Vegan MoFo fail + news shmews

Hey Vegan MoFo'ers, sorry for my embarrassing Vega MoFo performance. Nine MoFo's is really sad. But I have a good excuse. I was busy all October trying to help victims of Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. So things got busy. Which is too bad, because I wanted to blog about awesome things, like:

















My lentil and quinoa Sunday lunch, which Francis seemed to like.

Vegan food activism in the office which you can definitely do at least once a year or when it's your birthday and your coworkers require you to feed them. In this case, it's a farfalle and black bean salad which I believe knocked their omni socks off.

Being vegan in Hong Kong, which was hecka easy.

And other non-MoFo topics, like despedida food!

Despedida meal #1 at Healthy Kitchen in Serendra; featured: fresh Thai spring rolls.

Despedida meal #2 at Som's, Rockwell; featured: Pad Thai.

Despedida dinner at home with the family; featured: tomato and aubergine linguini.

Why despedida? Well I temporarily closed up my baking shop and resigned from my real job because I'm gonna be away from home for at least half a year... I'm going to culinary school in New York! Which is another reason why I've been neglecting this blog -- I have been busy with work, baking and getting ready for school. I'm excited for this new adventure because I can't wait to seriously hit the culinary scene.

Watch out Manila, I'm gonna set you on vegan fire!

Pililla Eats

As mentioned in my previous post, I spent Holy Thursday and Easter morning doing missionary work in Pililla, Rizal, a rural poor town about 50km north of Makati. Before I start talking about some of the local food I just wanted to share this picture.

St Mary Magdalene Parish Church in Pililla is 425-years old and made of stone. It’s been preserved and restored amazingly well and I’m sorry I didn’t get to take a snapshot of it. But this is a photo of the Virgin Mary in the Church’s courtyard. It’s a pretty huge statue, probably 6 ft tall or so? The church takes care of 4 dogs and I found this scene after having dinner with my co-missionaries and parish priest. The dogs really know whom to seek for shelter!

Anyway, here’s some local food I came across in the Church parking lot.

I love love love peanuts, especially local ones. Planter has nothing on Pinoy roasted garlic peanuts, and I’m not talking about the junky MSG-laden nuts too! A 1-1.5 oz bag of roasted garlic peanuts was P10 or 21 US cents which was a nice distraction from falling asleep during Christ’s 7 Last Words (sorry Jesus). When I take the bus home from my real job (okay I’ve done it twice only) I love buying the same paper bag full of joy. Yum yum.

You can find this happiness-on-a-stick anywhere in the country but it was especially wonderful in Pililla as we trudged through one of the 3 processions we attended. The tindero didn’t skimp on the brown sugar, thank God. I think it was also P10 for 2 saba bananas.

This cart is owned by a man I like to call Green Mango Guy. His cart is attached to his bike so he can pedal wherever he pleases, peddling his awesome green mangoes.

You can tell he’s a skilled green mango connoisseur – he knows where to cut in the right places and how to carve out the skin.

He lays each green mango in a plastic bag on egg crates for easy display to the salivating customers. I recommend getting the green mango that almost looks yellow / ripe.

Didn’t I say he was an expert? He isn’t like us regular folk who cut out mango skin piece by piece. He carves out the skin in one piece, which looks very octopi-like.

This is one thing you won’t find anywhere else, I tell you. Green Mango Guy makes his own ultimate green mango topping: chili salt. He pounds rock salt with sili labuyo / bird’s eye chili until the chili goodness melts into the salt. He then sieves off the chili, leaving this perfectly orange-hued spicy salt (the other topping option was bagoong or fermented salted shrimp paste that smells like the death of the ocean).
The perfect merienda: ripe-ish green mango topped with chili salt. Bliss for only P7 or 15 US cents. I miss this already!

I love love love Green Mango Guy’s chili salt. I think other variations that would work well with green mango are
[1] salt + chili + sugar, and
[2] salt + chili + fried garlic

Braving a cold winter's night with soup + classy impromptu salad dressing #2

Last Christmas day my family and I trekked over to Lake Tahoe for our first time to experience snow (!!!!). My dad rented a cabin "that could comfortably fit 10-12 people" but in reality could've fit 20. Seriously, there are residential cabins out there that could house 20 people. Anyway all ten of us plus my three cousins made the trip at around 4pm on December 25 and arrived there at around 9:30. It was EXTREMELY cold but we enjoyed every moment of it, especially because we got to snowboard!

What we did NOT enjoy was our first night. So arriving at the driveway we had to shovel the snow off the garage door. Then we entered a 49 degree F / 9 degree C (if I can recall correctly) house, tired, hungry, cold, and cranky. The heater was broken. We literally could see the fog coming out of our mouths when we breathed. We had to wear our winter clothes inside the house.

