Delicious Cupcakes

Christmas is fast approaching and as the BER months approach, people are getting preoccupied with what to give to loved ones, officemates, friends, neighbors.  Gifts vary according to the receiver.  Gifts for family and dear friends are usually valuable hence are expensive.  For office colleagues, neighbors and friends, gifts could be baked or cooked goodies, products of an enterprising relative's creativity or  some China made trinkets that could be bought from 168.

Like everyone else, I want to give gifts without breaking the bank.   For years, I baked fruit cakes and chocolate chip cookies, made cassava cakes,  made sardines for  gifts.  Not only was I able to save money from my home-made giveaways, I also earned a handsome amount from selling fruit cakes.

For this year, my daughter Kara and I trooped to the Maya Test Kitchen to learn how to make mouth-watering cupcakes.  Cupcakes have been the craze for the past two years with the emergence of Sonja's Cupcakes et al.  These little goodies could cost between P20  and P80 each depending on how intricate the frosting and decoration are.  Cupcakes have also become a favorite wedding and debut giveaway.

Kara & I rode the MRT at the North Avenue station and alighted at Ayala station and then took a cab going to Maya Kitchen's building.  We arrived just in time  as Chef Nikko Buendia was being introduced to the class.  She shared recipes of her bestselling cupcakes, demonstrated how to do them and the difficult part was to make the cake toppings.  Toppings could be anything.  For Christmas, one can choose from angel, star, bells or anything to commemorate the occasion. We had fun garnishing our cupcakes with chocolate chips, sprinkles, and other cake decors.

Thinking on how to decorate my cupcakes.

The fruits of my creativity.

With Chef Nikko and Maya Kitchen employee.

I must admit that I find cooking easier than baking.  Baking is a science, everything should be precise.  With cooking I can make adjustments if something did not turn out right.  But there's a certain high and fulfillment in turning out baked items.  Maybe I should put my heart in baking.  I'll start with cupcakes.

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Our Family's Davao Getaway

Exactly one year ago today, our family went to Davao upon the invitation of a Couples for Christ brother and sister, Edward and Rownee Braceros.  We stayed at their house as Bro. Edward was against us checking-in in a nearby hotel.  Except for Jun, my husband, all of us are first timers at Davao.

It all started when Cebu Pacific had a promo.  Airplane fares to domestic destinations were slashed by 50%.  I readily went online to book our reservation.  The best time for us was the November break as all our children are on semestral break.  When you have grown children, it is so difficult to plan a vacation as everyone has his own schedule to contend with.

We took the first flight for Davao to be able to maximize our time there.  I was wrong.  We were late to go to our first destination for a lunch at the beach of Samal Island as the children were all sleepy as they didn't have enough sleep. Lunch we had but we have to forego of the swimming as the children were tired.  The only other activity for our first day was a Mass.

On the way to Samal Island

The following day, we were all excited in going to the different tourist attractions.  We have already regained our strength and energy after a sumptuous dinner cooked by no less than Bro. Edward and a full night's sleep.  We spent the morning at the Philippine Eagle Center where the nearly extinct Philippine eagles are cared for.  Aside from the eagles, there were monkeys, crocodiles, hawks, owls, snakes and other big birds that you can only see in books.  We should really take a stake in the upkeep of this place is we want our grandchildren to see the nearly extinct birds.

Sir Arny, Philippine Eagle

It  was the Eden Nature Park in the afternoon.  Cool and serene, this park showcases the different trees and vegetables that Eden Farms are producing that end up in the vegetable/fruit sections of known supermarkets in Metro Manila.  We rode an open van that brought us to the different parts of the park:  lodges, camping ground (I would try this on our next Davao trip), swimming area, fishing area, big tracts of land planted to vegetables and fruit trees like mangosteen, durian, and others that are synonymous with Davao.  To cap our day, we had a merienda of fresh vegetable salad straight from the farm.

Our last day in Davao, we spent the day buying tuna and pomelo and a visit at the Crocodile Farm and the Butterfly House.  We learned a lot from Crocodile Farm.  We saw crocodiles of different stages, from babies to mature ones.  My daughters enjoyed feeding the ostriches and taking video of an orangutan showing his antics to his audience.  My son on the other hand ate barbecue made of ostrich and snake meat.

There are a lot of places to be seen in Davao.  The food is good, the weather is fine.  My daughters even said that they want to live in Davao.  Thank you Edward and Rownee for making our first visit to Davao truly memorable.

