Nanay’s Kitchen

I like looking at old photos when I’m feeling low.  I especially love sifting through photos of my family’s house in Aklan.  My favorite, of course, are those of my Nanay’s kitchen.


I designed this kitchen myself, but the decor is all Nanay’s. Most of her lovely baskets and whatnots came from Dapitan.  Looking at this image always makes me feel instantly good.

I can almost smell Nanay’s cooking, especially the savory aroma of her delicious pansit, my favorite dish.

No one else’s pansit bihon can compare to my Nanay’s.   And a plateful of this flavorful noodles set against a vintage lace tablecloth is, for me,  an image of utter perfection.

What’s YOUR image of perfection?

Food for Thought

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers.  The original meal has never been found.  ~Calvin Trillin

Pantry for a Week

Well, this is how my Pantry Project turned out.

I know the cleaning stuff should be at the bottom (or even out) of the cabinet  but this is just temporary.

My laundry basket is actually a plastic basket that I bought from Farmer’s Market.

Meanwhile, the ugly plastic bags found a nice home in this banig bag.

I read somewhere that dried Bay leaf or Laurel is an effective insect repellant so I hung some here.

I re-used mayonaise jars for storing sugar and pasta.  Oops. I’m out of sugar!

These are actually dextrose bottles that I cleaned up and used for storing furniture polish.

This small wooden crate used to be home to my cassette tapes a million years ago.

Tomorrow, our new kasambahay will move into this room. So that’s the end of the short life of my pantry. But it was good while it lasted.  Now, the new challenge is to find a place for these displaced items around the house.  Wish me luck!

Food for Thought

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”– Dr. Seuss

Let’s Pantry!

I’ve been trying to re-arrange my pantry for the past three days.  (Well, it’s not really the pantry, more of the maid’s room.) So far, it has been quite a feat because it’s not easy to ‘train’ my two male housemates (read:  my husband and my brother) to use it properly.  After all, it became a  bodega since our kasambahay left last summer.  So it’s easy to just dump things in there.

I found some online inspirations for my new and improved pantry.

1.  The OC Pantry

Okay, this is probably too clean and  I may not be able to achieve this in a million years.  But I like the way this pantry is organized.  And I think the wire basket for the old newspaper is lovely.

2.  The Indusrial Chic Pantry


Now, this is more like me.  Saving the rustic sliding door from the junkyard and re-using it as a pantry door is a great (and green) idea. I also love the chalkboard-inspired wall.

3. The French Country Pantry

In the end, this is the one I really liked. I love the use of natural materials– like the baskets and terracotta pot–  for storage.

Hopefully, I will be able to finish my little project before a new kasambahay moves in. Weird but I really hope it’s not that soon.

Food for Thought  

“When you have cleared all of your clutter,  you can be of greater service to those around you. ”   -Michael B. Kitson