My mom cooking in her parka. Nice.

While some of the boys tried to figure out the heater issue my mom and I decided to cook some dinner. We didn't have much supplies... To be frank I wasn't in the mood to open a can of beans and chop onions. Everyone was cold and the only thing that could've helped us was soup. We didn't have any soup supplies except for...

Excuse the ugliness and the extremely not vegan taxedermied snake in the background.
The snake came with the house.

Behold the V8 vegetable juice. We bought this because my American cousins don't eat enough vegetables (sorry guys, potatoes aren't really vegetables) and American restaurants don't serve 'em. During my stay in the US I drank this everyday so I could get a dose of veggies and vitamins. Anyway we ended up making fake soup: V8 juice gently simmered with Italian spices, chili pepper, salt and pepper. I think I may have added powdered garlic (too cold to peel and chop fresh). All the spices were found in the kitchen cupboard.















Too simple to make, it shouldn't even be blog-worthy. But it had a cold-winter's-night story so I thought I'd share. Moral of the story: always make sure you have V8 juice on you in case you're stranded in a freezing cabin.

We brought some Boy Bawang (extremely garlicky deep fried corn kernels) from home which made an excellent crouton-like topping. Yum with the ever dependable white rice.

*******************

The next night after a full day of snowboarding I had to make salad dressing. We were in the middle of winter and all my mom got for veggies were salad greens. With no dressing.

Something good always comes out of a salad dressing dilemma, I always say.

This time the only acid on hand was bottled orange juice and the sweetener, strawberry jam. Orange juice isn't as tart as kalamansi juice so we had to add a good dose of salt. It was a good "gourmet-tasting" dressing.

Strawberry Citrus Salad Dressing
1/4 cup orange juice
1 heaping tablespoon of strawberry jam
1-2 cloves of garlic, grated
1/2 to 3/4 cup olive oil, to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Add the juice, jam, and garlic in a small bowl and whisk together -- try to break up the clumps of strawberry with the whisk. Slowly pour in the olive oil while whisking the whole mixture together. Add salt and pepper to taste. If still too sweet, add more oil or splashes of water.

Me making the dressing with Pop, my oil pourer. I had to keep on wearing a beanie to hide my Medusa hat hair.

Hmmm I think this is my last Christmas entry! Finally. Now I can get on with more current stuff.

Bro #6 enjoying the sun and cool air on our way back to the Bay area.

Tofurky Noche Buena & New Year (plus a recipe)

Christmas 2008 was my first time:

1. To celebrate it as a vegan

2. To celebrate it out of the country

3. To have a Tofurky roast

4. To not cook all day for Noche Buena / Christmas Eve dinner

Normally I despise all store-made, pre-made, catered, pick-up-from-the-restaurant food, generally for special occasions and particularly for Christmas. I belong to the school of thought that homemade food that usually takes all day to make is real food. This is why I'm not a big fan of fake meat. We made an exception to the all-day-cooking rule for Christmas because we were celebrating it in my tita's (aunt's) home abroad. Funny, we spent both Christmas Eve and New Yearís Eve days doing laundry at a Laundromat in Alamo (10 in the family + 1 week of no laundry = 5 loads in the washer); while my brothers waited at the Laundromat my parents and I went to the grocery for Christmas Eve / New Year's Eve dinner.

So anyway, I finally made peace with the fact that I couldn't pull an all-day cooking thing for Noche Buena so I bought a Tofurky veggie roast. This was super easy to prepare; aside from what came in the box I had to prep potatoes, carrots, olive oil, soy sauce, and some sage. It only took one hour in the oven and I had to use the toaster oven because the real oven was being used to cook the dead bird (why oh why must we celebrate an occasion with a cruel death... why?). The tofu-seitan roast had a wild rice and mushroom stuffing and gravy. Good dinner, although I would've preferred something more homemade, like a roasted vegetable dish with tofu and a homemade pie.

2007 was my first Christmas as a vegetarian and the complete opposite of 2008 -- I spent ALL AFTERNOON AND NIGHT cooking and baking. I even remember what I made -- a baked lentil loaf with roast garlic gravy. I was the only veg person then so I had to cook my own food, all by myself. It was pretty sad because there were a ton of people fixing the dead bird / cow while I was going crazy making gravy -- roasted garlic and veggie broth included -- FROM SCRATCH, ALONE. It was about 100 degrees F / +30 degrees C in the kitchen; everyone was in pretty Christmas clothes while I was in a sweaty shirt. So, I guess I really shouldn't complain about the speediness of the Tofurky (by the way the loaf turned out weird but the gravy was a hit to the omnis)...

