You shouldn't close your mind to the thought that you can't cook. Try experimenting with simple viands.
Try this at home:
Cut about half a kilogram of pork into small portions; separate the fat from the lean meat. Cut a kilogram of potatoes and half a kilogram of carrots into portions similar to the pork. Be sure to soak the pealed and cut potatoes in cold water to prevent them from turning brown. Mince a piece of onion and about three to five pieces garlic.
Put a pan over a slow fire, then add about one tablespoon of oil. When it is hot or you can see bubbles slowly add the fat from the meat. Stir for a while then cover; continue cooking on slow fire. Stir for about five minutes and check if they turned from white to brownish. Be sure that you are cooking on slow fire to prevent the food from burning. When these became brown, gently push them to the side of the pan, leaving the center with the oil in it. Add garlic and a while later the onion. Stir until they turn brownish or when the air smells of these spices. Add the lean meat and stir along with the fat that you set aside at the edges of the pan. Sprinkle a bit of ground pepper and add about 3 tablespoons of soy sauce. Stir the mixture and cover, be sure that the fire is still low. Allow this to cook slowly for 5 minutes. Stir and check if the meat is burnt; usually at this stage the meat will produce some water and it will not burn; but it is better to check. Allow another 5 or 10 minutes before you add around 5 cups of water. you can estimate the amount of water depending on your family's preference for soup.
Increase the level of your fire and allow the food to boil. Once it has boiled check if the meat is tender. If so, add the potatoes. After 8 minutes, add the carrots. Allow to boil. You can add one tablespoon of cornstarch here or spaghetti sauce; tomato sauce is nice but spaghetti sauce tastes better. Check if the potatoes and carrots are cooked. Taste the food and add salt to your liking. Some people might recommend adding MSG here but I don't. You can add some if you like or I prefer the mix from Maggi or Knorr Meaty Seasoning.
You're done.
Don't trouble yourself much with recreating the food from the cookbooks. I love cooking and has been blessed to cook without a guide and without having to taste my cooking and still have the best results. But when I use cookbooks I just can't seem to get the taste or the look presented there.
Feel free to ask for advice or other cooking tips and recipe ;O)
Every bride's dream is to walk down the aisle, all eyes upon her, in a flowing beautiful white gown made of satin and lace. The precious gown is so special that the bride takes care not to rip or soil it in the festivities promptly following the ceremony. And after all the excitement of the 'Big Day' dwindled down to a bit of euphoria as the honeymoon tour starts, the bride takes care of the gown by sending it to cleaners. Afterwards, she wraps it in plastic and lovingly arranges it inside the bridal box for safekeeping.
In the months or years following her wedding, she might take a peek inside the box and caress its contents, lost in the dream of her wedding day. This dress, this piece of clothing that held so much promise and happiness might never be worn by any person again. There is this sentiment towards this possession that the bride could never bear the thought that someone else will wear it someday. Well, a child might, perhaps, change that sentimentality someday, but the bride does not really think that far beyond on her wedding day. The dress is precious; photographs of it will not suffice.
Something tells me that the tradition is about to change, though. Videos of brides ruining their gowns are rampant on the internet. With 'bride' I mean The Bride on her own wedding day! And yes, you are reading it right. If the dress was cared so it won't be soiled in traditional weddings, it is being wet or dirtied in the modern weddings. Extremists have gone to such lengths as ripping the gown to pieces or burning it. Think of a way to ruin something...and they've probably thought of that already. Paintball anyone? Well, that was thought of, too! Doing a random search on the internet will shock the wits out of you. Videos have popped up all over YouTube, and one can't help but wonder if these ladies are involved in a contest of sorts. It seems that putting the precious little wedding dress into ruin is the "in" thing these days. Sadly, the treasured possession of the long ago bride is merely a piece of cloth to her modern counterpart.
So, who mothered the craze and can this be stopped? No one knows for sure how this started. However, a search on Wiki will tell you that it was not mothered - but was fathered by a glamour photographer as early as 2001. But doing it in a real wedding is a different thing as in a wedding in glamour photography, isn't it? Somehow, the lines between the two have dissolved.
The craze might never be stopped. Various "Trash the Dress" sites have sprung all over the internet showcasing beautiful brides in beautiful poses trying to ruin their beautiful gowns. Many call it art, and might argue that the models might are not really ruining the dress but just wetting it a little. Some sites offer professional photography for such events. And the slogan of these sites will tell you that this is being marketed "to create memories that will truly be remembered". And the ladies will tell you that, "no one's going to use it anyway!"
