'Adult' books

In The Art of Simple, Eleanor Ozick retreats to the ‘bush’ country of Te Atatu and shows us that it’s okay to ‘isolate’ ourselves, that we can have our Walden moment. Well, in New Zealand we certainly can, and why not?

How can we stay connected to others without losing ourselves? Don’t ask me a question whose answer I already know. I could add my own tips: 1) don’t be afraid to let someone go if they turn out to be total cunts; 2) be generous; 3) know and respect the limit of your generosity.

What’s a reverse mortgage? What’s an offset account? Should you invest in unethical stocks, and to hell with ethics because the world is fucked anyway? Suddenly, moving out of middle-age and into the twilight (!) years is so much more than having great blood-work, great skin and getting away with wearing clothes meant for people two decades younger than you.

After being in this country for nearly 18 years, I’ve realised that I don’t really know much about it beyond my own Walden Pond. And that’s actually terrible.

If it feels like Monday, then it must be Monday

It’s actually Tuesday.

A brilliantly sunny, cold day, the chill coming in so suddenly- no warning, no transitional ease- that it makes you think of the worst. What if the weather turned the way our normally genial cat would suddenly turn from picture-perfect cuddliness to possessed, rabid psycho with razor-sharp claws?? (We’ve never clipped them, the better to defend herself, we’ve rationalised).

Well, I thought, glancing at the clothing racks filled with last season’s coats and jackets in the spare bedroom turned walk-in closet, at least we’re prepared. Last year was so strange that we didn’t do a spring clean at all. The coats and jackets have stayed put instead of being stored in the bins we have for winter clothing.

So which one is suitable for olive, wide-legged cargo pants and silver New Balance 1906s? The checked bomber in Italian wool? That waxed cotton jacket, perhaps in navy blue? Another bomber, but a shiny black aviator-style in flight nylon?

I could still smell last year’s scents on them- Replica’s By the Fireplace (my favourite, until I got three bottles at the same time as gifts and got sick of it); D.S & Durga’s Debaser, which I liked better than Diptyque’s Philosykos; Prada Pour Homme which smells like rain at 4am.

None of them seemed suitable and I wore a thermal hoodie instead.

Things I'd like to buy but...

Between a renovation, a trip and clothes (!) in 2025, it would be a while before I deign not blink (my non-existent) eyelashes and buy anything (to a point, mind you) that I fancy. But it’s a relief to feel that I have no problem with this, nor would be fooled again into thinking that money in credit cards is free (they sit somewhere in my drawers, fully paid, the cards digitally locked).

But all these virtuous actions doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped looking.

The Weekend

  1. Finally got to try out Mexican tamales and liked it. The Lingayen tamales’ origins are clearly from it, but with very distinct variations. The masa dough has the consistency of turkey stuffing, while the Lingayen one uses rice flour (I think) which makes for a smoother texture. There isn’t enough filling in the Mexican one obviously, because of its shape. And what was the white sauce that came with it??? My siblings were all agog over it because we’ve been obsessed with making (Lingayen) tamales ourselves for the longest time. Apparently, our family has the secret recipe.

  2. There’s a Mexican retailer down the road that does a monthly open house where you get to try a whole bunch of Mexican food, including alcoholic drinks, up to the early evening. There’s music and even a bouncy castle where your kids can wear themselves out while you fortified yourself with margaritas (well someone did and it wasn’t even noon). The sweet stuff was a disappointment though. The polvoron wasn’t the polvoron we know back in the Philippines but was an okay shortbread-like cookie; the conchas were just buns with gaudily coloured icing and the perquittos were cute (shaped like a pig), but bland.

  3. I’m planning to attempt making tamales the Mexican way, but incorporating some Lingayen tamales touches like using achuete to colour the dough, and having a bit more stuffing.

Well, what do you know..

