What do you eat when you’re cold and angry?

A Brrrgrrrr.

This is my favorite food joke of the year, and whenever I remember it I start craving burgers, fries and a milkshake.

Right now, those are pretty much off limits because I’m trying to eliminate food that I’m intolerant to.  I’m supposed to avoid wheat, dairy, eggwhites, soya bean, mushrooms, brewer’s yeast and a bunch of other food.  I took a food intolerance test recently so it’s been limiting what I’ve been eating, and for the first week or so it’s made me feel pretty good, except now I’m feeling sore throaty and generally lethargic.

Interestingly, there’s no meat that I should be avoiding. So I should get a plain burger, no bun, no cheese.

 

 

Oops. I ate too much, too often.

It was only last week that I realized just how far from my normal I’ve let myself go, and felt the worst I’ve ever felt about my body.

I feel awkward writing about it because by BMI standards, I am normal, I’m not close to being overweight but as someone who has been a competitive athlete most of her life, I am uncomfortable being this heavy.

My sister and I were in the car when she started talking about how I’d gotten bigger since she last saw me in May and gently reminded me to work out. What started out as normal conversation quickly turned to an emotionally charged one when I voiced out my frustrations about how I was struggling to keep fit.  I’ve stopped fitting into my clothes, and don’t feel like myself. I see myself in photos and cringe. I started (ugly) crying as I explained how it’s been my goal to lose 10 pounds for the last year or so, but I just haven’t been able to.  My sister was worried that the weight gain would just keep on going and going and going. The tears kept flowing as I talked about not being able to find a routine that works for me, how hard it was to eat right (ironic because I went to a health-supportive cooking school), how frustrating it is to know what to do but just not be able to do it. I guess I always brushed it aside, or rationalized that I was still feeling fine.

I grew up being passionate about two things, football and food.  It balanced each other out well, since I played enough football to balance out all the food I ate.  There was even a time that my coaches told me to gain weight.  At that time, no matter how much I stuffed myself, I couldn’t gain a kilo. From the time I was 10 until I was 22, I had soccer practice at least thrice a week for most of the year.  Football fulfilled all my fitness requirements plus had the added social interaction and self-actualization benefit.

After college, I stopped competitive football, tore my right ACL during a pick up game and took up competitive eating. That’s the short story. Once my last football trip with the Women’s National team ended, I suddenly had no more regular training to go to.  College was over and I went on a long vacation where I naturally ate whatever was good, chronicling the meals in a photo album titled “This is why I’m fat”.  Another thing I picked up in college was a love for drinking. There’s something about team sports and drinking to celebrate or commiserate after games/a particularly difficult season.  When I started working, the eating and drinking habits continued, but no new fitness habit emerged. I would run occasionally, but never really developed into a regular runner. After work, the highlight of the night would be a good meal and drinks with friends. Football became a once or twice a week activity, something I did on Fridays and Sundays.  I noticed the change in how I played- due to zero training, and unfortunately got myself injured in 2011.

That second ACL injury actually got me very conscious about what I ate so I wouldn’t pack the pounds on while unable to exercise. I did rehab on that knee, but couldn’t spend as much time on it because of work. With the first one, I was in rehab for at least three hours a day. That simply wasn’t possible anymore.

I moved to New York for school in 2012, and since then I’ve been gradually gaining inches and pounds. I always rationalized it by thinking, “Oh, I’m only in New York for a short while so I should go and try everything I can.” Harsh winters made me eat more, and stretchy leggings were forgiving.  In 2013 I started culinary school, and despite it being generally healthy, I ended up eating a lot.  During our baking classes, everyone probably gained at least three pounds. I was doing culinary school and business school at the same time (Crazy, I know) so I wasn’t able to carve out time to exercise. I would wake up, go to culinary school, then rush to MBA class afterwards.  My husband and I planned our wedding in about 4 months, but I bought my dress while I was on the heavier side, so I also wasn’t compelled to lose the winter weight for the spring wedding.