New Year's Eve dinner was something more semi-homemade, I'm happy to report. Brother #5 and I discovered Tofurky sausages during the Christmas break and made a stir fry out of it. We used Tofurky Polish Kielbasa but the Italian works well too (we actually prefer Italian over the Kielbasa, but we only had Kielbasa on hand then). For the vegans with no access to Tofurky you could use your canned fake sausages (arghh I despise that stuff, it has no taste!!) and just add more spices. I've included the 2 options in the recipe below although I have to confess I haven't tried it with the spices yet.

New Year Tofurky sausage and zucchini stirfry

Ingredients:

splash olive oil or vegetable oil

1 package of 4 Tofurky sausages, any flavor (Italian or Polish Kielbasa)

2 white onions, sliced into half-rings

5 egg tomatoes, sliced into chunks

2 zucchinis

salt and pepper to taste

chili pepper (optional)

To prepare the sausages: slice the sausages in half lengthwise, then slice it into thirds crosswise at a diagonal.

To prepare the zucchini: slice the zucchinis in quarters lengthwise, then slice it crosswise so it's about the same size as the sausage chunks.

Heat the oil in a skillet at medium heat. Fry the sausages until they get a nice crust on both sides, then remove the sausages from the pan.

Heat more oil in the skillet. Add in the onions -- when the onions have turned transparent / caramelized, add in the tomatoes. Cook until the tomatoes have melted into the onions -- add salt and pepper and chili to taste. Place the mixture in a dish and put the fried sausages on top.

Heat more oil and sautee the zucchini slices. Add salt and pepper to taste and be sure to scrape up the brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Lay the zucchini on top of the sausages, and serve.

Variation:

If you live in a non-Tofurky world, you can use canned or frozen vegan sausages (about 540g). The ones I find here in Manila have zero taste and need to be spiced heavily.

Slice the sausages according to the directions above. Place the sausage chunks in a bowl and drizzle in some oil, salt and pepper.

Add in either:

2 tsp paprika, chili pepper (optional), 3/4 tsp ground mustard seeds, and 1 tsp crushed fennel seeds

or

2 tsp paprika, chili pepper (optional), 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cumin, 1/8 tsp allspice

or

2 tsp paprika, chili pepper (optional), 1-2 tbsp crushed fennel seeds, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, 1/8 tsp ground all spice

Toss the sausage-spice mixture together. Usually the canned veggie sausages here are Vienna Sausage-like in texture, so you might want to coat them in cornstarch before frying to get them nice and crisp. Then, fry as directed above.

NB: spice mixtures inspired from Fat Free Vegan's Veggie Pepperoni, Seitan O' Greatness, and Julie Hasson's Spicy Italian Sausages

Photos of the Tofurky roast courtesy of brother #4 aka Jose Gonzalez.

How the Nintendo DS led to an Herbivore Lunch and to our car being towed (almost)

Might as well get this post over and done with, I know it's long overdue. I believe it was after-Christmas-ish when I FINALLY got to visit a completely vegan restaurant during my vacation in SF. 

The decision to eat in this restaurant started from the Nintendo DS. So brother #5 got a Nintendo DS for Christmas thanks to his ninong (godfather) who is also our cousin. This cousin of ours has two Nintendo DS's of his own and so does cousin #2 (so 4 DS's all in all). We spent a few days in Lake Tahoe after Christmas and a lot of time was spent in front of the fireplace, boys DS-ing their asses off (apparently this futuristic device has some Bluetooth thingy that allows them to play against each other). Then brother #3 got some moolah for Christmas thanks to his ninang (godmother) and got some other handheld game playing device (the name escapes me of the moment). 

Brother #2 got pretty much brainwashed into getting his own DS and with trusty Linda Blair our GPS, we go on a wild goose chase for 2-3 days hunting down a black DS (it HAS to be black because all of bro #2's gadgets are black) with the BEST price -- we did not leave a Best Buy, Costco, and Target store unturned. From San Ramon to Dublin to Walnut Creek and finally to San Francisco we find the perfectly black Nintendo DS of bro #2's dreams (he also bought a crap game in the midst of all his greed). I think I footed the $4 Bay Bridge toll so I DEMANDED that we eat at a vegan restaurant (so I'm cheap, sue me). Also it was about 3pm and we were starving.

Of course being the well prepared person that I am I made it a point to list down every vegan restaurant in the Bay area, in hopes of getting to eat in one of them at least once. My self-proclaimed carnivore and vegetable hater sister wasnít with us during the Search for the Black DS so it was the perfect time to get 2 carnivores (bros #2 and #4) and 2 vegans (me and bro #5) to eat veg for lunch.

