Like The Tomato
Nothing here but my musings about daily life, books, anime, and food.
I have always enjoyed homecooked meals. Growing up, family dinner has been a staple in our household. Gathering around an oval table, my mom sitting at the head of it, with my brother and I on each side. We sit at that table at a specific time of the night – I would like to say 7 pm, and my mom would check in – what happened during the day, etc. Menudo is often on that table to share.
What exactly is menudo? The one the I grew up with is the Filipino version, I only realized that there is a Mexican version when I moved here in the US. The Filipino version of menudo is a tomato based pork stew, with liver, potatoes, carrots and raisins – at least this is how my mother makes it. And I still make it that way – sometimes. I have learned to change it to cater to someone who doesn’t like having the actual liver in the dish, or just omitting the liver entirely. Sometimes I add raisins, sometimes I do not. It really just depends. But regardless of how I cook it, it makes me feel at home – though for the most part, I eat alone.
What I love about this dish? It’s easy to make. It’s quick and it cooks in one pot. The ingredients are definitely accessible and inexpensive. One pot can last up to a week and the dish is even more delicious once it’s been sitting for a day or two – the flavors really come out. And it’s a perfect with steamed white rice – I love my steamed white rice.
What I used? Pork shoulder, Filipino red hotdogs, potatoes, carrots, onion, raisins, soy sauce, peppercorns, laurel leaves, and tomato sauce.
How I did it? In a large pot, I sautéed the onions in a little bit olive oil. I just sweat the onions, at least until it releases its aroma. Then I put the pork in. I add a little bit of soy sauce and cook it until it evaporates a little bit. This is when I add the tomato sauce, and the rest of ingredients. I let it boil in medium heat, then let it simmer in low heat for about an hour or so. I like my pork super tender and the veggies on the softer side (almost mushy), so until I get the right texture I want, I will just let this dish simmer in low heat. I occasionally stir and do a taste test. This is when I add a little bit of salt and pepper. Once it’s done, I serve this on top of freshly steamed white rice.
I would definitely like to make this without soy sauce one day – I am allergic to soy. But for now, I like the flavor soy sauce gives to it. Also, the goal is to make this with fresh tomatoes. I would like to not use tomato sauce in a can anymore. In time…you know, when I’m not so lazy.
By: Kate Moore
Format: Audiobook / Hardbound
Pages: 496
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Listening Length: 15 hours and 52 minutes
What do I do in my desperate attempt to battle a reading slump? Pick up a nonfiction about radium and how it affected the lives of the girls who worked in the watch making industry back in the day. Dark AF.
Nonfiction is something that I don’t pick up naturally. So when I decided to browse the genre in my library, it came as a surprise to me. What drew me initially was the cover. I mean, look at at it! Gorgeous! It was an instant borrow. I didn’t even read what it was about. I just went for it. And oh boy – it was a difficult read.
The book is about the radium girls – female workers of the watch industry basically applying this glowing material to watch dials. These basically chronicles the journey of the girls from the beginning of working in the factory through the trials that came years later.
I was lost in the pages in an instant. It was definitely a roller coaster ride of emotions for me. I was excited for them getting their first jobs, getting their own money. I was raging for them when they were placed in harms way by these corporations wanting to sell these watches. When they were not protected enough while working with radium. Then what little protection they had was taken away. I cried when each one of them experienced the fatal effects of radium to the human body. I cheered with them as they surge on to fight against the companies they worked for to get what they deserved for working in such greedy companies.
When I said I was hooked the first second I started listening to it, I was hooked. I wanted to see how the journey ended for these women. It was a rough journey, definitely one of the most difficult reads I’ve ever experienced. And I loved every single minute of it. The fact that my anxiety was definitely triggered while reading this book is a positive thing.
So if you are feeling up to reading some history and what kind off pushed OSHA that we have today, I recommend you pick up this book.
It has been a long month for all of us. I have been working from home closer to two months now. I got lucky that I have a predisposed condition – I never thought I would ever utter these words in my entire life – that got me exempted from working onsite, being an essential working and all. And I can honestly say that I love it.
But having only bedroom and not enough space in the apartment to set up two stations, our dining table has been transformed to one big mess. My work laptop, my gaming laptop and extra monitor and all the extras took over one side of the dining table. Chris’ setup took over the other side. So our dining table does not exist at the moment.
