The not-so-hiatus hiatus post

Migration to a new PC is a go...except that I can't find the right CPU housing for my needs. Off with the technical gobbledygook, but I'll be posting pictures probably by next week, or the week after next, when I acquire a Pentium 4 with a roomful of memory (you didn't know the sleepless nights I had to go through Photoshop on a 128MB SDRAM so I can post foodporn, did you?). One bit of unluck I had is the loss of my PDA's Hotsync cable, so I can't post some more while at the office (like free Internet time? Yes, but please, please don't tell. And if you're my boss who happens to pass by, the person writing this blog is not me.). Cost of said cable is a day's salary, which I need to make room in an otherwise tight budget. I'll just make a mini-roundup today of anything food-related, and from this point onward, I can't promise foodporn on every post ("Thank God!" Dial-up users might have to say because I'm a bandwidth hog, fyi.) but please visit anyway anytime. A tragedy of carabaos. This must be the reason why I am so not into local corned beef, or corned beef per se, for that matter. But even if I knew that what I am eating is carabao beef, it seems incestous. Carabaos are our companions in the ricefields and I can't bear to eat them. Hit or miss on cheese. Pinoycook blogged about good kesong puti from UP Los Banos. Must. Go. There. My past experience with this local cheese was flat. First, bought from hawkers in Pansol, only to be disappointed upon return to Manila since a fistsized package yielded air and a matchbox-size of white, but its tang can't be missed. Bitin. Then from food expos--one from Bohol came in a jar sealed with paraffin, left in the refrigerator for a year since no one would care to taste the unappealing cheese, or the floating pieces of paraffin. Another came from the Philippines' carabao center, Nueva Ecija, which looked like soft styrofoam cubes on my salad. Said cheese was bought at Market! Market! and left in the fridge for a month as of this writing, in the hope that it would turn rancid from its state of tastelessness. Vietnam here, Vietnam there. Wifey and I lunched at Pho Bac yesterday, and I reminded myself to check the net if Vietnam already has a McDonald's outlet. I haven't made a fruitful search, and landed instead here. Viets will be supplying catfish to McDonald's for? Beats me, but it gives me an idea what Filet-o-Fish is made of. I used to think it was breaded cardboard. "The Philippines is not renowned for its cuisine." Thank Mark Bittman and his book, The Best Recipes in the World for this wonderful introduction to our Chicken Adobo. *Self-introspection mode* Yes we have ourselves partly to blame, with the proliferation of tasteless gook in our canteens. Proof of this is the reluctance of expats in our office to sample local fare at the cafeteria, unless they're adventurous. It's even a demeaning remark to say "Pwede ka nang magtayo ng karinderya" when we get a tasteless (pun intended) remark in an effort to match taste with the rising cost of produce, fresh or mostly, otherwise. But then, I acted the same when I was posted in Shanghai that I slimmed down because I was skipping lunches of Goodyear-grade beef slices on a broth of boiled water with an identity crisis thinking it was chicken noodle soup. Oh well, maybe we just lack a bit of marketing as Tony Abaya would say. Would Lasang Pinoy 5 include a bookburning event? I'll make the invitations.