So thanks to Linda Blair we parked our car at Herbivore on Divisadero (between Fell and Hayes, I think?) at 3:30pm for a late lunch. Bro #5 and I were soooo excited to finally eat in our first vegan restaurant ever! Actually it was a first for bro #2 and bro #4 as well and good thing they were game. As a vegan let me just say how happy I was to be able to eat anything off the menu, as in anything. Nothing made with the suffering of animals. Nothing contained animals or animal by-products. No one died for us to enjoy our meal. It was such an adventure and a relief.

So first off we ordered a vegetable sampler for our appetizer -- a combination of char-broiled vegetables (zucchini, eggplant, yellow squash, bell peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, tomatoes) with 3 sauces: pesto, tahini, and lemon-garlic. The dish was served with sliced baguette. We enjoyed this very much.

Next up we got 4 different entrees which we all shared together (the family that eats together, stays together). 

Bro #4 got the best entree: penne with lemon herb cream sauce with char-broiled portabella mushrooms, zucchini, artichoke hearts, and spinach served with crostini. OMG even the carnivores couldn't believe it was vegan. The sauce was seriously creamy and delicious. I suspect it contained ground cashews or almonds; I don't think silken tofu could get that creamy and satisfying. I tried inquiring with our server what the sauce was made of but she was too busy to pay attention to us...

Bro #2 got a lentil loaf with mashed potatoes topped with mushroom gravy and sauteed greens on the side, with crostini and a tomato sesame salsa. He liked this a lot and the lentil loaf was deliciously rustic and comforting. The greens tasted very much like our local alugbati -- very earthy.

Bro #4 got his comfort food: Pad Thai. Rice noodles sauteed with tofu, red bell peppers, togue (bean sprouts), green onions, wansoy (cilantro), and crushed peanuts with peanut sauce. This was nothing new to us, we heart Thai food so I'm not going to drool over this much. It was good, although I suspect you can get better tasting Pad Thai at a traditional Thai restaurant (that reminds me, I should blog about Som's, a Thai carinderia-style restaurant located near my workplace -- dirt cheap Thai food with a killer veggie pad thai).

I ordered a moussaka -- layers of eggplant, potatoes, soy protein (eek! Fake meat!) tofu ricotta, mushrooms, zucchini, bell peppers, spinach and marinara sauce with crostini on the side. I used to heart all things tomatoes (at one point I even thought I should've been born in Italy instead of the Philippines) but since discovering different kinds of sauces (peanut sauce, hummus, roasted red pepper-cannelini, sunflower seed pesto, curry, you get the picture) my love wavered a bit... My brothers liked the moussaka, I found it okay. Also I'm not a big potato fan (excess starch!) -- maybe if there were no potatoes I would've enjoyed this dish more.

With my food I ordered a green juice, which sounds disgusting but was actually refreshing and yummy. It was a cocktail made of celery, apple, spinach, parsley, mint, ginger, and lime. The green-ness was so bright! I really should be drinking more green juice...

Anyway, on to dessert! We were absolutely stuffed but I really wanted to try some dessert that was not cake or cupcakes. Bro #4 got a coconut chocolate chip cookie which was alright tasting. We shared a blueberry pie with Maggie Mudd vanilla soy ice cream -- what a hit! I love pie -- I feel like it's "healthier" than regular cake and cupcakes because of the fruit component, nevermind that they are all full of sugar. We can't get blueberries in the Philippines so we really enjoyed this pie. Oh I really should experiment with pies in my kitchen...

Oh yeah, so our car was about to be towed while we were inhaling our food. We parked right in front of the restaurant and thought we were so lucky to have found the perfect spot. I put some quarters in the meter to last us 30 minutes. By 20 minutes I added a few more quarters to buy us extra time (the food hadn't arrived). So while wolfing down the moussaka I checked the time on my phone, which showed that I had 4 minutes left til the meter ran out! So I popped out to refill the meter when I found that the front of the car was attached to a tow truck. The tow guy was towing this other car a few cars in front of mine. I thought the tow guys were waiting for the meter to run out so they could tow it so I immediately put more quarters in the meter. Something didn't feel right though. I waited for the tow guy to go back to my car and I asked why he was towing it -- apparently cars were banned to park on the street between 4 and 6pm and it was 4:15 (we sat down at our table at 3:15 -- Herbivore took so long!). I played the sorry-tourist-card and had bro #2 park the car around the block.

