Life Gets in the Way of Blogging

Pardon the long silence, please. What, you may ask, has gotten in the way of blogging? Hmmm, lemme see, how about we call it — LIFE? Isn’t it ironic? To be able to blog effectively you need to live life fully and, when you do, there’s just not enough time to blog! I take hundreds of photos, say of Malaysia, and then get too tired to edit them and publish a post about the fun trip my family took late in June 2007.

TAG-O-RAMA

I know that Web 2.0 is all about socializing — and one way is to tag other bloggers, much like the chain letters of yore. And if there’s not much time to blog, there’s even less time to blog hop! So before anything else, I’d like to acknowledge thank Chateau for saying the nicest things about Baguio Insider and I promise to work on that Rockin’ Girl Blogger Tag ASAP! A few months ago, Tina tagged me for the music I listen to and, much as I hate to admit it, I actually like driving and working in complete silence. But I will come up with my lists and tag others, too. Thanks for your patience.

FAMILY, FESTIVITIES & FOOD

I have been in Manila for long stretches, this is a yearly routine every July and August because it’s my siblings’ birthdays — Dits’ on July 23, Rosanne’s on August 7 and Karin’s on August 31. Of course, in true Filipino style, we just kept dining out in different restaurants both familiar and new, at the lovely Thai restaurant at Dusit Hotel in Makati, an unmemorable Japanese fastfood place at Trinoma with the similar-looking mascot as Teriyaki Boy’s, a Japanese buffet on T. Morato which is, essentially, an all-you-can-eat a la carte without an actual buffet table,

I did mention to Lei that I do not like taking photos of food, as a matter of respect for other restaurateurs because their food may be judged by a blogger’s skills in photography and writing that may not necessarily capture the essence of the taste and presentation that one pours into creating an entree. An exception, of course, is when one is a feature writer or when one features a restaurant in toto, not just ‘What I Did Today.’ In the case of feature writing, there’s a further limitation I impose on myself: focus only on the good points and skip the bad.

From 1991 to about 2004, I did use to be able to shuttle back and forth Manila and Baguio with speed and ease. But maybe its age slowing me down, or maybe just the annoying lowland traffic of Pangasinan (where public markets must be along the national highway) or the dangerous I-don’t-care-if-it-is -your-lane-but- my-bus-is-way-bigger-than-your-car-so-pull-over-or you-lose-in-this-head-on-collision-game but these days I can no longer do quick trips or overnight stays. It has to be weeks at a time.

WEBMASTER WORKS

These are also Baguio’s off-peak months for tourists (except the Koreans who are on summer break English crash courses) so I get to spend a lot of time redesigning the Go Baguio! website and building new ones. For those of you who have seen only the rants, tirades and rages of the author of this blog, please visit http://www.gobaguio.com, my original Baguio travel website, lest you think that this author is just one dour old lady. It is the place where only beauty, happiness and all Imeldifications about Baguio City are published. Honestly, I put in three times as much work on Go Baguio! as I do here.

Lest you guys think I have been an idle webmaster, please find the following new pages that I have added and/or refurbished, not to mention converting 60 or so pages manually into a new 3-column design:

Gateway to the Cordilleras

Cordillera Cuisine

The Ritual Preparation of Pinikpikan

Baguio For All Seasons: The Best Times to Visit

Ukay-Ukay in Baguio

Baguio City Market

Baguio Local Products

Best of Baguio

Baguio Tour Itineraries

FOOD SHOWDOWN 2007

And then there’s the work mom and I did for 3 long days last week, anchoring Food Showdown 2007 for old friends and colleagues in the hospitality industry, chefs Myna Segismundo and Jill Sandique and writer Mickey Fenix, who are the ladies in the fore of Lifestyle Network’s Chef TV. Glenda Barretto of Via Mare was there as judge and (as I would kid her everyday) to “lend prestige to the event.” The different chefs, food writers, restaurant owners and other members of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of the Philippines (HRAP) where mom, tita Glenda and tita Myrna were perennially elected as officers of the board were there judging. I espied food columnist Nancy Reyes who was also judging and volunteered to set up her blog for her. Of course we talked about Connie, whose house she cannot find in Antipolo and told me to tell her that there is an autographed book about Adobo waiting for her.

I asked permission to feature Food Showdown 2007 on the web and am currently working on a post and photo gallery for it. It’ll probably be included in my new ‘Manila persona’ website Divi Diva at http://www.dividiva.com. It’ll air in about 2 1/2 weeks on Wednesdays and Sundays on Lifestyle Network, and for food lovers it’ll be a great cooking show.

How do I know all these folks? Well, let me tell you something personal about myself. Our family business in Metro Manila is a steak house on Tomas Morato in Quezon City, an active member of the HRAP since 1975. We won the bid to operate Halfway House in Camp John Hay in 1991. We precisely wanted to help in rebuilding Baguio after the 1990 earthquake while the whole country was avoiding it and a lot of residents were leaving it. It was run for the first year by my father Alfredo (who moved up to Baguio in 1978), my brother Dits and myself, with our favorite cousin Diane McCann-Narcelles (Mountain Lodge Baguio) as Assistant Manager. When Camp John Hay was turned over to Fil-Estate in 1997, I decided to stay permanently in Baguio, and since then have been involved in the hospitality industry: restaurants, canteen concessions, vegetable dealership, websites, inns, billiard hall, sing-along lounge, etc.

And HRAP used to mount the largest culinary competition every two years called Chefs on Parade, where I used to either judge or staff all the time. Anthony de Leon of Baguio Country Club has asked and obtained permission to call the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Baguio (HRAB) culinary event this September 2007 ‘Chefs on Parade,’ too. Coming next month — this should be pretty big and exciting. Myrna Segismundo is bringing Chefs on Parade to Cebu in November this year.

Everyone in the industry very generously volunteered their time and expertise for Food Showdown: Le Souffle’s Jessie Sincioco, Manila Diamond’s Jean Pierre Migne, ISHCAM’s Norman Gandler, HRAP President Humphrey O’Leary, Pampanga’s Renaissance Man Claude Tayag, among others, were there. I sat with Baguio Country Club (BCC) Chef Noel Ramos at the Judges Lounge and gave him the good news about BCC’s having won some awards during the event.

We were billeted at Sofitel Philippine Plaza (lovely, lovely), ate sumptuous breakfasts at Spiral, ordered room service at night (too tired), met up with Baguio boy Louis Pawid III, who works with Sen. Richard Gordon at the Philippine Senate, and killed time for the number coding restriction at the bar by the casino entrance. Because, as it turns out, the CCP Complex now ‘belongs’ to Pasay City. A charming old bellhop told us that in Manila and Pasay would enjoy jurisdiction over the businesses there on alternate years. But since it has been determined that Vito Cruz St. is the boundary between them, Pasay won! And Pasay does not have a number coding window either!

BACK TO BLOGGING

And I can go on and on boring you about my life. But basically, I am back in Baguio now and back to blogging. On top of arguing with Smart Bro for the past few DAYS because I am able to log on for only minutes at a time and am highly dissatisfied with their service, there are some repairs and retouches that we are undertaking for Atenara House. I will be visiting all my blog friends, my Baguio friends, and dining out in all the familiar places.

It’s good to be home!

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