Blog by Jedde

Photo taken during the holiday season last year. Many people treat Valentine's Day as a special day for lovers and loved ones. There is a subtle expectation that something special - a grand gesture - must be given to one's partner to celebrate the day. Some book expensive restaurants in advance so the couple could enjoy a romantic dinner, others prepare and order bouquet of flowers along with a box of chocolates ready to be gifted to their significant other. In fact, modern display of affection now involves practicality. Interestingly, instead of flowers, a sack of rice is more yearned for, and instead of an expensive dinner date where the served food sometimes does not suffice, a bouquet of real paper bills is more preferred. While each person has their own style of celebrating Valentine's Day, there is but one, underrated practice that only a few people do which is proven to give anyone larger amounts of returns in terms of emotional satisfaction and well-being:...

Photo credits: https://www.rubios.com/sites/default/files/banners/Cooking-Techniques_Hero.jpg Interestingly, for someone who doesn't like cooking but loves to eat, I managed to make a decent meal out of bitter gourd, eggs, onions, garlic and tomato one evening. Not believing it myself, I've put up some courage to go to the kitchen and start rummaging through my food cabinet to see what I have. After buying some spices and random ingredients with Alex last weekend to make carbonara and ginataang monggo (posted on my previous blog article) which we randomly picked from his food app, there were a lot of them that we didn't use up so I had something to start with tonight. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/--making-bacon-kitchens.jpg As I was preparing everything, without looking at the recipe or a guide, I thought to myself: "Will this turn out okay?" or "I wonder how it'll taste like."  or even "Am I really cooking?!". Honestly...