Being married is a lot of fun because there’s always someone to eat with! It also means you eat when you’re not that hungry, but because you keep your spouse company.  At least that’s my excuse.  It’s hard to say no to food when it’s right there.

TLDR: I can’t fit into my clothes because I ate too much.

 

 

 

 

 

Ladies: this device could change your life

Women have the shorter end of the stick (haha) when it comes to using the toilet to pee. Guys, because of how their plumbing works, can basically go anywhere. Girls, on the other hand, have to hold it in if there’s no bathroom in sight, or deal with icky public toilets.

Side note- If you’ve read or listened to Tina Fey’s book- Bossypants, she shares what it’s like working with other male writers who would rather pee in cups in their office instead of walking to the nearby bathroom. The entire book is hilarious, and is probably better listened to than actually read.

Here’s where women can actually level the playing field, and take matters into our own hands. Get yourself a pee funnel.  I discovered the Pstyle years ago and it has changed my life. No kidding.  My sister bought it for me and I didn’t really start using it until I tore my second ACL and had surgery again. Being able to stand up to pee is so useful when you are wearing a leg immobiliser or traveling and you cannot squat or even easily sit down. I recovered from that ACL injury, but the Pstyle stayed in my purse, in its Pstyle case.

Pstyle

This is a list of when or where I was glad I had one with me:

1. Airplane bathrooms:  Always tiny, likely dirty and if you’re flying long haul, your legs are probably already cramped up from sitting for hours.

2. Music Festivals: Drinking, then having to line up for porta-potties which have not been cleaned for hours. Standing up to pee makes a lot more sense.

3. My wedding: Peeing in a wedding dress was easier standing up.

4. The New York City marathon:  Running and drinking to stay hydrated also means having to use porta-potties along the way.  Same as music festivals.

5. Providing urine samples: It’s a lot easier to pee in a cup when you’re not guessing where it’s going. Take note for when you need to renew your driver’s license or having your annual medical checkup.

6. Dirty public bathrooms anywhere: airports, bars, restaurants, clubs, theme parks, gas stations, the list goes on.

I don’t do winter sports, but this video shows how it’s useful when you’re all bundled up in layers.

And finally, here’s a video from Buzzfeed- They gave pee funnels to women and showed their reactions after peeing standing up for the first time. They used a different device, but I still swear by the Pstyle after trying others.  It’s easy to use and clean. I have a feeling that more women will include these in their travel essentials.  This company in SF was formed last year and is making disposable ones, so there’s definitely market potential for products like it.

Basically, if you’re traveling, going to a music festival, getting married in a long dress with lots of layers, getting a pee funnel could make your life a lot easier. When you get one, I suggest practicing in the shower until you get the hang of it.

Knorr Sinigang Soup mix vs. Tamarind Pulp

Sinigang is one of my favorite Filipino dishes.  If I could have one dish for the rest of my life this could be it.

Before modern food scientists figured out how to create packets of tamarind soup mix, Sinigang was made with fresh tamarind pods.  By the time I was growing up, soup mix or cubes was the way Sinigang was made in my house, even if we had a tamarind tree in our backyard. Sinigang soup mix just made it so much easier to have a consistent well balanced, properly seasoned soup.  Whenever it’s cold or rainy outside, a big bowl of sinigang and rice definitely hits the spot.

I usually make Sinigang like this:

  1. Sear pork ribs in a large pot with some vegetable oil.
  2. Add onions, garlic, tomatoes and radish.
  3. Fill pot with water, add soup mix and add a long chili or two
  4. Bring to a boil and simmer until meat starts falling off the bone.
  5. Steam baby bok choy and okra separately.
  6. Place steamed vegetables in a bowl, ladle hot soup and meat over it.
  7. Serve with rice.

