Half of the year
It’s nearly the end of June. Half of the year is almost over. Most children are in school. The homemaker continues to make miracles – balancing the budget, providing nutritious food, managing every aspect of making a house a home. With petrol getting costlier by the day, activities are (and should be) limited within the area where the family lives. Taking public transport is expensive and sometimes dangerous. Thus, the resourcefulness of the lady of the house is tested.
Here are some tips. Instead of buying small packs of sugar, salt and other prime necessities, get them by the kilo or more. The bigger packs are usually more economical than the smaller ones. Stick to the marketing schedule you have decided on and the budget you have allocated. Doing this saves on travel time and money. To go to market on impulse is to tempt yourself to buy more and, most of the time, you end up with products that you don’t need.
One has to be imaginative when preparing baon. Boring sandwiches are sometimes left untouched, therefore become an expense gone to waste. Instead of soft drinks encourage your youngsters to bring water. And no junk food. Even lunch, for those who work, is probably better prepared at home. Left-overs are best for this and will prevent food from going to waste. Besides, in most cases, a home-cooked meal is better tasting and comes with the assurance that it is clean, fresh and prepared well.
Over at Larry King’s show on CNN one afternoon, a guest said, “Don’t fret about the failing economy, ask what you can do to make more money.” A very sensible thought, which we might all want to ask ourselves. Dole-outs never work well. What can P500 do for a family? A month’s discount on electricity? How about more jobs? Or how about you and I trying to be more enterprising? We need to support the rapidly vanishing Middle Class, the group that pays taxes religiously.
Anyway, we took a quick look at Tiendesitas in Ortigas few days ago. We bought some big and firm mangoes from Dizon Farms at P70 a kilo, a good price for the variety. Those sold in some other places may be tagged at P68 a kilo, but they are the very small, nearly rotting with wrinkled skin. The native garlic (we still prefer it to the Taiwanese import) at P180 a kilo, P30 more than it is priced at Shopwise and South Supermarket. The girl told me this is because the garlic is raised organically. A friend got some cupcakes and at P30 per, we could hardly discern the claimed cheese flavor. The chocolate ones are better.
On Tuesday, June 24, we are off to
July will bring us back to this city, for the Cebu Goes Culinary ’08 – A Celebration of Traditional Cuisines and the Cebu Food Expo ’08 from July 11 to 12. This is the region’s biggest and most important food event which has been successfully mounted in the last few years.
We will renew our ties with the food providers as well as discover new culinary talents who will be tested in a series of competitions. Participants will be both professionals and students. We will be watching out for the skills of those who will be joining the more than 30 classes of competition highlighted by the Display Class and Market Basket Classical categories. The Food Expo is expected to generate the participation of more than 90 exhibitors engaged in the following categories – Food and Beverage, Bakery and Confectionery, Packaging and Processing, and Service Technology. Indeed, this is one event we have come to anticipate every year. Of course there would be te side trips to Carbon market to get dangit and longganiza, to Villalonga’s store for the chicharon, the delis and the supermarkets, the latter for the Kwong Bee Macao chorizo.
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