Prelude

🥄 G'day guys! Salut tout le monde! 🌞

Bienvenue! Welcome to my blog—my first ever blog after a lot of months and weeks of contemplation and hesitation. I first thought of having my own blog early this year (2016); those moments when I've been thinking of switching careers and I thought a blog would help me document my parcours culinaire and share it to my family, friends, and to all my other friends–to–be (whether virtual/online or in real) who actually care. I've been always a timid person—and I still am today—and I reckon I'm better at writing than speaking. So I believe a blog would be a good medium and a handy journal to express myself.

Why such blog title? You may have guessed it: my blog would dwell mostly about food. Some of you would probably think that this would be just one of those for–all–I–care seemingly pretentious foodie blogs again. Each one is entitled to his/her own opinion and I greatly respect those. But for me, my blog would just be my own personal outlet to write down my own anecdotes, thoughts, and experiences. Who knows if I ran out of brain cells to store enough memories or even become forgetful later on because of my old age? hehe... Simply put, this blog would be my own personal journal—love it or hate it.

What's the thing about "closet" in my blog title? I've always like food—who doesn't? I enjoy watching cooking shows both online and on TV, though I'm not really keen on those competitive reality TV shows which sprouted up like champignons in recent years. Apart from animé and other cartoons during my primary school age period, I also grew up watching Wok with Yan, those Del Monte Kitchenomics segments at Eat Bulaga!, and Heny Sison on TV, among many others—and bien sûr, not to forget the "cooking shows/demonstrations" of my very own mother and grandmother in our homely "TV studio" (i.e. scullery and home kitchen) 😁. I still fondly remember collecting recipes ✂️ from labels of tinned Del Monte products 🍍, from various newspaper and magazine clippings 📰, and from free recipe cards (given away by supermarkets) for my mama. I've also come to admire several celebrated chefs and culinary personalities such as Stephen Yan, Doreen Fernández, Sandy Daza, Heny Sison, Rika Yukimasa, Harold McGee, Julia Child, Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal, Rachel Khoo, and Georges Auguste Escoffier throughout the times that have passed 👨‍👩‍🍳. Even then, I still highly esteem our unsung culinary heroes: such as our hardworking agricultural and livestock farmers (my late grandfather is a proud rice farmer), fisherfolk, cheesemongers, and other market vendors who diligently produce, rear, harvest, catch, and sell the food and ingredients for our nourishment and pleasure—as part of my upbringing, I've been my mother's aide whenever we go to the palengke (farmers' or "wet" market) every weekend; the cook who prepared my comforting hot bowl of savoury goto ("rice porridge") sprinkled with saffron–like kasubha and chopped scallions at the now defunct Goto Park in Marikina; the humble street peddler in our neighbourhood back home who entertainingly whips out a glassful of taho ("sweet soybean curd") topped with tapioca pearls and a generous swirl of panutsa syrup in seconds; and the panaderos (bakers) who painstakingly but lovingly kneads dough at the wee hours of the morning just to create those hot and soft pan de sal bread rolls that you spread with either mantequilla, Star margarine, coconut jam, Cheez Whiz, or Reno liver pâté. In short, I've grown up learning and loving the pleasures of even the simplest of foods from the home kitchen, to the streets, and to the numerous eateries, bistros, and restaurants back in my homeland and in the many places abroad where I've set my foot onto. 🍽 However, I only keep these thoughts and feelings for myself, perhaps out of my social awkwardness, timidity, and/or my tendencies to be taciturn (in addition to my conflicting idiosyncratic frugality), unless I'm asked—excuses, excuses, excuses, hehehe... Errr, did I even answer the question thrown at me at the beginning of this paragraph? 🤔

If I had to choose who my greatest inspiration is for all of my interests about food and cuisine, one would be my grandmother (from my mother's side). But my foremost inspiration is my very own mama.

I pause here meanwhile before even my first blog entry becomes too lengthy for a prelude. Certainly, I look forward for the brighter side of things. 🌈 The Philippines may be my original hearth, but I've now embraced the Land Down Unda 🐨 as my new home—at least for now.

À plus and stay tuned!

😊