Knorr Sinigang mix

You can see the mix’s ingredients list- it has shrimp, not too surprising, but milk and wheat flour too? I wanted to find a way to make sinigang without the mix, if I ever wanted to make vegan, gluten free sinigang. Vegan sinigang almost sounds oxymoronic, but sinigang is too awesome not to be shared with everyone.

I decide whether I’m vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, paleo, slow carb, whatever,  on a meal by meal basis. It really depends on how I feel, who I’m with, where I am and what I’m doing.  For now I still eat meat and dairy once in a while, and try to eat as much plants and as little white carbs and sugar as I can.  Chocolate croissants are one of the exceptions, but those are for another entry.

Back to cooking:  I was surprised to find tamarind pulp with seeds at the grocery store nearby, and decided to try to make sinigang using both methods side by side for a fair comparison.

For the batch using the tamarind pulp, there is the extra tedious step of soaking the pulp in hot water and mashing it up with my hand to separate the pulp from the seeds.  I poured that seedy pulpy mixture over a sieve into the pot and repeated that step until all that was left were the seeds. I also added patis (fish sauce), salt, ground pepper, onion and garlic powder.

My husband and I tried the tamarind pulp batch first, and both felt that it was delicious.  It doesn’t taste exactly like the powdered mix version but it was flavorful, and had I not told him which batch we were tasting, he wouldn’t have assumed that it wasn’t the usual.

I took photos of just the soup side by side and tasted it the next day.  Can you guess which one is which?

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The one to the left is made with soup mix and the one on the right is from tamarind pulp.

I found that the tamarind pulp batch was thicker and cloudier because of the pulp.  After checking the mix ingredients list, I also added some sugar to the pulp batch, and that made the soup more similar to the other batch.

Making sinigang from scratch is not too complicated, and for a first attempt I’m happy with the results. Eventually I’ll create my own perfect mix that I can use instead of adjusting the seasoning a dozen times before I was happy with the taste.

On a side note, this is the first time I used up all four burners in my kitchen since we moved in recently, and I’m glad it was for sinigang dinner!

Update:  Since I had so much soup, I invited my former roommate Kimmie and our friend Lia to have dinner the next day.  I added more pork to the soup and simmered it longer so it actually tasted better than when we ate it the first night. When I served it, Kimmie thought it was made from the soup mix, but Lia’s bowl had a tamarind pod that escaped the sieve, so she knew that it was the one made with real tamarind.

I insisted that they both went home with a quart container of Sinigang each, to help me finish all the sinigang that was cooked  for this experiment.

TLDR: Sinigang made with tamarind pods instead of mix tastes just as good, maybe even better. It’s definitely MSG free.

Attending Blogcademy NYC

Last September 27-28, I attended the Blogcademy, a two day blogging workshop that gives you all the blogging basics and more.   I decided to attend because I’m a longtime reader of Gala Darling, who was one of the facilitators,  and have always wanted to write more consistently.  I’ve never attended anything like it before, so it was the perfect time to try something new.

Makeshift Society Brooklyn photo by Cheyenne Mojica

The Blogcademy was held at the coworking space Makeshift Society in Williamsburg, and was a great location for a weekend workshop.  It was bright, sunny and had high ceilings.  My favorite detail was that the bathrooms were painted in chalkboard paint so you could write messages on the walls.

blackboard bathroom walls
blackboard bathroom walls

 

With Gala, Shauna, and Kat

Gala, Shauna and Kat took turns discussing all about blogging, from formatting, marketing, advertising…

With Stephanie of www.onthegroundhistory.com

I met Stephanie, who blogs about historical places in New York.  Her blog is so informative and interesting!

Blogcademy still life
How great still life photos are taken- Photo by Cheyenne Mojica

We did a series of exercises- one of them being a quick still life photo session.  Standing on top of tall stools makes it possible to capture great still life photos.

Blogcademy Still Life Photo

I made chocolate banana bread to snack on during the workshop, so that had to be in the photo, along with my camera, notebook, workbook, business card, lipstick and sunglasses.

