The Versatile Blogger Award

I haven't completed my year yet (exactly 7 months now) in blogging so that categorizes me as a semi-newbie to this wonderful virtual world of gastronomy.   Food blogging is not a walk in the park.  Behind every post entails a lot of work.  Cooking, food composing, photographing and the work we all like the least, cleaning up.  Then there's also the writing part.  And to receive an award that compensates all these is heartwarming.  So from a fellow food blogger to another food blogger from two countries away, THANK YOU very much Tobias of T and Tea Cake!
Tobias just passed his first month anniversary or mensiversary, as he fondly describes it.   It reminds me when I learned its equivalent in Italian, complemese, when I was starting to learn the language.  Tobias, Buon Complemese

Along with this award comes a certain number of rules.  So I am plunging in and going along with what I should be doing.

1.  Thank the person who gave you the award.  (Check!)
2.  Tell 7 random things about yourself. (Scroll down.)
3.  Pass the award on to 5 bloggers you've recently discovered and you think are fantastic!  (Scroll more down.)

Normally, I evade these things but since blogging makes my life more public anyway, here we go:
1.   I cannot stand the smell and taste of milk.  That includes cream & fresh cheese too.  With two growing kids who drink almost a liter of milk everyday that I have to prepare, it is a major struggle for me.   Milk sloshes are my worst enemy.  I can't wait for the time to come when they can prepare their own milk.  Ahum, another 10 years perhaps?  By that time, maybe I will join them and start drinking the white stuff myself. 

2.    I hate worms.   Just the sight of these wiggly creatures makes my skin hairs stand up.  But this is after I played with them and ate them when I was younger.  Yes, you read right.  Ate them.  Mopani worms are delicacies of South Africa that I had the sudden gall to stuff in my mouth while our South African hosts were discussing whether to try it or not.  Dont worry, they were deep fried.  We were in The Train Restaurant, a place serving all kinds of animal meat, including elephants and of course, the smaller creatures - mopani worms.  I learned from my family that when I was a little girl, I used to play with big, fat, green caterpillars so much that I considered them as pets.  Taking them on a stroll in the garden, trapped in my fists, wriggling to escape from my clutches.  Yuck!  I can't really say yuck to this after eating one!

3.   I am nocturnal.  Ever since I was young, I had always been fond of staying awake at nighttime.  That means after midnight.  It's the silence that draws me.   At nighttime, I do everything that I should be doing during daytime even rearranging my bedroom furniture.  I thought I was born at the wrong side of the hemisphere.  I am obviously mistaken because I am writing this at past midnight and still very awake at the other side of the hemisphere.

4.   Teletubbies, please no!  Being the youngest in the family, I was the last one to get married and have kids.  When my nieces and nephews were discovering Teletubbies, I had the freedom to leave the room to escape from the four unidentifiable colored creatures jumping around the television screen.  Years after, as much as I tried to hide the show when it's out in the television, my son chanced upon it and the love for Teletubbies started.  I endured years of having to watch episode after episode.  I introduced Barney, the purple dinosaur and he loved it too.  Whew!  At least Barney is watchable and I even like his shows.  Now I am on to child number 2 who is also a Teletubbies lover. 

5.   I can survive just by eating Philippine mangoes.  When confronted by other kinds of fruits, there's no other fruit that can shine as bright as a Philippine mango in my eyes. Why Philippine mangoes?  Because that is what I grew up with.  On my travels to warm countries that have their own mangoes, I make sure that I try theirs for comparison.  The ones from the Philippines are still the sweetest and simply the best.

6.   I never order ice cream cones because I hate licking the ice cream and I hate it when it drips on my fingers. 

7.   I go around the house with my label maker, checking what still needs to be labeled.  As if I haven't labeled everything yet.  When you open our closets & cupboards, the linens are also labeled according to kind.   It started as a way to acquaint my husband with the things in the house whenever I am not around.  Then it stuck.  It's easier this way,  I'm telling you.  


And now the other bloggers I have recently discovered.  This is pretty hard for me because I don't really have the time to check other blogs around as evidenced by my quite empty blogroll.  I wish I can find the time to do fill it up.   I never had any contact with the majority these fellow bloggers so the next task is to inform them.   Here's the list in alphabetical order:

Italian Food Forever - If you want genuine Italian cooking in English, try this site.  Deborah Mele is an American who resides in Umbria with her Italian husband and has been cooking for more than 30 years.  She's an inspiration. 

 Jun-Blog - Jun Belen is a Philippine-born, San Francisco-based professional photographer, writer & stylist.  His blog was recently a finalist in Saveur's 2011 Best Regional Cuisine in the Best Food Blog Awards.  He cooks Philippine cuisine with mind-blowing photographs.

Kitchen Bloody Kitchen - An Italian blog that has marvelous photography!

Rachel Cooks Thai - Rachel is an American cooking Thai food with the help of her Thai boyfriend.  I haven't done any of her recipes yet but given the chance, I would browse her site longer and whip up something from her collection. 

Sips and Spoonfuls - A blog maintained by Sukaina, a food writer & photographer in Dubai.  The photography is fantastic and the food she prepares seem so good.