehouse and one that's definitely worth trying even if you have to get lost arriving at Malugay St. in Makati.

I would return many times over for the fresh banh mi and pho noodles but it's the haru maki that is to die for. The cook told us it was made of banana blossoms.

After lunch, Mia and I happily explored the rest of the amazing Collective. I bow in reverence to the creativity and tenacity of its founder for putting up this project which gives opportunities to artist-entrepreneurs with a dream. There's an art gallery, a shop selling furnishings entirely made of cardboard, an off-beat specialty grocery called the Ritual where you can find salt, vinegar, homemade miso and other ordinary (but is it???) ingredients in a special setting. There's also the design studio of utwentysix where we met Stephanie who recommended other restos for us to try. Theirs is an ideal set-up of an office in a stimulating environment. Stephanie also suggested visiting the Collective during Friday or Saturday nights to see the place come alive with the energy and music of various indie bands.

And this is where my weakness found me. We had already gobbled lunch but spying the thin-crust pizza at Calda, we tried it knowing fully well that my glucose count would be bad with the additional carb even if it is just one point five slice of pizza. True enough, my sugar level shot up so I promise to be better today. We also wanted to try the Wingman but that may have to wait when my gestational diabetes is hopefully gone after the delivery.

http://thecollectivemalugay.blogspot.com/

http://www.utwentysix.com/home/

In the Footsteps of "Awesome"

Ever since health issues cropped up late last year, eating has become more strategic, choosing quality over quantity and with the help of food bloggers and foodies, the list of must go-to places has grown longer than the time to try them out. I compulsively keep going back to three blogs for tips and recommendations: "Our Awesome Planet," "Jin Loves to Eat" and even though I have gestational diabetes and should not look at or consider this blog at all, I am always drawn to and tempted by "Dessert Comes First" because of the beautiful way Lori writes.

Since I'll be gone from Manila for three months, I emailed various friends and asked them to choose from a list. Instead of picking from the list, Charles strongly suggested The Canteen on Rada St., Legaspi Village near her office. It's one of those places that surely has been written about because the food is really good and office workers tend to go there early to get guaranteed seating in the rather limited dining space which is shared with the clothes shop, Trilogy. I would definitely come back for the salads and to try other things in the wide-ranging menu.

The picture below is of the super duper delicious spaghettini (drooled over by two pregnant women - Bunny and me) from The Corner Tree Cafe where we had the graduation lunch of my nephew Chino. His mom, my sister Denise wanted us to go all-out healthy vegan-vegetarian and at first chose Sugar Leaf over at Wilson St. but then like a conscientious bride doing her homework, she taste-tested a meal there and disappointed, switched the venue to The Corner Tree at Jupiter St. Anton Diaz of the Awesome Planet calls it probably the best vegetarian place in Makati. It occupies a small lot but the meals inside pack a wallop.

Next, Boots and I tried Faburrito. It was a bit eerie going there at twelve noon and we were the only customers for a while before other people started dropping in spurts, some taking out their brown bags. It was a busy office area so I imagined it should be fuller like other neighboring restaurants. I'm guessing, it's their rather limited menu that doesn't attract a crowd who usually want choices galore. I over-indulged with the carbo-loaded burrito but Boots kept her diabetes in check with the soft taco -- both yummy.

The next place on the food adventure is Wabi Sabi at the Collective. I took so many pictures that i'm putting it in the next blog entry.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Obsessively Kindle Crazy

As I see it I today, the ability to read awoke in me

some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. – Malcolm X

I don't usually salivate over gadgets. I refuse to use iPads and iPhones or change my old, outdated, probably phased-out Nokia cellphone because I don't feel comfortable using the touch screen technology. But one gadget got me giddy with g'delicious excitement because it brings back a past love hurtling into the present -- the love of reading.

When my friend Ginger in Singapore whipped out the little gray matter from her bag, I was hooked. I started googling about it, kept going to Amazon comparing models and plotting how I can get one. I asked my stepdad if he had one he wasn't using but what he had was the first model which was too big and heavy. I wanted one handy like Ginger's. I ended up asking my generous aunt from New York who was only too happy to order one for me plus put in the fourteen books I craved for.

When I was single, buying books was the regular reward but after getting married and having a son, I had to exercise greater fiscal responsibility so buying books for personal consumption became a rare treat. Money was better spent buying books for Joshua. However, with the Kindle, you save on cost, space, weight plus you have the luxury of a multitude of choices at your fingertips whenever the reading bug or waiting hassle hits you. There are different genres to choose from depending on your mood - fiction, poetry, scientific, spiritual, business, psychology as you can fill it up with as wide a range of interests as you desire.

Holding the Kindle in my palm takes me to the future of reading. I never thought I'd feel this way about an electronic device because I always had a strong bias towards the physical book you can smell and touch, the well-designed cover you lust for, overflowing shelves and heavenly bookstores that satisfy a primal need, but the allure of Kindle is too much and it provides a surprisingly easier range of reading positions, plus I adore the e-ink. It mimics the sensation of reading words on paper without the glare of a typical computer's back light which strains the eye. Sales of kindle books have outstripped those of paperbacks and hardbounds in Amazon.