Class Photo
Class Photo by Cheyenne Mojica 

Overall, I really enjoyed spending my weekend learning and getting inspired by other bloggers.  I still have get consistent with writing, which starts with getting over the fear of being vulnerable and just writing.  All great things take time, trial and error and the more I delay writing, the slower I get to achieve my goal of 50 posts in 2015.  I need to get into the habit of writing, so hopefully after this one, the rest will follow.

Thanks to www.cheyennemojica.com for the gorgeous photos from the workshop!

Staten Island Half Marathon

 

Lower Manhattan View
View of Manhattan

I signed up for the Staten Island Half Marathon so that I could run one before my first full marathon.  I’m using the New York Road Runners 16 week marathon training plan, which I’ve followed as best as I could.  There were just days that wouldn’t want to do long runs all by myself, so for next time, I’ll look for a running group.

Staten Island Half Marathon with Medal
My Birthday present to myself: 2:56:25

I’ve already done 13-mile runs during training, so I knew that I could finish this distance, but there were sections of the race that were slightly hilly and made me question why I ever made running a marathon part of my bucket list. I’m a pretty slow runner because a part of me is babying my knees, and another part is just enjoying my surroundings.

Staten Island Half Marathon
Inside the stadium. Finish line is by home plate

It was a chilly but beautiful morning for running, and I enjoyed that the last stretch to the finish line was on the grass field.  That’s when I felt how much nicer it is to run on grass, and how I wished I was playing soccer instead. My husband Paolo signed up and ran the race with me, which was great because we get matching medals! One thing I don’t like about long runs is that you have to use a porta potty midway, which can be such a pain if you’re short like me.  For the marathon, I’ll bring my P-style and its case along- it’s this plastic funnel like device that lets women pee standing up. I discovered how helpful it really was while recovering from my second ACL surgery wearing a leg immobiliser.  It’s perfect for traveling and those tiny airplane bathrooms!

 

Staten Island Half Marathon Medals
Nice big medals!

Now I’ll forever remember what I did on my birthday in 2014.  Afterwards, we headed to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, Nha Trang on Baxter St for our post-race meal.  I love how our order arrived quickly, I was really hungry, and hot soup and noodles really hit the spot.

 

Nha Trang Post Half Marathon Meal
Beef Pho, Beef Cubes over Fried Rice

 

After running a half marathon, I feel like it’s a distance that I’d want to do again, but it also makes me feel more daunted for the NYC Marathon on November 2.  I just really want to enjoy the view and the marathon experience so I’m just hoping that I can finish strong.

-B

House of Inasal

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Today, after running some errands, my hungry family decided to try House of Inasal in Woodside for lunch.  My husband and my mother-in-law both grew up in Bacolod, and I’ve visited Bacolod and had my fair share of inasal at various places there- Aida’s in Manokan Country, Chicken House and roadside vendors. That’s our background, so I guess we can be a bit more nitpicky when it comes to authenticity.

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I liked the wall murals of the electric posts and birds. Filipino telenovela playing, Capiz shell light fixtures hang from the ceiling.

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Blackboard lists the specials by the restaurant entrance.

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Photo by Ann Casimiro.

This is the Special Batchoy with pork intestines, liver and lechon kawali. It’s served with pandesal from Fritzie’s Bakery on the side.  Batchoy is egg noodle soup with fried garlic chips and spring onions on top.

At first slurp, the Batchoy was a bit watery, but as we slurped a bit more, we actually thought it hit the spot enough.  It can still be better (more garlic chips please), but we would come back to have this again.

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The Sizzling Sisig was a good mix of fried pork belly, liver and onions. I think it still could have been crispier and I liked how it wasn’t smothered with mayonnaise, but my top pick for sisig is still Mama Fina’s in New Jersey.