The Jimenezes of Sorsogon

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With the Philippines under the rule of Spain for 300 years, it is not surprising that the majority of Filipinos had descended from a Spanish ancestor.  I am no exception.  Jimenez is a family name of Spanish origin and is very common in Asturias, Castile, Navarre, Extremadura, Murcia and Andalusia.  It first appeared in the mountainous borders of Spain's Basque lands.  Jimenez is a patronymic form of the name Jimeno plus the Spanish suffix "ez" meaning "son of" derived from the parents' given names, thus, Jimenez means "son of Jimeno".

I am the eldest child of Ramon and Thelma Jimenez.  My father was born and raised in Sorsogon, Sorsogon, now Sorsogon City, the capital of Sorsogon province.  The question now is who is the ancestor of the present generation of Jimenezes of Sorsogon?

According to history, the first Jimenez arrived in Sorsogon sometime between 1565 to 1570.  It was during this time that the then Spanish conquistador, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi who was based in Panay dispatched an expeditionary force to gather provisions for the starving Spanish force in Panay and at the same time evangelize the natives that they would chance upon.  This force was headed by Capt. Luis Enriquez de Guzman and joined by their chaplain, the Augustinian friar, Fray Alonso Jimenez.  They stumbled upon the fishing village , Gibalong, at the mouth of the Ginangra River in what is now called Magallanes, Sorsogon.  The village Gibalong is the very first Christian settlement in Luzon.  It was here that the first Mass in Luzon was celebrated by of course, Fray Alonso Jimenez.  Aside from Sorsogon, Fray Jimenez visited other places in Luzon trying to preach the Gospel.

My father and my uncle, Arturo Jimenez claim that Fray Alonso was quite a ladies' man. They said that with his forays to the different parts of Luzon as a man of the cloth, that could account why Jimenezes are scattered throughout the country.  Is it safe to assume that the Jimenezes of Sorsogon descended from this friar, Fray Alonso Jimenez?  That Jose Rizal's Padre Damaso is no fiction after all?

Jimenez' Coat of Arms

http://genealogy.about.com/cs/surname/a/spanish_names.htm

http://www.ancestry.com/facts/jimenez-family-history.ashx

http://www.zamboanga.com/z/index.php?title=Sorsogon_City,_Sorsogon,_Philippines

Who Will Teach My Children?

"Stand up for life, stand up for love".  Those are the words that stuck in my mind from the lecture that Atty. Jo Imbong, Legal Counsel of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) gave at the Teaching Night for the Couples for Christ's Mission Core Group.  The  Mission Core Group or MCG is made up of all top leaders of the Catholic lay organization.  Since I know that the stand of Couples for Christ in the raging war on reproductive health is the same as that of the Catholic Church, I expected a rehash of the arguments a few years back.  I admit that my stand on some of the provisions of the bill are debatable and/or do not conform with the stand of my Church and my being a "leader" of Couples for Christ, one provision though woke me up from complacency.  The controversial provision is the mandatory reproductive health education for Filipino children from Grade 5 to high school.  From what I heard from Atty. Imbong and from my readings, the sex education, as it is commonly referred to, will be taught to the youth by someone whom they don't know or are close to.  I feel strongly on this as this bill will usurp my role as a confidante and friend to my children.  Not only do I believe that it is my right as a mother to explain to my children this highly sensitive issue of sex education but I would be assuring them that I only have their best interest in mind.  Does a health worker or teacher know better when to teach my children the "birds and the bees"?  Do they know how my child will react on this topic?  What about the health worker and teacher?  Are they comfortable in implementing the RH bill if it is against the teaching of their Church?

I agree that government has to make the most of its meager resources in delivering the best services to its citizens.  In the first place, governments exist for the people.  But will this mandatory reproductive health education for minors be the answer for government to be able to deliver basic services to more of its people?  Isn't providing quality public education and livelihood opportunities better alternatives so the youth will be spared from early parenthood and teen marriages?  In my more than five years serving in a depressed area, I found out that teen pregnancies were common to out-of-school youths and to those with absentee parents.  H. G. Bohn's "A Handbook of Proverbs" encapsulates it with this verse:  "An idle brain is the devil's workshop."  On the other hand, lack of better employment opportunities for the majority of the people make "orphans" of our youth.  Parents are forced by circumstance to seek better opportunities elsewhere to make both ends meet leaving children with little or no guidance at all. 