So, all's well that ends well. Bro #2 got his Nintendo DS (he also got another Handheld Game Playing Device for bro #6 -- ah, the joys of consumerism), bro #5 and I got our Herbivore lunch, and we didn't get towed. Overall, a good day.

organic soy latte with agave syrup and bro #2 happily playing with his DS

HERBIVORE THE EARTHLY GRILL

531 Divisadero, SF

415.885.7133

http://www.herbivorerestaurant.com/index.html --> check for other locations!

SF is vegan haven / heaven

Wow. All I can say is, wow.

San Francisco and the Bay area = nirvana for vegans.

I guess trying to be vegan in the Philippines makes trying to be vegan anywhere else a LOT easier. Seriously, it was too easy.

Most of the regular restaurants had veg options. For instance...

This is a VEGAN sandwich. And it was awesome. French baguette with tomato sauce, bell peppers, pepperoncini, mushrooms, olives, and SOY cheese. Check out Goat Hill Pizza at 715 Harrison at 3rd St, SF -- any dish with dairy cheese can be substituted with soy cheese.

This establishment is so-so when it comes to vegan-friendliness. 21st Amendment at 563 2nd St, SF has a veggie burger that contains egg so I opted for their garden salad with beans. One thing I've noticed in American restaurants is that garden salad does not necessarily = leaves + tomatoes. This one had shaved fennel, sliced radish and cherry tomatoes.

Spending time with my American cousins has made me more appreciative of non-Tequila-and-Kahlua-liquor. Here is 21st Amendment's Pomegranate Cider. It looks like liquid gold here, but it's actually a light pink. Nice.

I'm not much of a photographer 'cept when I'm in a kitchen hence the lack of restaurant food photos. I am a HUGE fan of Mexican food (cilantro / wansoy is my herb of choice and I can eat guacamole all day every day) and any Mexican restaurant has a veggie burrito with beans. I think I ate Mexican every 2 or 3 days.


There are 2 restaurant memories that I will treasure forever as a vegan.

I think I just about died and went to heaven when I visited Maggie Mudd at 903 Cortland Ave, SF. It isn't 100% vegan but it has a menu of vegan ice cream, soy- and coconut milk-based. SUNDAES CAN BE MADE VEGAN.

















I got to go to this place thanks to Janine, a former high school classmate of mine who is now based in San Francisco. I think I bugged her to death to take me to Maggie Mudd (and bribed her with free ice cream too) and it did not disappoint. The photos look like crap because it's all white, but let me explain. On the left is Janine's choice: 1 scoop of oatmeal cookie dough ice cream in a waffle bowl (which they make in the premises as you wait!) with marshmallow sauce and whipped cream. Take note that Janine couldn't finish her 1 scoop because it was about 3/4-1 cup worth of ice cream.

On the right is my choice which I consumed on my own with no traces left whatsoever. It was a fudge brownie with 2 huge scoops of ice cream (oatmeal cookie dough and The Dubliner -- coffee ice cream with Irish Whiskey), with marshmallow sauce, whipped cream, and almonds.

OMG is all I can say. Since I turned vegetarian I have only had 5 vegan ice cream experiences.

1. Strawberry soy ice cream at Chimara, a "neo vegan" cafe in Greenbelt (neo vegan in quotations because they serve fish -- wtf indeed) which sucked. If you are a vegan based in Manila or are just plain curious about non-dairy ice cream, please do not try Chimara's because it will dash your hopes and dreams of what delicious soy ice cream is supposed to taste like. If you need an ice cream fix I suggest you puree a frozen banana or two -- this is a good sub.
   
2. Coconut "tofu" ice cream at a vegan grocery store in Sydney, Australia. Really good.
3. Vanilla soy ice cream at Janine's apartment -- sadly she's not vegan but she's lactose intolerant. Soo... sorry for her food insensitivities, but yey for saving cow's milk for the calves?
   
4. Maggie Mudd -- to be treasured forever. and ever.
   
5. Vanilla soy ice cream at my aunt's place, acquired from Trader Joe's.

And...

I dragged my 3 brothers (well 1 was vegan, so I dragged 2) to Herbivore at 531 Divisadero, SF (between Fell and Hayes) and it was amazing. The restaurant had a FULLY VEGAN menu from appetizer to entree to dessert. I almost cried stepping into the place (I almost cried when my rental was in the process of being towed in front of the restaurant, but that's another story for another post).

Actually, I'll leave my Herbivore raves for another post. It deserves its own post. :D Let me just say that... I wish I could open a Manila version of Maggie Mudd and Herbivore. One day... some day... Hopefully in 5-10 years.