Dining Table Mess
Being an introvert with social anxiety, I don’t really mind not being around people. Honestly, I prefer it. I don’t like being in crowds and getting to work and being at work tend to be very exhausting at times. And unnecessary conversations is something that I don’t really like. So this working from home setup is a dream for me. But oddly enough, as introvert as I am, I find myself having very slight issues with it.
It gets too quiet. I am alone for almost throughout the day with only the dogs for company. And it is such a surprise to realize that other people’s voices ground me in some way. My anxiety gets triggered when it’s too quiet. Isn’t that crazy? I didn’t realize that hearing conversations around me, regardless if I partake in them or not, relaxes me I guess. This is normally alleviated by music. But lately, it’s been a struggle. So I have been watching live streams all throughout my shift just so I hear a different voice.
Cabin Fever. Well not necessarily. But since Chris and I have been limiting our going out – meaning going to the store for necessities, I am pretty much in the apartment 24/7. And it’s slowly driving me insane that I have been s staring at the same walls for the past month or so. I know that I can walk outside. Fuck no. I am working from home for a reason. And I am not subjecting myself to a risk that I don’t need to be dealing with. So my quick solution? Going out the balcony and staying under the sun for a few minutes and breathing in some nice fresh cool air.
I have not been able to read. I personally find that really disappointing. I personally thought that I would be able to read more since I am just home and I should be able to just pick up a book. But I was definitely wrong. The commute to work is my reading time. And that is not part of my weekdays for now. Sure I can listen to audiobooks while working but I find it hard to focus with work sometimes when I’m listening to a book. Especially since I am dealing with some really sensitive materials, I try to give it the focus that it deserves. And books tend to divide my attention. And now that school started for me, it’s been a little difficult to insert some leisure reading in my packed schedule.
I forget to eat and drink water. Yeah – not good at keeping track of time. At least when I am working onsite, I have my coworker remind me that it’s time to eat and all of that. But since I started working at home, I often find myself skipping a meals. And if do remember to eat, it’s the not-Roma-proof variety. And I have been been having so many issues about this. My allergies are all over the place right now. The moment that I started working from home, my discipline about food went out the window and I am suffering from it.
Well I still have a month of working from home. And I still have how many days to keep my sanity at home. And I am just taking it one day at a time. One movie at a time? One Episode at a time? One stream at a time? Yeah – we shall see how this little self discipline project pans out.
This was not a new discovery. I am very familiar with the platform. I’ve had a Twitch account for a while now but I haven’t really been on it religiously. I just downloaded it to mainly watch live streams or even recorded streams of Sims 4. That includes the game plays or buildings. But I never really gotten into it…until recently. By recently, I mean last Monday last week.
I came across a live stream of someone playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. And if you know me well enough, then it won’t be a surprise why I gravitated towards that stream. I dabbled in this CS frenzy way back when, my teen years really, when I was still in the Philippines. So when I found that stream I was hooked a bit. I mean, nostalgia you know?
So while I was on the bus on Monday, I was on the way home, I got a notification that this guy was streaming CS. So I was enjoying that for a bit until I got home and he switched to playing Apex Legends with a couple of his friends. One of his friends, who also happened to be streaming at that time, was talking to his chat about cheese and how he doesn’t like them or at least not eating cheese on its own. So I just had to find him. WHO DOES NOT LIKE CHEESE???
Twitch Channel: milehighclutch7
I went to his stream just to troll a bit. I was really just curious on who is this person who doesn’t like cheese. But I enjoyed how he interacted with his twitch fam and I never left. Watched his stream for 6 whole hours! Sometime in the middle of that, his dog Bubba decided to bark and showed his lovely self to the camera. And he had been the catalyst – I subscribed to the channel impulsively. And since I have no self discipline, I bought some bits – and cheered. No regrets though. I have not missed a stream since. Favorite? For sure. He has a smaller channel which I like since he gets to engage with his followers or whoever is in the chat a bit more. Which is pretty hard to do when you have maybe a thousand people on the chat? It’s a bit more personal which is nice.
Twitch Channel: catziilla
Since finding out Zeph’s channel, I have been raving about Apex Legends to Chris non stop. To the point that I was telling her that I have been really considering playing again and starting with that game. She decided to check the game out. Searched for Apex Legends on Twitch and Cat so happened to be streaming. Chris was watching her live stream when I got home from work Thursday night and damn, that girl is good! We pretty much just watched the rest of her live stream. She is definitely an animated one. But when she is focused, hot damn, she is focused and I couldn’t take my eyes away. And did I mention she is freakin’ good at Apex Legends?
