Tag: food

  • We eat more than cows, chickens and pigs~ so what?

    About a week ago Nat Geo was showing a new episode of Tabu Latinamerica, which happened to focus on food. One of my favorite subjects. Thinking about food makes me hungry. But this is Tabu, so obviously we weren’t going to be talking about regular food. While the episode focused on Mexico and Venezuela, with their talks on eating rata campestre (countryside rat??? not from the sewers of course) soup, and… some kind of tarantula/spider?

    Anyway, part of the episode also focused in Peru, where they showed a town called La Quebrada, in Cañete, they prepare cat. I haven’t eaten cat — at least, not knowingly… though once while we were eating rabbit chicharron, we suspected we had been given cat because the “rabbit” was bigger and had more fat in it — but I’ve eaten a lot of other things. Of course, guinea pig is kind of a regular “bizarre” food, and I guess rabbit is bizarre to some people. Suri (the worm) is also tasty when fried (it’s almost like crispy pork skin), as well as an assortment of fishes~ Including the palometa (which I’ve heard it’s a piranha’s cousin LOL) and paiche. Shark’s fin soup and swallow’s nest soup apply.

    It’s kind of always been common knowledge that people ate cats in Peru- my family (and I’m sure many other people) often joked about it, it’s like joking about everything being chicken, or eating the insides of animals — horror movies and 4D jokes are perfect. Let me tell you, thank you Afro-Peruvians for developing Anticuchos. As a Peruvian who has finally learned to eat without asking (much), and not judge cultures by my own point of view, it saddens me to see people’s comments. Especially considering that we’re all Latin Americans.

    Does it feel good to call other people ignorant, or small-minded? Is it wrong to eat something just because you think it’s your pet? Is it not wrong that we eat cow so easily when Indians see them as gods? We’re eating their gods, sending them to slaughter houses, and people judge these people because they eat their pets in a non-industrialized way. This is kind of the same issue I had with The Cove [1].

  • Audrey Hepburn for Galaxy Chocolate

    galaxy-silk-chauffeur-audrey-hepburn

    A while back a GORGEOUS Dior commercial featuring Grace Kelly, Dietrich and Monroe, alongside a slinky Charlize Theron was invading my TV and doing rotations on my YouTube ads. That was one of the only commercials I didn’t mind breaking my viewing.

    Alongside with visual effects magicians, they managed to bring back classic on-screen beauties… and now, they’re latest project has been bringing back Audrey Hepburn. From the still up there, it looks PRETTY uncanny. Apparently they found the perfect Hepburn double, and did their magic twitching details to make her look IT. Sadly, we can’t watch the commercial for Galaxy Chocolate, which has only been licensed within the UK and Ireland territories.

    I guess Audrey Hepburn’s image is THAT expensive.

    You can check the info on Framestore.

    — EDIT —

    Ad has made it’s appearance on YouTube.

  • Yu Aoi is a Taiwan Girl!

    yu aoi kaiten teburu mutsukashii taiwan de nv hai

    Look what I found! It turns out that Yu’s photobook Kaiten TEBURU ha Mutsukashii, which had her followed by photographer Ivy Chen in Taiwan doing their Taiwan Cafe rounds, will be translated to traditional Chinese in a new release simply titled Taiwan’s Girl (台灣的女孩), to be out on December 27th this year. I doubt this will show up on any other online websites~

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  • Yu Aoi, Ichiro, Meat & Kirin

    I don’t really follow baseball, but that time I got to watch the World Series by chance, I ended up being an Ichiro fan, so I love this commercial. xD And I love that Yu-chan’s faster than him when snatching meat.

    https://youtu.be/dF7YdQpmmww

    Apparently they did a series, but you never know with these commercials any longer. They go PUFF all the time, even those that seem legit uploads.

  • Andrew Zimmern on Food

    Food opens more doors and makes more friends than any other form of diplomacy. It allows us to explore each other’s differences and find common ground while celebrating each other’s cultures, changing the way we understand our planet one meal at a time.

    A kick-ass quote by Andrew Zimmern in preparation for the YAMYUM Food Blogathon ;D

    It begins on Monday 3rd! So TOMORROW!

  • Helados D’Onofrio’s Classics and the Times~

    You know, I’m not currently a big fan of Helados D’Onofrio mainly because since the mid-90s, the company has been regurgitating the same type of ice cream over and over again. There’s only many ways you can mix vanilla and chocolate on a stick, you know?

    Their brand has gotten stuck in a way that it only does combinations of chocolate, vanilla, lucuma [1], and a very cringe-worthy hot pink strawberry.

