Page One, Chapter One!

“ We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.” Ellen Goodman

The start of each New Year almost always leads people to review their lives in the year that was. Yet sometimes we are too engrossed looking back on the not so good things we did in the past year that need to be altered or modified and we tend to overlook the opportunities ahead. We spend so much effort feeling sorry for projects we should have started, work we should have finished, people we should have loved more, friends we should have visited and words we should have said.

The trouble with some people today is that they are too troubled thinking of things that should have been, spill so much tears for people who have walked out on them, spend hours grunting on broken relationships and waste days blaming themselves for all these miseries. There is nothing more we can do about all these things that have passed, neither remorse nor self-blame can reverse them and self pity can only aggravate the pain.

As we bid goodbye to each year, let us learn not to linger on the sorrows and pains, rather, let us start every year in our lives looking at new things, new blessings, new love, new opportunities.

For everyone, I would like to share some New Year Reminders from George Carlin that would surely give you a better year ahead!

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctor worry about them. That is why you pay him/her.
2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. " An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is God & ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

If you don't send this to at least 8 people.... who cares?

A lazy lunch at "Bale Dutung"

"Bale Dutung" garden

Lazy weekend afternoons are what I always look forward to, though they are as rare now as "unblemished" government officials in the Philippines. Yet I never really thought there is such a thing as a "lazy lunch"- lunch for four straight hours...I could not imagine myself doing such a luxury with the piles of work waiting for me at home and in the office...but to my surprise...I just had a taste of this rare experience last weekend. What adds to the surprise is to meet, savor his dishes and be "entertained" by one of the country's culinary gurus-Claude Tayag in his restaurant “Bale Dutung” which is translated as House of Wood.

At first sight, Bale Dutung does not really look like a restaurant, it is an old Spanish house peculiarly built at the heart of a contemporary subdivision in Angeles City, Pampanga. Claude and wife Maryann warmly welcomed our group (there were six of us) but even before they did, me and my curious buddies already roamed around the place - enjoyed the garden, the unique pieces of antique kitchen gadgets, the kamalig and slouched on the hammock.

Claude started the conversation with a brief history on how Bale Dutung started, how the structure was made and where the materials were sourced. While it looked like a house built in the 1800’s, he said it was constructed after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991 and inspired by the kamalig, a rice storage house.

Then the bigger surprise came with the serving of the “welcome drink”- a refreshing concoction of fresh fruits, followed by a taste of their signature sauces – taba ng talagka, balsamic vinaigrette dressing and XO sauce served with crackling crackers. A series of authentic Kapangpangan dishes came after, served on the dining table one after the other…if my memory serves me right, there were about five varied appetizers including sushi plate composed of sushi topped with taba ng talangka and camias, rolled mustasa leaves filled with balo balo (fermented rice) and fried hito (catfish) and marinated quail.
a pose after the "lazy lunch" with host, Famous Filipino Culinary Guru Claude Tayag

There were three main courses – seafood kare-kare and the one I liked most, the bulanglang ( a combination of hot guava sour soup,huge tulang (fresh water prawns), bangus, with gabi and kangkong. After more than three hours of food “installments” came the finishing course, the dessert- called paradise made of kamote, ube, and macapuno in carabao's milk – this according to Claude is his signature dessert. Each of us had to take a “break” after two recipes were served so we could finish the whole buffet as we were advised when we started the meal that there would be about ten or so courses. More so that we did not have ay idea how the servings would look like and of course, we all would want to taste the last recipe.

I never really expected this delightful and relaxing experience, all I thought was that we were to go to Pampanga to have a pre-production meeting for a new television show we are about to make. The Bale Dutung experience was my first taste of a “lazy lunch” yet I realized it was not really a “lazy” one at all…it was just a taste of that luxury called “relaxation”.