Name something that you thought was true, or that you thought you’ve been doing correctly, that turns out to be actually false. I could name a few:

  1. Serum after moisturiser (should be the other way around)

  2. That the moon landing never actually happened (Jokesssss. And who cares? Dicking around in space is pointless).

  3. Eating bacon regularly is okay.

  4. That I look better with hair

  5. That the film Anora deserved all its Oscars (Nope. Demi was robbed. Haven’t moved on).

Facetiousness aside, I was made aware by my (new) doctor that I had my cardio regimen all wrong. For one thing, I don’t really have a regimen. Before Uber, because I refused to drive, I walked everywhere. Before 10,000 fucking steps, I was doing more. It’s so easy to put together a profile of yourself in your head and believe that you’re doing just fine, that you have all the bases covered, until you get empirical evidence that proves otherwise.

‘You should be able to reach your target heart rate and hold it there for 30 minutes or better, sounds so factual (it is) and easy (it’s not) that it staggers me how it’s escaped my attention; how I’ve never come across it, or perhaps overlooked it, something so fundamental.

Who fucking cares if you’ve put on your moisturiser first before your serum?

No wonder all my workout clothes never smell.

Today, it took 12 min to get to 140 (had the treadmill on a level 12 incline), and I only held it for 5 agonising minutes. I’m not Superman. I’m just a middle-aged man trying to get things right. I’m going to get to 30 minutes when I get to it, and it won’t be tomorrow or next week.

I was so drenched in sweat that I took an Uber because I was too embrassed to take the bus.

Happy Valentine's Day y'all!

  1. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with Valentine’s Day. I don’t remember how I ever got the money, but I was able to buy roses and kitschy shit from, remember Blue Magic?, and even chocolates. There were two girls I really liked who got these gifts and all through high school, there was this song and dance of secret glances, cryptic messages on slum books and meaningful hand squeezes while practising the prom cotillon dance. When I met up with my high school friends Bam and Janice in December, it was hours of traipsing down memory lane, recontextualising experiences (Yes, that was bullying! Yes that was toxic!) and connecting the dots of who hooked up with whom. "So what happened with you and your girlfriend, M and the other one (also) M?” I looked at them, perplexed. “They weren’t really my girlfriends because I didn’t get to sleep with them”. I don’t remember now how Bam and Janice reacted to that, but it’s the truth.

  2. Sex is important in a relationship. If it’s gone, you better hope you have enough money to compensate, though I doubt even millions or billions ever do.

  3. I love chicken hearts. Hearts, in general, and it doesn’t matter if it’s chicken or beef, have this interesting texture that is neither soft nor firm, but somewhere in the middle. And however you season it, it just sits there as an outside layer of flavour, which doesn’t overwhelm the texture of the heart. I’m glad the local supermarkets sell them, though I only buy them as a treat (I’ve heard that they have a lot of cholesterol). I simply cook them like I do adobe and finish them off with butter. I don’t eat them with rice, or as a meal and instead snack on them the whole day with a glass of cold (no sugar) coke.

  4. We did go out for Valentines at Pearl Garden. The roast pork that I was looking forward to was a big miss though; I had a sneaking suspicion they did it on an air-fryer.

Friday

The forecast was for deluge (not in Auckland anyway) so I thought, I might as well work from home as it won’t be too hot. It was humid though which I discovered when I had to go to Papakura for some stuff; just a shirt then and leave the hoodie behind.

The plan was to take the bus to Papakura and then Uber back - it was more affordable to do only one trip at $26. I picked up stationery stuff at Whitcoulls and got some gift-wrapping stuff from what is probably the worst $2 shop I’ve been in. The place was massive, but it hardly had anything and the stuff that was in there was worse than shit. How the hell could these people afford the lease??

But I didn’t want to go to another one so I just got what I needed. Near the exit was this big mirror and I saw that I was frowning. I remembered this random lady on TikTok being bullied by her stupid retard child, who (aptly) described the lines on her mum’s forehead as looking exactly like the wifi icon.

Well, mine weren’t as bad, but I probably need to set aside some savings for botox. Or not.

Then lunch which was Starbucks for my usual and I was hoping for som tacos from Broke Boy Tacos at the Papakura Bodega, but they had a sign that said they didn’t have any because there was no gas. Hmmmmmmmm.

So got a bao bun and some fresh spring rolls instead.