Michael, if you're reading this, you open a vegan ice cream parlor and I'll open a vegan restaurant. Together we can rule the world -- er, take over the Manila restaurant scene -- and convince omnivores to move over to the vegan dark side.

Hope everyone had a happy cruelty-free holiday!

Away for the holidays + sad news about my cats

Hmmm so I guess my weekly blog posts turned out to be a bust... but it's the holidays, so I should be excused, right?

I miss blogging! But everything's been so busy and crazy and I haven't been able to upload photos to my laptop. Right now I am in the United States spending the holidays with my family in the Bay area. I really should blog about it because: it. seriously. is. a. legendary. Christmas. It's been the best holiday so far, meeting up with my 2 (out of 6) brothers that have been living on other sides of the earth the past year as well as spending time with my cousins from my mom's side who live in California. My whole family hasn't been in the States in 6 1/2 years, hence the legendary status.

Here's a rundown of issues about this trip so far:

1. Finding a vegan winter coat was almost impossible (vegan = not wool, not containing down or feathers, not leather)
2. How we were able to surprise my 2 brothers with our visit -- while wearing graphic tees with their faces on them!
3. First trip to Lake Tahoe, first time to see snow, first time to sleep in a cabin that had the temperature of 40 deg F (5 deg C) because of broken heater, first time to snowboard
4. How San Francisco is so Goddamn easy to be vegan... I'm jealous of all you Northern Californians, seriously
5. First time to eat at a fully vegan restaurant
6. First time to eat a Tofurky roast for Christmas dinner and Tofurky sausages for breakfast

I expect to be visiting a VEGAN ICE CREAM PARLOR soon and I am so excited! Will definitely have to mention that one.

Will be back home by the 7th of January! You will find my next blog post shortly after I arrive.

Happy holidays everyone!

PS I miss Pinoy weather where it's sunny year round and you can go out in tsinelas... My Pinoy skin is not used to North American coldness.

PPS I just remembered: today is my vegan anniversary! I have been vegan for exactly 1 year today! I turned vegetarian on October 8 2007 and vegan on December 31 2008.

PPPS I have sad news about my cats :( We recently found out that my youngest brother is allergic to the cats we adopted. He gets violently sick every month and apparently it's because of the cats. My mom is putting her foot down and is demanding that they all (I have 3) have to leave the house. Either find them new homes or turn them to the streets. This saddens me immensely as I consider these cats my babies. I rescued them from a cruel world and now I'm forced in a position to give up on them and be like any other cruel human they have faced. The thing is, Manila is very unfriendly to moggies / non-purebreed cats. Actually Manila is unfriendly to cats in general. I have no idea how to find them good homes. 

My mom said one option is for them to live outdoors. My first cat Lucky has been human-raised since he was 7 days old and is completely unaccustomed to the outdoors. He goes out sometimes to play in the garden but always under human supervision. He has no means to survive in the outdoors... He may run into the road and get into an accident... he may get into fights with other cats... I think I would get a heart attack if I come home to the roadkill remains of one of my cats...

Velma is our only female cat. She is unspayed because of her leg deformity -- her right front leg is unusable and is a 3-legged cat wonder (see a cute picture of her here). Turning her to the streets would be disastrous... Because of her deformity the vet said she can't be spayed (something about her immune system or the risk of the surgery) and mustn't get pregnant. I'll be consulting with the vet again regarding the spaying issue. I can't turn an unspayed female cat into the streets in full conscience.

I haven't blogged yet about my 3rd cat, Francis. I will dedicate a whole post on him soon. He is an orange tabby like Lucky and he came into our lives in October. He lives in our garage right now because my mom didn't want any more cats. He is completely street smart and will do fine as an outdoor cat... When he first arrived we tried to get him, Lucky and Velma to be playmates but Lucky and Velma thought they were too cool to play with him. They'd hiss at and ignore each other. Now they are all BFF's especially Lucky. I think Lucky enjoys playing with another male who's not as good as wrestling as he is (believe it or not Velma is an awesome wrestler and runner, despite her 3 leggedness). Francis is just about 3-4 months old while Lucky and Velma are 9 months old.

Anyway, I ask for your prayers regarding the cats... When I go back home I will be forced to address this issue. Have the cats live outdoors, subject to other street cats, cruel humans, and cruel drivers, or find them permanent homes and have them separated from me completely? What would you do in my position?

Would you have the courage to give up your own babies? 

