10 Random Weird Facts About Me

Fellow Pinoy blogger Iska, doing Edible Experiments in Beijing, tagged me for this meme. I think I have many weird quirks, so to help me narrow down my choices I focused on food and eating, in keeping with my blogging theme.

Here goes. I hope this doesn't make people not want to meet and dine with me anymore.

1. I have this urge to finish every morsel of food on the table at each and every meal, including those on the serving platter, and, embarassedly, on the plates of others, though I try to control it. Needless to say, I have to leave a clean plate every time I eat or I can never get up from the table.
   
2. Up until I was in college, I mixed everything in my plate all together , including and most importantly soup, so that each spoonful would have a piece of every kind in fair amounts. I only stopped doing this when I went on tour with my college organization and a member pointed out that my plate contained what looked like pagkaing baboy, or pig slop.
   
3. I've sung in various choirs since I was four. Although I occasionally dabble in professional singing, it has never been a full-time endeavor. Even though I once dreamed of it and I know I would enjoy singing as my bread and butter, I had no second thought declining a recent invitation (just last week) to sing full-time - as in make it a day job. Life is already too complicated at this point in my life that I cannot just indulge my passions. A bit sad, but ultimately I know you have to give up some to gain some.
   
4. I'm not such a great fan of bukayo. But I liked how my dad made it - tender coconut strips redolent with anise, not so sweet (he was diabetic) and not made into a cake but came in a white sauce good enough for pouring on palitaw.
   
5. I only learned how to cook half-way through my college years. But I've been a passionate eater from childhood. I lived for parties, but not for the socializing and the merry-making since I was a very shy child, but for the food!
   
6. I can't cook a decent pot of rice. Unless I use a rice cooker and everything is in exact measurement. Otherwise, I would be asking somebody to check on it every minute, and I'd be lifting the cover every other minute.
   
7. And for that matter, I can't fry anything. Either it would turn up burnt or half-cooked. Which does not matter because I have this issue with deep-frying (uses too much and soaks too much oil), and anything fried in general.
   
8. I have been a pesco-dairy-vegetarian most of my life. It was not a conscious nor voluntary choice, but just the way I was brought up. The geographical make-up of Pangasinan brings forth an abundance of seafood and all kinds of vegetables, including those grown in the nearby mountains of the Cordilleras. Meats are mainly featured in fiestas, birthday, baptisms, weddings and other celebrated occasions, when all there is on the table is meat.
   But I made the decision not to eat pork and beef during my freshman year in college, specifically during a class in biology. I get stomach trouble eating pork, anyway. Sometimes I would cook beef at home, when I feel pity for my husband who orders steaks every chance he gets. We indulge occasionally on lamb when we go out on dinner dates. And the in-laws are so much into pork and beef, and I have no choice when we are with them. But when eating out the only meat I could bring myself to order is chicken.
   
9. I love to roam around grocery aisles, window-shopping the shelves, that I invariably extend my regular grocery shopping errands to hours on end, and end up with delightful but not necessarily critical packages in my cart. The basement supermarket at the Market!Market! mall at The Fort in Taguig City is not particularly helpful along these lines, because it has infinite rows of goodies, and a really, really wide corner for imports from neighboring South-East and East Asian countries.
   
10. I can consume a lot of food in one sitting. On a first date once with somebody I just met, the guy commented that I ate more than he did. Of course I refused to see him again. But in the early days of our courtship, my future husband also made the same comment. Good thing I liked him already by then, or I would not have married him, for he still comments even now how I eat too much.
    

I'm passing this on to Grace, who also tagged me for an earlier meme, which I promise to do soon! (I am having more difficulty narrowing down my favorites!). And then to Iceman, who I'm sure can think up the weirdest facts in a whip. And to new blogger Ed - I've known you for the longest time, but i'd love to read what you could come up with, if only so you could make me laugh again.

Carry on guys.