    Then again, the same thing happens with snacks and sweets. There’s only so many ways you can mix chocolate cookies with vanilla cream, or vanilla cookies with an assorted arrays of creams (yes, once again: chocolate, lucuma, strawberry… but sometimes mint and if they’re feeling adventurous, peanut.).

    But as with many things you grow up, you can’t hep but have a weakness for the memories it brings back. I do remember enjoying my chocolate Buen Humor, the chocolate-cookie-vanilla-ice-cream Sandwich, the fruity Eskimo, and as a little kid it was all about the Copa K-Bana (you know, as in “Copacabana”), and the Vasito (little cup) which was a tiny cup with a one-single flavor “scoop” — Yes, it was either chocolate, vanilla, lucuma or strawberry.

    The Bombones (chocolate bonbons filled with vanilla ice cream), the Jet (chocolate covered vanilla ice cream on a stick), Frio Rico (cone with vanilla ice cream with scattered chocolate, which has developed in coffee or dark chocolate versions lately), and I clearly remember Huracan (“hurricane”, water-based orange or lemon ice-covered vanilla ice cream), which had that silly commercial of… what was it? A sumo wrestler (?) wondering if it was “an earthquake or hurricane” and when tasting the ice cream, he would scream “HURACAN!!!”

    But the one thing that brings the most memories to me are the D’Onofrio men and women who would bike the city blowing their horns to the typical sound of Helados D’Onofrio.

    As a developing nation, we have been trying to minimize the sounds of the city (because we’re a very noisy city). Lima is filled with signage asking drivers to not honks their cars, etc. because noises are bothersome. Small business have sprung, with families opening small bodegas where they sell an assortment of things, and you guessed it, ice cream. This is why, D’Onofrio sellers cannot always be found riding their bikes everywhere around town — except for some neighborhoods that remain relatively small — and when you have the luck to run into one (a picturesque sight that brings many memories), they don’t really use their horns any longer.

    So ever since I read this post, equaling the sound of a D’Onofrio ice cream seller to “the death cry of an exotic bird,” I’ve been thinking about them. The hard work it must be riding around the city, under the sizzling and humid summer, seeing people passing by and knowing that they now compete with little bodegas who sell ice cream which are properly refrigerated.

    I feel a bug of making a documentary about them, but I haven’t work on film for years now. I feel inadequate, but I feel the need to put this out there. Somebody must do something to remember all of this, because… as Osen would put it — it’s in danger of been swept away with the times.

  • Food Photo-shooting: Behind the Scenes at McDonald’s

    Real vs. Fiction

    It’s a tough one, isn’t it?

    We’re bombarded with fiction and fantasy in nearly everything we consume… there’s something about my food, though, and I don’t like it when it’s re-touched. I’m a firm believer that food photography — as tasty as it may look like when it’s styled and re-touch — should be “as natural as possible,” then again~ that’s just me.

    I believe that whatever you photograph in food, you should be able to eat it afterwards — so you don’t waste food.

    I’m not against re-touching photos of food… I’ve done minor color enhancement, and I’ve definitely erase bumps or spots that may distract your attention. But I’ve eaten everything that I’ve photographed.

    So my question with this McDonald’s ad is… could you eat the burger, after you’re done? If not (I seem to notice that they’re spraying something on it), why throw away a perfectly fine patty, a fine bun, fine pickles, lettuce and the slice of cheese? It’s such a waste of food… just for a photoshoot.

    After we’re done photographing a model, we don’t throw her away.

  • JeA, Awesome Just the Way You Are

    You all know that I like Brown Eyed Girls. I actually spent a huge chunk of my trip to Taiwan listening to Brown Eyed Girls’ albums (especially the first two), and then I realized something. I LOVE JeA, like… so much.

    But I have a confession to make~ I didn’t really “get” her at first. To be honest, I was way too distracted by GaIn to notice anything, but as time has passed by… I finally get it. JeA, you’re amazing just the way you are. I’m sorry I took you for granted when I first started listening, but now I have a deep-seeded respect for you (as a person) and your talent. Your voice is beautiful, layered with feelings and experience that just flows towards your audience. Thank you for sharing your talent with us.

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  • Goodbye, Taiwan~

    Taiwan, it was really nice to meet you~~~

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    Korea, here we go~~~

  • In Kaohsiung, still eating…

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    We’re in Kaohsiung, still heading south. The plan is to still head south and then head back up through eastern Taiwan all the way to Taipei.

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