I've been sinfully over-searching e-books in Amazon, abusing the kindness of my Dad since he lets me use his credit card to purchase online. I keep emailing him this would be my last order but then the marketing arm of Amazon is just too clever at second-guessing my psyche, emailing me about bargains like a $1.99 book related to the one I had just finished reading on the Kindle. I don't know if a human being or a machine is figuring out my reading preferences but it sure is mighty powerful. I haven't even begun to discover the joys of free e-books because I haven't yet found those that I want but I've been diligently searching websites. There's plenty of time for that although the whole love affair with books takes away hours from sleep -- just like the good old days.

(The first photo is of my Kindle. The others are courtesy of Book Riot.)

http://www.facebook.com/BookRiot

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/kindle-sales-outstrip-paperbacks-amazon-has-first-10bn-quarter.html

Sunday, March 4, 2012

The Lorax Seed

Dear Yel,

On the way home today while listening to the radio, I caught the tail end of an ad quoting the movie Lorax based on Dr. Seuss children’s book. It struck me as something I wanted to share with you immediately, “The last seed? It’s not what it is. It’s about what it can become.”

I haven’t seen the movie nor read the book but that quote bowled me over as something we should both absorb, struggling as we are with important people in our lives who need our love but who are posing too much of a difficult challenge. Just replace “it” and paraphrase: “It’s not about who he is now but about what he can become.” Then it transforms into a powerful, empowering weapon for us. When despair strikes us, just wield it like a sword and change your point of view.

It’s hard to love an “unlovable” person or a person who by our standards, completely disappoints. But too many times in our lives, we too were unlovable and were crushing disappointments in the eyes of others but I think, never in the eyes of God. So that’s what we have to put on more -- wear the glasses of God so we see things His way and not our way. But it’s hard to wear these glasses. Maybe it hurts our eyes because we’re not used to it but if we get into the habit, it becomes second nature.

Another quote from a book leapt out today in connection with this train of thinking, “I would like to have seen the whole world with eyes incapable of anything but wonder, and with a tongue fluent only in praise,” from the novel, The Prince of Tides. It’s easy to view the world with wonder when seen through the eyes of our children, Joshua and Anita, but as jaded, cynical, much-experienced adults who've witnessed too many things, it’s not that simple to switch reference points. However, we thankfully always have reminder models in our Joshua and Anita. Wouldn't it be great if we could make that effortless swap and it becomes a consistent part of our character?

I’ve been trying this theory out with my present challenge and it’s been working quite well. Hope it’s useful to you, too.

Love,

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Casa of My Dreams

Eight years is a long time not to go to a favorite place within reach but maybe just enough time for a realization to sucker-punch its intended effect.

Casa San Miguel and I go back a long way, almost as long as its nineteen years of existence. In our youth, my architecture classmates and I organized an exhibit-event there linking music and architecture where classical compositions were performed by the pianist, Mariel Ilusorio who happens to be my sister while we mounted three installations featuring photos of buildings related to the piano pieces. Since then, I've been taking different groups of friends from mountaineers to office mates to the community arts center built by Coke Bolipata in Zambales. It's a twenty minute boat ride away from Capones Island where a beautiful Spanish lighthouse stands in a crop of dramatic landscape so we usually combine the trip with a visit there. I've introduced a theater group from Bulacan to the magic of this place and there was a time a Green Peace eco-warrior studied the corals around Capones with us. One of the my last visits was an escape I needed one New Year after a great rejection, the kind of which you've spilled your heart to someone and it gets pulverized and you just have to go somewhere far, far away from the noisy revelry. Casa was it for me and Coke and his family were there with their usual open, jovial selves.

Coke has been my idol for what he's done at Casa San Miguel. It's a dreamer's dream to do something with an impact to the community and to individual lives - children who discover their musical and artistic talents, artists who have a venue to develop their craft while sharing knowledge with others, locals who get to mingle with international performers, visitors who appreciate the color the experience brings to their day, ad infinitum. After travelling the world over giving concerts as part of the famous trio of Bolipata brothers, Coke decides to come home to the Philippines and does this incredible feat of hope and imagination that gives back to the country as much as he has been blessed by family, fortune and fate.

The night before I went back to Casa, I couldn't sleep thinking about what has happened in the span of years I haven't gone there, what I've done with my life, the twists and turns that has taken me to a place Dr. Seuss would probably term "nowhere" and I contemplated a decision I had to make that was calling me once more to get out of a comfort zone. How many times have I been called to do this and I answered affirmatively only to get led into seeming dead-ends and bumbling limbos? It made me sleepless wallowing in fear and doubt.

My husband drives my son and I to Casa the next morning using the GPS on his tablet. He takes us on the type of road he loves where ours is the only vehicle running through the rural-scape. We arrive in Casa and just as expected, it has changed tremendously in spatial orientation and lay-out with additional functions. This is no surprise from Coke since he has been toying and tweaking with Casa ever since.

Now there are three new bed and breakfast type rooms whereas before we just slept in beds in an area that is currently a gallery. The foyer to the theater has been converted into a kitchen with it's own brick oven for the Casa Backstage Cafe which serves breads, sandwiches, pizzas, pastas and paella. The concert hall lost it's balcony to an improved acoustic setting and there are new rehearsal studios. Beyond Coke's Casa is Plet Bolipata's house surrounded by her sculpture garden.

How time indeed flies and where does it find us? That night in my strangely well-appointed room so unlike the maski-paps (maski papaano; any-which-way) type of accommodation before, I couldn't sleep again. But this time, my mind did not wrestle with fears and doubts. It celebrated and was simply excited with the prospect of what was unknown.