Feel like a nap now (I only work to 2pm on Fridays).

Food (lately)

  1. I bought a 2kg box of cherries (Central Otago cherries) and ate them all by myself (nearly- gave a small packet to a co-worker) because why not?. I missed them at Christmas, and even then, they’re too expensive and usually not of export-quality, like these. The big market is usually China, and when inexplicably, they’re not all sold out, then it’s half price for poor bastards like me who like them big and firm.

  2. Can you eat tortang talong without rice?? You certainly can. I realised too late that I had two big eggplants that would soon end up in the compost bin so I had to cook them, and torta was the only recipe I knew that had protein in it (I used pork mince). But the meal fell on a non-rice day, so in lieu of that, I had spinach (sauteed) and duck eggs on the side.

  3. For someone who has had fresh, shaved truffles, I never learn. The chips themselves were great, but they’re far, far, far from the real thing. So don’t get scammed- get the real deal or no deal.

  4. Fat on fat; baked eggs on avocado.

  5. I had a bottle of chimichurri sauce, but no steak. Guess what? It works on beef strips.

  6. If you love salted duck-egg anything, here’s a tip, especially if you like to use it for chicken wings. You don’t need a whole carton to get a satisfactory flavour. You can use three or four yolks and augment them with miso and butter.

Library Series (Botany)

Did you know what actually convinced to live in New Zealand permanently? It was the libraries.

I would spend every weekend at the library, making a whole day of it. A typical library Saturday would go like this: Gym, coffee, first book, meal break, 2nd book, walking break, 3rd book, espresso, last book of the day, walk home.

It gave me everything that I wanted and needed, beyond what a job or a relationship could ever give. I felt safe. I felt confident that I could find within it, the tools and knowledge I needed to solve any problem, hurdle any challenge. I felt validated, that being alone did not mean that you didn’t have anyone.

I felt entertained and mentally and intellectually satiated in a way that no amount of television (then) or social media (now) could ever fill.

And the last couple of months, I also discovered that in lieu of going out to eat, you could go to a library instead (well, we could always have good coffee after minus the pastry or the big brunch). But to make it more interesting, we’ve been going to different libraries; I would need to do an actual check, but this is our 12th library that we’ve visited in Auckland?

The Auckland Council Libraries is one of the best public library systems in the world; clean, efficient, housed in fit for purpose buildings, and actively involved within the communities they’re situated in.

When you have a society that cherishes and values food for the mind and soul without hidden agendas or censorship, then you know that society is doing things right.

Food lately

  1. I love Ortiz sardines, but at NZ$15 a can, it’s a love savoured only on occasion. A lot of recipes involve completely hiding it in a fried cannolini, or mashed and buried with cream cheese and capers as a dip. I like to taste the fish itself, flavoured with nothing more than a dash of lemon or a dab of mustard. To make it more substantial for dinner, it’s the protein filling with boiled eggs, romaine lettuce within low-carb, high-protein wraps.

  2. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should; the ‘orange juice Americano’ which mixes fresh orange juice (we used bottled) and two shots of espresso. It was okay.

  3. Pasta and steak is one of those meals you rarely ever find, in a sea of trendy, less substantial, aesthetic menus. Do you have it together? Or is it pasta first and then steak? But we were having it at home. It was Sam’s birthday dinner in lieu of going out (the day was a Wednesday) and there was no rush. Pasta was cooked first and when it was cooling a bit (because it was simply going to have a butter and cheese sauce and if the pasta was too hot, the freshly grated parmigiano was going to seize-up and harden), the wagyu scotch fillets were pan-fried and then finished off in the oven. I was grieving over the fact that the preference for them was well-done (it wasn’t my birthday so..).

  4. It still amazes me to get vegetables just from the local supermarket and realise how actually so fresh they are that all you need to do is blanch them in boiling water for 8-10 minutes. The green beans had the crispness and sweetness of a perfect summer day. There was even no point dipping them into a sauce or condiment.

