8 Things I'm Passionate About

8) Food and mostly everything that comes with it
This culinary interest all started with our feisty (and equally admirable) house help who had a bilao of burong isda (salted fish) under our kitchen sink. Freshly- caught tamban buried in salt, aged, then fried to an indescribable goodness sided with fresh, plump, juicy, tomato. Best served with garlic fried rice and café arroz. Just reach under the sink… and goodness will come forth.

So, food. People, time, place, the way I experience them. All things that come with glorious food.


7) Paintings of lovers, Literature, Poetry, Period War Movies and Music from the screen

I am a very sensuous person by nature and I appreciate the pleasures that life offers- good food, warm sand under my feet, human touch. In the same way that I appreciate things that others have made. When it comes to music, painting, literary work, poetry, I can be impartial to the artist. If I like the craft no matter where it comes from, then that becomes uniquely part of my life- it doesn’t have to be part of the mainstream all the time.

I think it is the same way I think of food.

6) Doing favors for others.
My view on doing favors is far from the good Samaritan’s or an angel’s or any other philosophy of goodness. Mainly for fun or just natural impulse. It’s like, your old tita asked you to clean up her entire closet reeking with mothballs, then without you asking, she ends up giving you some of her lovely vintage stuff that you can get creative with. This makes me happy many times over than I usually expect- all the time.


5) Working – for the fun of it
I consider myself lucky for getting the jobs that are truly close to my heart.

4) Living my life and my share of the world- 100% !

3) Friendships, Correspondence, Nice Strangers
A handful of cherished friends for me is more preferable than too many people whose names I don’t even know... although I admit to be one of the happiest persons in the world when it comes to my friends and family members.

I like correspondence. It has always been an unexplainable experience for me to get woven to persons from the other side of the world- whether you only communicate by writing. I respect my correspondents in quite a different way. Appreciating the goodness of others, taking time to listen and to learn from the lessons of their lives, and in time, realizing that your own life is transcending-– I believe is the best prescription for changing the face of the planet. Now that the world is shrinking at our fingertips and everybody knows what everybody is doing, we don’t need an audience except ourselves.

2)Freedom
I love freedom at all angles: of the mind, from worries, and even from uniforms!
Except for my chef’s uniform, I really want to live like a free man and dress up like one. I promised myself that I will stop wearing uniforms anymore the year I celebrate my 28th birthday.

1) Change
I started appreciating change the older I become. Looking back, I love those fat teenage years after all. From the incredible changes that take place in food when they are cooked to the unpredictable change of seasons, so do I love the many changes that happen in my own life.