FOOD AND DRINK
Last week, I only did IF three times before finally giving up. I think it's because I'm bored. I'm isolated with a snail-paced internet connection and no books. I don't know how I managed to read so many books off my iPhone 3G before (back when Stanza still worked), but I've been trying to read using the Kindle app on my laptop and I can't do it. It doesn't feel like I'm reading a book and I lose interest very quickly.
So I find my mind wandering to food and what's in the fridge that I can eat or what's in the freezer that I can cook. Last Monday, I made chili and hotdogs, which went down very nicely with a few bottles of red. Then, on Wednesday, after having leftover crepes, I decided to try the local pizza that everyone's been talking about. I've been told it's somewhere near the church in GL, and I don't know what it's called but I have their number (+63-918-338-8961) and, apparently, they deliver.
Thin crust pizza (- yes, there's a thick crust choice, but I've been told the thin crust is better) with bacon, ham and extra cheese, please!
I didn't have to wait too long. The pizza cost P135, the extra cheese P20, and the delivery P50. Excellent! It wasn't the best pizza on the planet (- the tomato sauce is a bit too sweet for me, but it wouldn't be a local pizza if it wasn't, would it?), but it wasn't bad either, and now I'm curious to try it when it's fresh out of the oven. I ate it like sandwiches and wolfed down the lot of it. Yes, on my own.
I tried to make up for it that evening by having only raw food for dinner, but then I went out and partied like a frat boy, stumbling back home at six the next morning.
When Nicolas arrived on Friday, I ditched IF completely and ended up joining him for every meal.
Last Saturday night, I decided to put my brain cells to the test and see if I could remember how to make one of my favorite French dishes, oeufs en meurette (eggs poached in red wine sauce).
I first tried it in a restaurant in Paris, but the dish is really from Burgundy, where one of Nicolas' sisters also happens to live. A few years ago, we went to visit her, and her husband, who - ahem! - also happens to work at Chassagne-Montrachet, made us his home-cooked version, which was excellent. He introduced us to a couple who, later, visited us in Siargao and they taught me how to do a local version of oeufs en meurette, which I was able to replicate successfully several times. But since I've been, well, jobless and homeless for the past two years, I haven't been cooking much (- I think the last time I made it was for some friends in San Francisco two years ago) and was worried that I had forgotten how to make it.
Like the chili, I decided to make this using all-natural ingredients (- only real tomatoes for the chili, and no flour to thicken the red wine sauce and no chicken cube for added flavor). It turned out pretty well. It could have used more onions and I could have watered down the wine a bit more, but I think I, more or less, remember the recipe.
Tonight, I'm going to let Nicolas try the tahdig with potato.
EXERCISE
While I swam everyday this week, on Friday, it occurred to me that it was my last week in Siargao and, although it's supposed to be the rainy season, we've had nothing but glorious weather with a beautiful, unending sky of blue since the storm, and I had been wasting all that time cooped up inside my room. I got on my el-cheapo, brake-less, gear-less bike, and with Alice in Chains in my ears, rode to GL and back (total of around 10.3 km).
I had forgotten how much I enjoyed biking! There's still that tricky section where they're concreting the road (- such a shame!) and I arrived back home all splattered in mud, but I had the biggest grin on my face.
On Saturday, Dominic showed up here before 8 AM and I was forced to do taekwondo, even though I was exhausted from another night of battling insomnia. I still had a good workout though and, afterwards, invited Dominic to join me for breakfast of fresh fruits with mint and coconut milk.
Today, I went running (4 km., 35:55), biking (10.3 km.) and I did three sets of 20 two-hand kettlebell swings (16 kg.), all before 8:40 AM. Of course, while on my way back from the bike ride, I stopped to text one of the girls: "Please make me a bacon, potato, onion and basil omelette." You gotta love technology!
I would have gone to taekwondo at the Pink House in GL at 3 PM, but Dominic said the waves were looking good and he wanted to go for a surf. We rescheduled for early tomorrow morning back here instead.
I'm still going for a swim though...
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