Dealing with airline stupidity: Cebu Pacific likes to screw over their travelers and PAL serves crap vegan food

Before I babble about food, can I just rant, again? If you recall my last post I was whining about how traveling can be so complicated. Well, Cebu Pacific will never cease to complicate the lives of travelers. This airline looks as us travelers as commodities, mere objects that can be easily replaced or easily maltreated. Their cheap promos never fail to get us to be repeat customers, never mind how horrifyingly disrespectful and condescending they are. And, they can get away with it! Because we Filipinos are too shy for confrontation! We think we're inferior to The Man! Cebu Pacific's bribe of a free round trip ticket to whatever country they fly to, usable within a year, doesn't help either. A lot of Filipinos who travel are OFWs and would kill for a free ticket.

Why the rant? I was set to come back to Manila last Monday, flight at 11am. I arrive at the airport and line up for check-in at 9:30. As usual the check-in lines to the Cebu Pacific desks are the only ones that are crowded with people. Probably too cheap to buy those barricade things for orderly lines. A Cebu Pacific guy asks some of the customers if they're willing to shift their flight to the 7:30pm one as there were "too many passengers". Almost all said no. We had our schedules to follow. I was set to go boxing in the afternoon followed by hours of baking.

For 30 minutes I didn't move my position in the line. By 10:20am I was second in line, but then we (me with 15-20 other people) were told that we couldn't board the plane, because the plane was already full, because they were overbooked. Yes folks. Cebu Pacific books flights by 10% over maximum seating, then at the last minute screws over the customers who just so happen to be last in line. "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do. It's not our fault," says one of the clerks. Apparently it's the "booking agent"'s fault. And, "it's the first time it has happened." Bullshit talaga. I've heard stories of Cebu Pac's cruelty (Marketman rants splendidly here and here). They'll screw you over then bribe you with free tickets.

Oh yeah, so I was forced to take the 7:30pm flight. But they didn't accept early check-ins so I had to leave my luggage at their storage area and shell out HK$55. And HK$200 for 2 train tickets, to and from the city. The only good thing that came out of this was I finished my Christmas shopping and got my hands on New Moon. I think I spent more on shopping (for other people!) than on how much those free tickets are worth...

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This wasn't the first time an airline pissed me off. Back in May I flew PAL (Philippine Airlines) to and from Singapore. I made it a point to contact PAL beforehand and let them know that I needed vegan food (by the way, apparently you can't make a food request on their customer service email, you have to call their hotline, which is busy 98% of the time. Best to go through a travel agent). On my flight to Singapore the 3 other people in my group were bumped up to business class for free because economy was overbooked. I got stuck in economy because of my special food request. Which turned out to not be very special.

PAL, why oh why do you choose to torture people who don't want to torture animals? Why can't you offer better veg options? Ladies and gentlemen, I was served overboiled tasteless vegetables (the green beans were practically the same shade as the pumpkin) with rice. They weren't even salted. Seriously, that's all I had. And a dish of fruit. They gave me a "salad" of leaves and tomatoes, WITH NO DRESSING. And, they gave me margarine that had milk products. THE ONLY FLAVORING I HAD WAS SALT, and I had to add this on my own. It was not a good meal. My return trip was a lot better though -- I had pasta with tomato sauce and black eyed peas (meal was better probably because the food came from Singapore).

Traveling vegans, I highly encourage that you make your food requests as detailed as possible. Tell them what you can and can't have. And, if they screw you over, complain! We don't want these things to happen to others. Complain, but be respectful :)

After my bad experience with PAL, I sent them an email:

"Hi, I'd like to give you some feedback on the vegetarian food I was served for my flight with your airlines on PR 505 and PR 504.

I have to say, I was very disappointed with the food during my PR 505 flight last Friday night. I had vegetables with rice, a dish of fruit, a side salad with a slice of lemon, and a dinner roll with margarine. The vegetables were overcooked and had no taste -- they were merely boiled / steamed to the point that the colors of the broccoli and string bean were almost the same as that of the kalabasa. These had no flavor whatsoever and had to be dressed with salt and pepper. The salad's only dressing was a slice of lemon. The roll was okay, and the fruits were nice, but the margarine had dairy in it. I reported this to the stewardess / purser and she was very gracious and apologetic. She handled the situation well and even gave me some more fruit.

The food on PR504 on Monday afternoon was a lot better, I'm happy to say. The spaghetti with tomato sauce and black eyed peas was delicious. The margarine was a different brand that didn't have an ingredients list so I could not make sure if this contained milk.

I hope that your future non-dairy, non-vegetarian meals will be similar to that of PR504 and never of PR505. As an airline that caters to an international consumer base, this is an important feature to work on as not everyone eats meat, seafood, dairy, and egg. I hope PAL improves on this. Thank you."

And their reply:

" Dear Ms. Gonzales,

We acknowledge receipt of your email and attachment below.