I started eating sisig when I was in high school.  I’d eat it after soccer practice with two cups of garlic rice and lots of knorr seasoning.  *burp*

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This is half of their Chicken Inasal Platter ($29.99) with 2 breast, wing, leg pieces, liver, heart and gizzard skewers.

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More gizzard inasal for Paolo.

We found that it the marinade was a bit too sweet.  I missed the yellow-orange color from atchuete (annato), and the bottle of chicken oil that inasal restaurants in Bacolod put on the table for you to put on your garlic rice.  The inasal tasted good, but it’s not what we would consider to be authentic ilonggo inasal.

I actually thought it tasted a bit like Aristocrat Restaurant’s Chicken BBQ.  The atsara that it was served with was spot on, and I wish that fresh calamansi was available here too.

For now I’ll just have to remember this meal instead. My pecho inasal with garlic rice at Aida’s Manoka Country in June 2012. So good.

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Pecho, Garlic rice. Totoro is hungry!!!

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My father-in-law Peter ordered the Dasilog, Milkfish marinated in coconut vinegar, lemon and garlic with fried rice and egg.  This is one of my favorite Filipino breakfasts.

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Photo by Ann Casimiro.

Taho and sago!  We’ve been looking for good taho recently, so this really hit the spot.

We also got the Bagoong Rice then had Halo-Halo and an Ube bubble tea shake for dessert.  No photos of those, but we enjoyed the Halo halo with pinipig- toasted pounded rice, and the bubbles in the shake were perfectly soft and chewy.

We would go definitely back to House of Inasal for the Batchoy, and I’d  want to try their vegetable dishes next time.  Our server, Ariel did a good job and made sure we had enough of the soy-vinegar sauce to bring home with our leftovers.

House of Inasal has been open for around seven months now, and is a welcome addition to the Filipino food options here in New York.

http://houseofinasal.com/

65-14 ROOSEVELT AVENUE Woodside, New York

Open from Tuesday-Friday from 11am to 10pm

Saturday-Sunday from 10am to 10pm

 

Training for my first marathon!

When I first moved to New York in 2012, I added running the NYC marathon to my bucket list of things to do while I lived here.  The longest race I’ve ever done was a 15km back in Manila before tearing my second ACL in 2011, so a 42km (26.2 mi) race seemed to be doable, but it would require a lot of work.

The first step I took was to sign up for a New York Road Runners membership so that I could join their races and complete the 9+1 requirement in 2013, which is to finish 9 runs and to volunteer for 1 event in one calendar year, to be eligible to run the NYC marathon for the next year.

I ran 9 races- some as short as the Fifth Avenue Mile, and the longest was a 15k race in Central Park in freezing temperatures. For the volunteering requirement, I spent an afternoon manning a booth at the NYC half 2013 expo.

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Snowy Central Park.

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This was the last run I had to do for the 9 race requirement, and I had no other choice but to run in the snowstorm.  It was the Ted Corbitt 15K in Central Park on December 14, 2013, and the temperature was around 25 degrees F. I felt like my toes and fingers were going to fall off when I stopped running on my way back home.

I have 87 days until the marathon on November 2, and I’m using the NYRR Virtual Trainer program to get ready for the race.  Today calls for an 8 mi run, my longest distance yet.  I’ve set my training to the Moderate plan, which gives me a race pace of 13:00-13:12 per mile for now. So far, my knees have been cooperating and I haven’t had major knee pain since I started with this program. I hope it stays that way!

*EDIT*

I just changed my running plan to the Advanced version, just because I want to push myself a bit more. My first three weeks of training have been fairly easy, so after writing about it earlier, I felt like I should challenge myself.