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Bravo Khan Academy!

I brought my daughter Kara last Tuesday to Loyola Student Center, a tutorial and review center along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City, to help her prepare for her quarterly exams in Geometry.  She said she was having difficulty and feared she would fail in the exams.  I forked out P800 for two hours of review which I fervently hope helped her only to find out three days later that I could have saved that P800.

Three days after, I saw the video that one of my friends in Facebook posted about Khan Academy.  He also wrote on his wall "Go back to school for free.  And you don't have to leave home."  It's home-based and best of all, it's free.  Fantastic!  I viewed the video and found out that Khan Academy, a non-profit educational organization created and sustained by Salman Khan, is one of the 5 winners of Google's Project 10 to the 100.  Google awarded the academy $2 million "to support the creation of more courses and to enable it to translate their core library into the world's most widely spoken languages."  Checking out its website, I was introduced to a free online collection of 2,000 videos on mathematics, science, history and economics.  Yes siree, Geometry is included.  If only I saw this website earlier, my daughter need not go to a review center for her Geometry exams.

How did Khan Academy come about?  It all started when Salman Khan, a Bangladeshi American, began tutoring his cousin in mathematics using Yahoo!'s Doodle notepad. He decided to distribute the tutorials on YouTube when more relatives and friends sought his help. The popularity of his tutorials and testimonials of appreciative students prompted him to quit his job in finance in 2009 and work for the Academy full time.  Sal Khan's long-term goals are to provide "tens of thousands of videos in many subjects" and to create the "the world's first free, world-class virtual school."

Bravo Salman Khan!  You are laudable for making the dream of a quality education within the reach of everyone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy
http://www.project10tothe100.com/index.html

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My Bucket List Part 2

Image via Wikipedia

As promised, here is my next 10 desires for my bucket list:  Please refer to an earlier post entitled My Bucket List.

11.  Build my dream house on a rolling terrain with my dream kitchen in it.  How would you like to cook up goodies with every gadget that you will be needing is within your reach?  Oh, that would be nirvana.
12.  Go on vacation riding my recreational vehicle with my husband, children with their respective families.
13.  Send at least 100 indigent students to college.  I believe that a good education is the best thing that a parent can give to his child.  Armed with a good education, a poor person has a fighting chance in uplifting his present predicament.
14.  Set up a real estate business which will take care of the retirement needs of my husband and I.
15.  Learn hydrophonics.  While in Malaysia, I saw premium vegetables like lettuce, asparagus, herbs grown in a small patch of a rocky and hilly land.  I cringed at the thought of barren tracts of land back home.
16.  Turn my Dad's agricultural lands into productive ventures.  These agricultural lands have been handed down to my Dad from his father and forebears and were the fruits of their hard work.  I would like to give tribute to them by making these lands productive and away from the long hand of the Department of Agrarian Reform.
17.  Have a farm with a mango orchard and fire trees lined up like sentinels at the entrance of the farm.  I dream of the day when my eyes will be able to feast on splashes of red and yellow.
18.  I would like that my husband and I be able to bequeath to each of our children a house and lot.
19.  Have a successful business/businesses with all my children helping out.   I would like them to work hard for what their parents had started and enjoy the fruits at the same time.
20.  Build a beach house.  It is so nice to hear the sound of the waves as they hit the sand and lull you to sleep.

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Kind Words

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"Kind words are like honey - sweet to the taste and good for your health." (Proverbs 16:24)

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." (Mother Teresa)

"Speak kind words and you will hear kind echoes." (Anonymous)

Those are just some of the quotes about Kind Words.  The importance of speaking kind words transcends time.  It was already recognized from the Bible days up to contemporary times.  We can not underestimate the power of a kind word.  It can bring back life to a dreary existence or put a smile on the lips of an overstressed corporate animal.  A kind word radiates positivism where there is negativism.  A lot of things can happen through the passage of time but the effects of a kind word cannot be underrated.

How much does it take to speak kind words?  The good news is it doesn't cost much nor does it entail a lot from us.  We can start by saying "Please" when requesting for a favor, "Thanks" when something favorable has been done to us.  When words are not sufficient, a smile can do wonders.  We cannot go wrong when we give back something good.  We receive a better one in return and the gesture goes a long, long way.

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