Don't Sweat The Pancakes

Finally, the kind of pancake that i always crave for and buy in pastry shops or even fast food chains can now "rise" in my very own pan. Thanks to Nigella Lawson of Food Network, there is no need for me to buy that batter-in-a-box just in case my morning mood calls for a fluffy pancake.

I remember picking up that box of ready-to-whip-and-cook pancake batter in the grocery store and secretly place it in my mother's cart when i was a child. When we get home, she would wonder how in the world did that box get into her grocery bag. Anyhow, i diligently followed the instructions in the box, but did not come up up with the ones that look like the picture in the box. Years pass, i learned to bake cakes and bread but i was still not able to make beautiful and tasty pancakes. All my attempts produce the kind that i saw being sold by vendors outside the gate of my grade school: flat and greasy, though mine was not that yellow! I stopped trying, but i continued buying the ready to cook ones (still always coming up with the same result, and it doesn't taste as good as the ones being served in restaurants.) Until one day, i saw how Nigella Lawson whip up that batter and made the pancakes, all fluffy (just like that picture in the box!) in 5 minutes. I thought the show was edited or something, but i tried it in my kitchen and it worked! Later on, i kept on improvising and came up with my very own fluffy, a bit crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, sinfully yummy and looks picture perfect too. :)

Pancake Batter:
1 cup flour
2 tbsps. sugar
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. yeast
1 large egg (2 if small)

1 1/4 cup milk

2 tbsps. vegetable or corn oil (not melted butter)

Sift and mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well in the center. Beat in egg, followed by the milk. Mix well but don't over beat. Blend in the oil until batter is smooth. Leave in the ref overnight (this tip is from my husband, Tarek who once worked as a Catering Supervisor and got this idea from an Italian pastry chef.)

Grease frying pan and heat, medium low. Pour in about half a soup ladle of batter into the pan. Turn upside down when bubbles begin to appear and the sides are brown.

Top with butter and honey or marmalade while still hot. (You may use Karo syrup instead of honey or marmalade.)

My own twist: i put cinnamon or nutmeg in the batter, and use homemade strawberry marmalade for topping. And when i cook the pancakes, i hum any happy tune in mind.

JUST A Blaahhhhh!g

Am confronted with the reality of death. I still burn inside every now and then. I taste acrid, bitter. Daily stress take its toll and hesitation towards kitchen work creep in. What is food but to sustain...and what is cooking but only to recreate what is already edible, and digestible. I feel very sick now, too sick even to escape to my now favorite comfort: cooking and eating. Naming this blog (blahhh!g actually) is, in truth, an improvised noise of voices in my head. I write about food and life, when my heart screams "laaaaaaaaame!" See how "lame" (English) reads delicious (lami) in my native dialect. It's a resemblance of this pretentious blog of mine. Because I don't really like to write about food and life...well, not always. And i don't really remember the past or people, not oftentimes, whenever im in the kitchen (that happens, always, during my REM.) Most of the time i remember the tea im boiling when im hooked up with my "research work" (ha! classy term for surfing the internet) and find the kitchen filled with aroma of mint...and the pot with evaporated tea. I remember the clothes in the washing machine, after a no-break-daily-3-hour-chore of making the bed, feeding and bathing the boys, cleaning the kitchen, "dettoling" (im a new fan of the disinfectant) furnitures and doors, vaccuming the 220 sq.m. floor. By that time, the clothes are almost dry inside the only-spin-no-dryer machine. Nevertheless, they have to be hanged and sprayed with anti-bac Downy. Afterwards, I clean the bathroom with a quarter cup of Dettol.