  5. I only have rice twice a week for dinner and I make it count. I make sure I don’t get a shitty protein to accompany it, but nothing too extra either that you’re forced to go beyond the 1 (generous) cup limit. I love pompano and I always end up baking it in the oven. The seasoning is fresh ginger and garlic scallion sauce with a side of stir-fried greens.

China (town)

  1. Auckland doesn’t really have a Chinatown section per se; this was just a humungous aircraft-hangar sized mall-type structure with a food-court, a maze of shops, some restaurants, a supermarket and fish and meat shops. To complete the vibe, nobody really speaks English.

  2. ‘A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!'. No, we weren’t desperate like King Richard III, we just loved how it looked and the fact that every time we asked for the prices of other stuff in his shop, the old Chinese guy kept lowering his price for the horse. When we were paying for it, our eyes were glued on the EFTPOS machine to make sure the amount didn’t have extra zeroes in it. Plus, it’s the year of the horse!

  3. Haggle, haggle, haggle! Or not.

  4. Looking for dumplings that have actual broth inside them? You can find them here.

  5. I wanted to buy some skate wings so bad, but I was intimidated by how big these were. I wish I photographed my hand with them for reference; a piece was bigger than an A4 sized paper.

Art or food (it's somewhat the same) ?

A long time ago, we had eggs Benedict at a cafe in Takaanini every Sunday without fail for over two years.

It was basic, but it was the best. When the cafe closed, we couldn’t quite find the same kind of eggs benedict ever again that didn’t use fancy, hard-as-rocks toasted to an inch of its life ciabatta or sordough (they used traditional English muffins), unnecessary wilted greens, watery hollandaise and horrors, potato rosti. We had a bowl of hot chips on the side to mop up the generous sauce.

My GP once told me that my ‘healthiest’ period was, ironically, during this time that I had a steady diet of basically liquefied butter and trans fats (also snacked on chips and ice-cream on the non-work nights of Friday and Saturday and stayed up til 2am playing PlayStation).

But never again. You have to be smart to know that you can get away with shit only once.

Today, it’s either coffee at home, or (really good) coffee at the petrol station, or a rare pie.

We had both, but only after dropping by to see the new exhibits at The Arts House Trust, located in the historic Pah Homestead, within Hillsborough's Monte Cecilia Park.

  1. Yvonne Todd had a food-themed exhibition, and she captured exactly how we were feeling; the act of eating becomes emptied of pleasure and transformed into a performance of restraint, an obligation rather than a desire.

  2. I wanted to touch it so bad because we couldn’t tell what Heidi Brickell’s sinuous, organic sculptures were made of; leather? Bronze? Turns out, they’re made of New Zealand Bull kelp (rimurapa in Maori), or brown seaweed.

Essence by Freya Burnett; her work places viewers within an immersive projection-mapped environment that operates as a loosely defined interior. The projected surfaces build a reflective atmosphere, nesting textures together; Jewel tones, carbonated liquids, speckled light and mirror-like imagery that build on Burnett’s existing visual language (Plomacy).

Wild weather week

It had been raining on and off for weeks since Christmas and it honestly feels like June in the Philippines (my favourite month growing up because it’s back to school, love the smell of new notebooks and love the cold, grey, moody weather). It’s not the same as typhoons, and we’re happy with that!

Auckland has escaped the worst of it which is ironic given how many people seem to loathe living here.

Mondays

Not well enough to go to work, but not sick enough to spend the day in bed.

So I worked (I was actually on sick leave), but wasn’t compelled to stay on my desk. I did laundry. I made arroz caldo for dinner using chicken drumsticks. I made pork ribs pinapaitan-sampalok for the next night’s dinner.

I did some bench presses in the garage. I did dishes. I finalised what I needed to make for Sam’s birthday. I shaved my head with the new replacement head-shaver (and still marveling how you can get a replacement without any questions asked, by simply returning the item and them finding the receipt in the system). I kept the receipt of this new one in a safe place and took a photo of it for good measure.

I thought I was feeling funny at around 3pm so I went to bed, but ended up watching Tron:Ares on Disney Plus (how can I get Jared Leto’s taut, poreless face??).

It started raining at 5pm and I didn’t bother taking the socks and the houseclothes in from the line.