Twitch Channel: negaoryx
I found this streamer through Chris really. Got home one day and she was watching Neg. It was towards the end of her stream so I missed what game she was actually streaming at that time. But from what I saw, it was sort of scary. It was Dead by Daylight. I followed her but not religiously. I did watch her latest recorded stream on Wednesday night and I highly enjoyed it. Yesterday I got a notification that she was streaming and just went ahead and watched it. She was of course playing Dead by Daylight. Her channel is pretty huge, she is a full time streamer so she does have a lot of following. But that didn’t deter her from being engaged with her people for pretty much the whole stream. The draw for me was that she is pretty new in the Dead of Daylight game or a multiplayer game and it is definitely entertaining seeing her progress and find out how to do things. Watching her play this game really made me interested in the game…Addicted even.
Since I watched Neg’s stream, I got really interested in looking into other streamers who have been playing the game for a lot longer…Hence the next two streamers:
Twitch Channel: Sattelizer
I was watching another streamer playing Dead by Daylight before I jumped on this one. And he was having a 24 hr live stream of Dead by Daylight. It was already midnight when I entered his stream. And since I am such a responsible adult, I watched the live stream till morning, when he ended the stream. So I was up the whole night. WATCHING A LIVE STREAM! What kept me up? He was playing with his subs, well actually whoever was in the chat and wanted to play. He is funny and I like his sense of humor. I liked how engaged he was with his people as well. The conversations that went on that stream were definitely adult friendly. Well, they were not scared to discuss a bit more adult topics – smut anyone? This one is also a big channel so it was really nice to experience how he interact with his chat. And since I have no self discipline, I jumped to another stream right after Satt said his byes.
Twitch Channel: Morf_UK
Of course, Morf was also playing Dead by Daylight – because I just couldn’t get enough of that game play for some reason. The main hook for me and what made me stay and watch his live stream was his reactions. They were priceless. I could still hear his scream in my head. The back ground playlist he was playing didn’t hurt either. I was lucky enough to see him play both the killer and a survivor for this particular live stream. And watching someone play the killer was definitely a good change in perspective. Totally changed the experience for me. And he was good at both. Which was definitely a breath of fresh air. Morf’s commentaries didn’t shy away from more adult content, which definitely was nice. That personally made him more relatable to me than some streamers for sure. He ended his stream about 1 pm today I think.
I think what worries me about this is the fact that I haven’t slept at all. Been awake for over 3o hours now. Chris knows this about me, and one that I absolutely don’t like about myself, is that if I find something that even slightly pique my interest, I get borderline obsessed. All my free time will be spent on that interest and I will find time to indulge on that interest. Hence not sleeping AT ALL. And I will have blinders on me, like now, nothing will keep me away from this new interest for a while. That worries me. Because my personality will not let me do otherwise.
I never thought that I would be obsessed with Twitch – well more like certain game plays. And I am still deciding if this newly discovered fascination with live game streams is a good thing. Or am I just using this as an escape because I can’t seem to pick a new novel to read for about a week now? Mood reader curse. Apparently, Twitch is what my mood wants right now. So Twitch is what it will get. I learned not to go against what my mood wants at this point. It’s detrimental to my health. So for a while, I will just watching streams. Join me?
Sinigang is a popular Filipino stew or soup characterized by its sour and savory taste. Tamarind is the most commonly used sour base but you can of course use other agents. Some people use miso, guava, unripe mango, and lemon or kalamansi. You get the idea. You can use different meat as well – pork, fish, shrimp, beef. And it’s served with rice of course.
With the increasingly chilly weather, I decided to cook this dish. Well, it was more like Chris requested and I complied. This was not the first time I cooked this dish. Far from it, this dish was one of my staples and I often prided myself with the fact that I could cook this dish in my sleep. But this would only be the second time I would cook this with fish, my go to will always be pork.
The Ingredients: Fresh salmon, taro root, okra, Chinese eggplant, string beans, yellow onion, Roma tomatoes, baby bokchoy, tamarind soup mix, and Serrano peppers.
Prep: I diced the onions, quartered the tomatoes, quartered the taro, cut the eggplant – nothing fancy really, cut the string beans, and separated the bokchoy. I just washed the salmon since we had the market cut and clean it for us when we got it.