These are what i remember everyday. Whenever i am about to eat, that's when i begin to yawn, or "remember" that i have a headache and must take Panadol after eating, or remember that i haven't sat down nor stretched within the past three hours. ANd when am about to relax, (im usually still unbathed until noon) Leaf cries for milk...breastmilk. And then he sleeps for an hour. Then i take a shower, then fold the clothes (from yesterday's laundry), then finish my tea while teaching Sam ABC's and 123's (stole the term from Barney)
Within this half-day time frame (day starts at 8am, sun sets at 8pm, so half of midy is at 2pm) doing all these chores, i steal a few minutes to chat with friends back home, grab anything non-toxic from the ref (for i might mistake some meds for food) just to fill my grumbling tummy, run to Leaf who is stirring from his one-hour 11am nap and feed him (lying down and eating at the same time) and then clean up Sami's mess (toys and food) and Sami's mess (diaper change.) I should be going crazy by 2 pm but their afternoon nap always spares me from that. And I should be exhausted due to my OCPD (assuming this diagnoses of my 70-year old-hanging-on-to-shreds-of-youth male shrink is correct) but the silence of the house (and its cleanness) brings in a little luxury for me which is solitude. That's the time I write, and exhale, and expel stress. However, I couldn't. Because I end up doing "research work" again, perhaps subconsciously looking for a way to relieve me from something deeper than this socalled "stress."

At night, I do acrobatics, feeding Leaf, while Sami finds his way (all over me) to cuddle with me. It's almost symbolic...feeling like i'm walking on a tight rope, doing a balancing act, and actually wanting to just jump and finish off the act with a "blahhg!" but i couldn't because i have precious lives hanging onto me. When they sleep, I remember (again) that I am tired. And I should sleep. But I couldn't. So I cry. Loud, but a little shamelessly, for I cover my face with a pillow (and i think of washing the pillow in the morning.) I cry because I feel helpless, and in pain from head to toe. I cry because I feel alone. I cry...and I remember the good old days. And I cry even more, remembering life back then, back home. I think of how I considered pain to be something beautiful then and now it is something that makes me think of sickness, then death. Thus, i come face to face with my own mortality. And then, I remember God. Then I pray. Then I begin to remember the things that I should be thankful for, like love. I remember Tarek, who never fails to ask me, all the time when he is home if i need or want something. He bathes the boys, and feeds them everytime he is home. He cooks, makes the bed, lets me sleep when he is home. I thank God for back rubs and foot massages. I thank God for a husband who gives me my medicine everytime I feel ill. I thank God for 'i love you's" and hugs and kisses, every single day. I thank God for my healthy children. I thank God for family and friends. I thank God for I want nothing more, but only a good sleep and to swim on a pool again (wearing a swimsuit of course) with my boys. I thank God for hope. I thank God for grace. And most of all, I thank God for love.
Stress could be good...or is it "pain" that is good? Because it makes you cry. And it is good to cry. It makes everything looks normal afterwards. But it is better to pray, for it makes everything all right.

Dreams 101

I just saw what Sami and i made together while I taught him shapes and colors and how to use the mouse a few weeks ago. It was cute. And what made it beautiful was that it reminded me not to cease dreaming, for how could i teach my children to dream when i don't have any of my own? And how could I build up their faith when they can't see through my life that dreams do come true?

I should love life so that they will grow up to become happy individuals. I should be passionate again so they will become driven to pursue their own stars. I should be true to myself, know myself, and love myself, so they will grow up secure of their identity, and of their heritage.
I remember a book (yes, already a book in a disc) i wrote. I left it where I believe it belonged: the past. It was a dream that almost came true...Now i have crossed over a bridge i have burned. It's time to dream new dreams. It will keep me going. It will keep me alive. It will keep me sane.

A Day in the Life of a...

I cried buckets last night. As usual, the exhaustion brought about by my kind of "daily grind" was just too much. And I had terrible pains all over -my left leg, my back, my hips, my shoulders, neck, head, and my heart. Didn't i just wrote that pain is good? Hah! that was just perhaps one of my pathetic attempts at self-nursing. This time, i was all 3 parts (body, soul, spirit) disabled. I needed someone to call "emergency" for me.