Please allow us to convey, at the outset, our sincere regrets and apologies, on behalf of Philippine Airlines, for whatever inconveniences you may have felt as a result of your reported experience.

A request for feedback from the offices concerned is now underway to look into the circumstances surrounding your complaint. We will correspond with you as soon as we have the results of our investigation. We would appreciate your patience in awaiting our reply.

Thank you,
Customer Relations"

2 months later, they email me back:

"Dear Ms. Gonzalez,

This is further to our acknowledgment email regarding flight PR505/23MAY08, from Manila to Singapore. Thank you for your patience in awaiting our reply. On behalf of Philippine Airlines, please allow us to convey our sincerest regrets for the disappointment caused you.

We took note of your feedback regarding the overcooked and tasteless vegetarian meal that was served to you. You will appreciate to know that we had since brought your concerns to the attention of our Assistant Vice President for Inflight Planning and Standards for the appropriate corrective action. You can be assured of the preferential attention.

Ms. Gonzalez , we, at Philippine Airlines, recognize the importance of your feedback for a more effective delivery of service. We have always believed that passenger feedback serves as an important tool for us to gauge what our customers expect from us. Please be assured, therefore, of our unwavering efforts to always try to meet these expectations. We hope to be of service to you again on board one of our flights, soon."

And I replied:

"Thanks so much for sending an update on the food, I really appreciate it. I'm very patriotic and I want PAL to be world class and friendly to all people with different tastes (food and non-food alike). I think it's important that an airline adapt to current trends, especially since this reflects its ability to be hospitable to everyone. One customer's bad experience with your service can discourage a lot of people from trying your service out! I think the statistic is that one person will share with people his or her bad experience with a product / service +90% of the time.

I sincerely hope that the quality of non-dairy, non-egg vegetarian food (aka "vegan" food) improves because I would really like to continue to patronize PAL. If you need suggestions on how to improve your menu or what have you, please don't hesitate to ask me. Not only am I vegan, I love to cook and bake vegan food.

Thank you."

Last minute baking and whining before Hong Kong

It's almost 1am and I have yet to pack my suitcase for my 3-day break in HK. Just finished making 2 coffee cakes (1 of them includes a mango cashew coffee cake, in case you were wondering) and 1 banana split brownies and am dead tired! And yet, instead of finishing up my chores I'm here blogging and whining about having to pack... And trying to upload baking porn on Facebook but all of a sudden Facebook decided to get smart and load so slow...

Well, I guess I should have planned better. I didn't even get to withdraw money and convert them into dollars for the trip. Everything's been a whirlwind, what with the whole brouhaha over Twilight (watched the movie yesterday, currently reading the novel now; yeah Luisa I jumped on the bandwagon, so sue me) and my current obsession with Mario Puzo (the author). I had to run to the baking supply store today after work to get some travel-friendly cake boxes for a coffee cake and brownies which are traveling all the way to India! No I'm not going to India (I wish), but an Indian guy ordered from me and will bring them to India to show PETA there that yeah, it's so freaking easy to be vegan here, you can get vegan cake and cupcakes so easily. How cool is that?! My creations are going to India even before I go.

I got carried away fixing labels for my cakes and decided to make veg-friendly Christmas tags to be attached to orders meant for Christmas giveaways. this is why I haven't started packing!! Freaking Christmas tags that are currently not important! And I have to get ready to leave the country tomorrow!

I'm off to a mini-vacation that's been giving me a lot of heart ache. Back in May my older brother Martin convinces me to buy Cebu Pacific "zero peso" tickets to HK for the November 29-December 1 long weekend, and I tell him I didn't want to take a vacation leave from work. I'm thinking, great, I'll spend P4,000 / $80, no big deal. Then it turns out to be P7,700 / $154 -- sneaky sneaky Cebu Pacific! Then last week I find out that the return ticket was for a Tuesday, not a Monday, which meant I'd have to take Tuesday off (Monday's a holiday). I couldn't take a leave for Tuesday because originally I had to prepare for a launch for Wednesday. So I had to return my return flight ticket and book another flight for Monday arrival in Manila, and I had to pay a whopping P7,000 / $140 for that one goddamn ticket. Kill me now with all the expenses. I'm spending all this money and I haven't even left for Hong Kong yet! The other night Martin convinces me to take a day trip to Macau and watch Cirque du Soleil -- another P4,000 for the boat and P2,000 for the Cirque tickets.

I'm never going traveling without my parents again.

Hope you guys enjoy the long weekend. I hope I do too...

Oh and here's the kicker. The launch was moved to January. I could've taken that Tuesday off after all, and saved P7,000.