So, is trashing the wedding gown a way of creating memories? Or is it destroying a precious possession? You be the judge.
As I was on my way to work this morning, I got a really close call with an almost-too-often-happening-in-the-philippines-road-accident involving a dog.
It was some minutes before 6AM (my work starts are that time). I was driving my motorcycle on an average speed of 50 km/h and saw this dog jogging along the highway. It was at the pedestrian's side but I was a little cautious. It was just jogging along but when I got nearer, it suddenly tried to cross the street!
I honked the horn furiously, and the dog scampered and ran with its tail between its legs away from the would-be accident scene.
Sad to say that many people are not as lucky as I am. It is a fact that many Filipino families own dogs that are left to their own antics and roam the streets carelessly. They must think they own the world as they cross the street without our usual childhood warning of looking to the left and right. How many people have died in motor vehicle accidents involving stray dogs? Well, much more than accident involving children in the same scenario, I bet? And hospital and police statistics will tell you that there were a lot!
It was indeed a close call. Happy am I that it ended only as a close call and not as a me-in-bandage situation, or worse.
How I wish that the country would enforce a strict law to put and end to this situation with stray dogs. Then we can all drive in peace -- and just worry about the children.
Here I am sitting on my desk on this cold Monday morning thinking that I should have taken up my body's offer of more sleep and called in sick. Regretting that I allowed my mind to rule over my body, I drowsily scroll over the words on the screen of the computer without understanding what they are trying to convey. To add to the drowse factor, the guards have turned on the air conditioning units on full blast and my body, which is sitting right below the overhead aircon vent, is feeling the full force of the winter-like chill.
"I hate Mondays!" was Garfield's all-too-familiar grumble. Personally, I do not hate Mondays. The 6 days of 8-hour office work and 4-hour (plus) internet work must be catching up on me; not to mention the extra 4 hours that we had to render overtime work yesterday.
As the 'classic' movie 'Office Space' popularized: "Someone is having a case of the Mondays!" Do I hate my job? No, I don't, but the monotony of it all bugs me. And with only one day each week to look forward to - Sunday - I feel link it's been forever that I've been sitting here trying to make sense of what the author of the paper that I am editing is trying to convey in his five years worth of work on this important article.
Countdown starts for Hurray! Sunday!
There once was a time (back when I was in high school, 1996) when the internet was viewed only as a research tool, or if you were a bit on the "social" side then you were on mIRC (one of the very first chatting portals) with a nickname ranging from joy16f to zombie2009 to whatever.
A new era had risen in the years that came after that. Nowadays, there are so many ways with which we could chat: Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, Meebo, etcetera. One can even chat with "voice" and with "webcam". About 10 years ago those were the things we only dreamt about but now they are for real.
With chatting evolved social networks with the likes of Friendster and Multiply, and forum boards such as the now-closed friendshipforum. We met a whole new set of virtual, who eventually became real friends.
But the best evolution is the paid to browse social sites: the advent of sites such as www.MyLot.com. This site is almost identical to forum boards but the upside is that you get paid for signing up and for practically anything that you do on site.
In your current social network site, are you: Always uploading all those nice photos of the night out with friends? ...Always posting those cute little comments on your friends' pages? ...Always posting on the bulletin boards those "tests", jokes, information? Well, each time you do that on MyLot you get a corresponding amount equivalent to the length and quality of your post. The better and the longer the post, the bigger is the rating! If other users respond to the discussion that you initiated you earn more points/money.
With the advent of paid-to-socialize sites came the birthing of scam sites. So is MyLot one of those?
As far as the people who had been posting on the forums for months on end, it's not. They pay out monthly up to the smallest dollar cent that you earned! That is, as long as you reach the minimum $10 payout. But trust me guys, if you love socializing and is almost always posting something you can reach that minimum in less than 1 month.
I for one have only posted some 20 discussions/comments since I've started and I have already earned almost $1.
The site is also very easy to use and very user friendly. If you get confused, you can always post a discussion and ask someone's help. You can earn from that post and at the same time find the answer to your dilemma.
Why not check it out? And see for yourself if this is truly a site worth spending your time and efforts.
Check this link out: http://www.mylot.com/?ref=joyadalia
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