Tarek was putting the boys to sleep and I have just finished scrubbing the entire bathroom like a madwoman, until i almost choke on the smell of the chlorine. It was 12 midnight, and i was still in the kitchen, not (yet) eating dinner, but cleaning the oven, the cupboard,the dish rack, the sink, and the floor. I couldn't stop, despite the fact that my entire body is already screaming in pain and sweating like rain. I clean like its a matter of life and death, like trying to exorcise demons i have buried alive inside me. They stay buried, but they also stay alive. And i needed to get rid of them for I was being devoured by that which possessed me.

After i have finished my almost-paganistic-ritual (worship of "clean"?) sans the sound of music or beating drums (except for the rhythm of my pant and my heartbeat pounding in my head) i threw myself on the bed and cried some more, unto God this time. I couldn't remember any single thing that i should be thankful for. Haven't i just been all 3-parts-disabled? I just cried for help. All that i could muster was to weep, sniffle, sob, and cry agen, vise versa. "God, i am very tired. and i want to go home (to the Phil.) and this is all too much for me...please help me God.Pleeeeez! ....huhuhuhu!"Then I took a shower, changed, turned on the washing machine, made a cup of mint tea which i didn't drink because i couldn't find the strainer,fed Leaf, then i fell asleep. Dinner-less but anaesthesized. Talk about "deliverance." Tarek hanged the clean laundry which i forgot to wait for.

It was that simple, the prayer. And i wished it didn't have to be that dramatic. And comic. But it was. Because of the pain (yes, here i go again with "pain" which i have so low a tolerance for, or do i? And isn't the first letter the same as my name's? Pinky. And also as praise, and pathetic, and pretty,and prude, poor,perfect,poignat,pure,prisoner...tell me to stop...right now.)
I remember my tita/friend/mentor, Helen O., in her TV show on CBChannel in CDO, saying that "Pain is a sign that we need to put something in order." It was quoted from one of her teaching materials. It is very true, and i live by the principle of order (OC, hellow?) but perhaps i need this kind of clutter? The inner kind. And the clean kind. To remind me that it's ok to be un-normal sometimes, its ok to cry, andthat its even ok to publicly declare your weaknesses...and even sins. I guess that's when "deliverance" begins to work. I guess....but then at least i am ok now. And needing to know if this is normal.

Footah sits on the Toilet

Meaningful Words

Bazin (Libyan) - Libyan food made of barley. You eat it by first digging your hand deep into the sticky, starchy and saucy barley.
Basin (ilonggo) - Stress is the same as "Bazin"; toilet bowl.
Footah (Libyan) - table cloth, but usually placed on the floor during mealtime.
Footah with capital "P" (Tagalog slang) - wild beast/animal, or something/someone else.

Im looking forward to telling my mother that here in Libya, you dig your hand deep into the "bazin"...into that sticky, starchy, saucy thing, and...I also wonder how my mother in law would react if i tell her that in the Philippines, the "footah" sits on the "bazin" while in Libya, people always put the "footah" under the "bazin."


Gasul (Libyan) - brand name of a laundry soap
Gasul (Filipino) - brand name of a cooking gas

(Boy, was i amazed to see that brand in a box!)

If you ask someone "Wen?" in Liby, you will be answered with a direction or a location. Wen means where. "Shino?" means what. "Sino?" in Filipino, means who.

If I tell a Libyan that Filipinos smoke "Sigarilyo", it would be a shocker. Whaaaat??? Filipinos smoke cockroach?
Sigarilyo (though pronounced as Sigrillo) means cockroach.

Here, the women are "ok" and if you sing "la la la la la" to any tune, people will stop, look at you, and wonder what's gotten into your head, saying " no! no! no! no!"

La (Libyan) - No; as to "no, don't do that" or "no, its not that" (have not or no more is "Mahfish")Bahi (Libyan) - Ok, as in OK