 

Black Pepper Crab

My mother-in-law bought blue crab at the Asian store and I suggested that we make Singaporean Black Pepper Crab with it. This brings me back my last family trip to Singapore in 2011 when we ate at the popular Long Beach restaurant. This is my first attempt at cooking crab, and my father-in-law was nice enough to prep the live crab for me.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons Chee Hou sauce – this was in the fridge, so I used this instead of Ketjap manis
5 tablespoons oyster sauce
1/3 cup water
2 kg blue crabs, rinsed and cut in half
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons grated ginger
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4 teaspoons ground black pepper
4 teaspoons ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander

Procedure:

  1. Mix Chee Hou sauce, oyster sauce and water together, set aside.
  2. Heat oil in a large wok, stir fry crab in batches until meat is almost cooked and shell is bright orange. Set aside cooked crab and repeat for all the rest.
  3. Add butter, ginger, garlic, black and white peppers and ground coriander into the wok and stir fry for a minute.
  4. Add sauce mixture, bring to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes.
  5. Return the crab to the wok, toss to coat all pieces with the sauce, and cover to finish cooking.

The final product.

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Black pepper crab. #cookingwithbertha

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Adapted from http://www.food.com/recipe/singapore-black-pepper-crab-178615

Post birthday blog post.

It’s been a month and a half since I started culinary school while still taking my MBA. I’ve been wanting to write about so many things but I always manage to just list it down somewhere and forget to actually write in my blog.

My fourth semester for my MBA program at Fordham started on September 3, 2013 and the next week on September 9, I began culinary school at the Natural Gourmet Institute.

MBA classes are on Monday nights from 8-10pm , Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6-8pm. Culinary classes are Mondays-Thursdays from 9am-4pm and Fridays from 9am-1pm. It’s a packed schedule and it has been really tiring but somehow I always find myself excited and happy to wake up early to go to cooking classes.

I know that other people are thinking, “You’re crazy for trying to do both at the same time!”, but I’ve always wanted to go to culinary school and I wanted to start right away. I first visited NGI in July and decided it was time to choose to study something I really feel passionate about.

Today is a good day to share how my love for cooking started. The past two days at school have been about eggs, what we think of as the beginning of life, so here’s my culinary journey story from the start.

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When I was around 7 or 8 years old, I became obsessed with making leche flan, or a custard with a caramelized sugar syrup top. I forget what started that, but I found myself trying out recipe after recipe of leche flan. My family had to taste so many of them, and most of them were horrible. We had batches of failed flan in refrigerator but eventually, years later, my mom gave me this perfect recipe shared by one of her friends. I’ll post it when I can.

My mom also nurtured this love for cooking. She signed me up for children’s cooking classes, cooked great meals for us, has an extensive cookbook collection and has every imaginable kitchen gadget.

When my eldest sister was choosing universities to attend, I was around 7 and I decided, based on seeing one of the brochures she had, that I wanted to take up Hotel and Restaurant Management when it was time for me to go to college. Ten years later, I ended up as a Business Administration student after a year as a Political Science major at the University of the Philippines.

After a couple of years working in the family business, I started my MBA in the US, which is where I am now.

So today when we made custard in culinary class, I just felt like I’ve taken the longer road to what I really wanted in the first place. I love being in the kitchen, making great food that people enjoy.

I’m lucky that my school focuses on healthy cooking, because I believe that the quality of the food we eat affects us on all levels. It’s not exactly “you are what you eat”, but “you are what your body does to what you eat”

I’ve been interested in sustainability and feeding the world. I joined a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and now pick up organic vegetables, fruits, eggs, yogurt and sustainably caught fish every week.

I think there has to be a larger push to move away from the industrial agricultural and food model. I believe in buying organic, opposing Genetically Modified Foods and eating local. I know that the world has to move to a more plant based diet. The right diet can heal illnesses. Big pharmaceutical companies, while they make life saving medicines, also have to maintain profitability, so they market drugs for conditions that can be managed with a better diet and lifestyle.

We have to ask our parents and grandparents about how they used to eat when they were younger. They didn’t have freezers and refrigerators so they had to buy everything fresh and local.

I’ve always wanted to help improve the world somehow, and now I know I have to start by helping you make better food choices, influencing you to cook at home, share a good meal with your family and go back to basics.