I decided to precook the veggies except for the bokchoy and the peppers. I learned from my previous attempt in cooking sinigang with fish that it definitely cooks faster than any meat. We loved our veggies on the softer side so I want them cooked already before I even start cooking the fish. I let veggies simmer in salt water. Once the taro was almost on the soft side, I covered the pot, took it off the heat and set it aside. I left the veggies in the hot water though, I wanted them to continue cooking.
In a huge stock pot, I warmed up a little bit of olive oil and sweated the onions. When the whole kitchen was filled with the fragrant aroma of onions, I put the tomatoes in the pot, sauteing it for a few seconds. I then put the salmon in the pot after that. I filled the pot with filtered water – just enough to cover the fish, I added a bit of salt and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.
With that, I added the cooked veggies, the peppers, and poured 3 1/2 packets of the tamarind soup mix just because we prefer our sinigang extra sour. I let that simmer for about 10 minutes and then added the bokchoy. Let that simmer for another 5 minutes. I turned the heat off and covered the pot, letting it sit for about 15 minutes before serving.
There are different ways to serve this. Filipinos tend to serve this a la carte – in a huge serving bowl – next to huge bowl of rice to share with the family. Chris and I enjoy ours in a huge ramen bowl on a bed of rice with a small bowl of patis or fish sauce on the side. Perfect.
I’ve said this so many times, I am a mood reader and I consider that as my own personal curse. My next read will always be dictated by my mood…and it could really be a hell of a challenge.
So what does it really like to be one?
I often struggle with finding the next book to read. Just because my mood changes so abruptly sometimes, I often had difficulty finding the next book to pick up. I can pick up an X number amount of books in a day and still not find the right book. The struggle will always be real.
I don’t have a “To Be Read” schedule. I’ve always had a problem with sticking to a TBR list. And this one hurts because I love crossing out something off a list. I am often jealous of people who can just pick the books that they would read for the rest of the month and successfully stick to it. But because my mood at the beginning of the month won’t be consistent for the rest of it, I always end up scrapping the whole list. The “To Be Read” pile is there, I just don’t have a list.
I have a lot of unread books. I have a lot of partially read books too. I learned early on that I can’t really force myself to read a book. Not that I haven’t done that in the past, I have, and it never ends up good. So I am not scared of putting a book down and setting it aside for a later time. I don’t see the point of forcing myself to finish a book. It’s unfair for me and the book. Hence, my pile of to be read books is forever growing.
I don’t really follow the list of new releases or anticipated releases. I don’t find myself getting overly excited for it. Or I can be excited but still won’t pick that book up until maybe a few months after or even a year after. The only exception to this one was Harry Potter of course.
I can’t join a read-a-long or a book club. These group readings could be fun and I often find myself wanting to join one. But since the books being read in these group settings are often predetermined, it’s difficult for me to join or engage at all. I definitely struggled with the required readings for school.
I struggle with reading slumps as much as I hate to admit it. It could be days, weeks, or months before I’m able to find a book that I am in the mood for. A book hangover definitely has been a contributing factor to some of these. But most often than not, it was because I couldn’t find the right book.
My reading count is definitely not consistent every year. Like I said, I could be in an extreme reading slump and not able to read for a long periods of time. Or it could be like last year and I found the topic and genre that I was in the mood for and just fly through the books.
I can’t participate in a yearly reading challenge, or any reading challenges to be honest. May it be just saying I will read an X amount of books for a year or following a reading prompt for that year or just picking a book from a TBR jar. I would definitely fail. Trust me, I tried so many times.
I go through different genres. I have my favorite of course. But being a mood reader definitely gave me the chance to explore different genres. I love it. Although, I still have to find myself picking up more non fictions. If my mood decide to shift me there, that would be great.
I can also fly through books once I find the right genre or topic I’m in the mood for. Since my mood can fluctuate a lot, I try to read as much books as I can in a short amount of time under that specific topic/genre. This was not often the case, last year was definitely lucky. From September until the present really, my mood apparently hasn’t changed. So I have been flying through books in one genre/topic. Since then, I often finish a book a day or two.
Bottom line, being a mood reader can be crippling at times and I do get frustrated once in a while, but I have learned to just go with it. Sure the downside is there, but I like the advantages too. The past year has definitely been a game changer. Since I am stuck in a genre right now, I have a choice to stop reading for a while and pick up a different genre at a later time. Or just go with it and embrace it. And that’s what I did. I am on book 14 for the month of January, so I can’t complain.