Books I Like: Breakfast

Breakfast: The Most Important Book About the Best Meal of the Day

My takeaway from this book...

Do you ever wonder why we eat eggs for breakfast?.......The question is best tackled in two parts, and the first is easy........As the editors of Lucky Peach put it in All About Eggs, “eggs are what humans have in common.”

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, there is no nutritional difference between white and brown eggs.

Brown eggs are a little more expensive because the breed of hens that lays brown eggs tends to be bigger and are therefore more expensive to care for.

When the oven is hot, slide in the bacon and let it cook: 15 minutes for cooked and golden but not particularly crisp, 20 to 25 minutes for extra crispy.

French toast is such a treat that they put the word French in the name, so you know it’s fancy. The French call it pain perdu (“lost bread”), a nod to using stale bread that would otherwise be thrown away.

A waffle is the ideal butter and syrup delivery system. It’s like a big yellow school bus that takes butter and syrup to school (your mouth) in the morning.

Breakfast foods, for their cost, deliver what your taste buds crave: sweet and savory, crunchy and creamy, carbs and protein.

COFFEE FACTS YOU DIDN’T KNOW

THE RIGHT SIZE IS SMALL

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has rules for how big a serving of coffee should be. It’s eight ounces (four ounces less than a tall at Starbucks).

DECAF ISN’T 100% CAFFEINE-FREE

Decaf coffee isn’t free of caffeine, though a serving usually contains less than 10 milligrams of caffeine.

IT’S NOT THE BEST PART OF WAKING UP

The best time to have a cup is the late morning, ideally between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., to take advantage of your body’s natural hormone-production cycles.

the National Coffee Association USA in 2017 revealed the “golden ratio” for making a damn fine cup of coffee. According to them, the ideal pot of coffee uses one or two tablespoons of freshly ground coffee per six ounces of water.

The amount of time your coffee brews is crucial. They recommend a contact time of five minutes for drip coffee and two to four for a French press.

Brunch cocktails tend to fill a very particular purpose: Make everything hurt a little less, without being at all challenging.

For purposes of the Brunch Drink Order of Operations (BDOO BY MARGARET EBY) there are five main categories of beverages: alcoholic, caffeinated, sugary, hydrating, and nutritious. Yes, some things can be both caffeinated and alcoholic (rest in pain, Four Loko) or sugary and hydrating (I see you Gatorade).

To neutralize the hangover brutes, make sure to have a beverage from at least three of those categories. Hydrating first, then two other candidates, depending on your need. Seltzer, coffee, and a bloody mary is my personal trinity, though you could also have an iced tea, a Perrier, and a mimosa, or a Gatorade, Red Bull, and coconut water. A kombucha, a Mountain Dew, and a shot of Jager also qualifies. (And if that is your choice, where are you going and can I come?) If you opt for a frozen Irish coffee and a side glass of water, that’s all your categories right there.

Australian researchers found consuming pear juice before alcohol will lessen hangover symptoms the next day.

The quickest way to belong to a place is to eat there.

What’s the difference between a muffin and a cupcake? I’ll give you the same answer I always give: frosting.

Maison Dela Salle

Hotel Benilde Maison Dela Salle

Malate, Manila

We celebrated Christmas 2019 here with the whole family. We spent 3 days and 2 nights. We thought of celebrating here again last December 2020 but life had other plans (read: pandemic). Anyways, here's a look at Maison dela salle..

Likes and Dislikes:

the first room they gave us stinks (it smelled of wet carpet that didn't dry out completely). but they gave us a new one anyways.

that time swimming pool wasn't available, too sad for the children were expecting it.

there's a gym available.

saw a cockroach on the toilet lid.

they should've advised how long the food will take to cook

the waiters were courteous and friendly.

staff were accomodating

no problems with hotel parking

From 1 to 5, I rate our stay and experience here with 3.5 rating ♥️♥️♥️

Books I Like: Where the Crawdads Sing

 

My favorite lines from this book...

Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.

When in trouble, just let go. Go back to idle.

His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.

Sand keeps secrets better than mud.

But being completely alone was a feeling so vast it echoed.

Ma had said women need one another more than they need men, but she never told her how to get inside the pride.

We made it fun, we laughed. That’s what sisters and girlfriends are all about. Sticking together even in the mud, ’specially in mud.”

Not all words hold that much.

Autumn leaves don’t fall; they fly.

“Nobody’s come close to filling their brains,” he said. “We’re all like giraffes not using their necks to reach the higher leaves.”

“Unworthy boys make a lot of noise,” Ma had said.

Some behaviors that seem harsh to us now ensured the survival of early man in whatever swamp he was in at the time. Without them, we wouldn’t be here. We still store those instincts in our genes, and they express themselves when certain circumstances prevail. Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive—way back yonder.

I guess some things can’t be explained, only forgiven or not.

Let’s face it, a lot of times love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.

And when you go to trap a fox, it’s usually the trap that gets foxed.

TATE AND KYA HOPED for a family, but a child never came. The disappointment wove them closer together, and they were seldom separated for more than a few hours of any day.

Books I Like: North (How to Live Scandinavian)

What I learned from this book:

Danes are seen by themselves as laid-back – no state-run alcohol shops, freedom to drink at seven in the morning.

Norway is the most beautiful of the three – and the one most in touch with nature.

Sweden is the most tech-savvy, forward-thinking and entrepreneurial of the three. The business-savvy big brother, very organised (in every aspect).

How to be more Danish
If someone asks you how you are, make sure you tell them. In great detail.

How to be more Swedish
Queue like a Swede. At bus stops, ensure at least two safety metres between you and the closest stranger to you. Do not make conversation, not even about the weather.

How to be more Norwegian
Avoid looking directly at your fellow citizens in all urban areas, including pavements, public transport and shops. But remember to say ‘Hei hei’ (hello) to everyone when hiking.


To the average Swede, IKEA represents exactly what they want: practical, clean, attractive. Just like the average Swedish person, really.

Go to IKEA, and you will be told the Swedish national dish is meatballs with mash and gravy. Also sort of true. Sometimes, it’s even sill, potatis and köttbullar (meatballs), but combined, it is known as smörgåsbord.

A favourite pastime of Scandinavians is to make people from other countries eat salty liquorice.

One thing many foreigners find amusing when they get to Scandinavia is the notion of Saturday Sweets. Known as Lördagsgodis/Lørdagsslik), many kids are only allowed sweets on Saturdays.

Cheese in Scandinavia is often eaten with jam. This is a perfectly reasonable accompaniment to all kinds of cheese. Simply add butter to bread, a thick slice of your favourite cheese and a good dollop of jam on top and you have a great mellanmål (‘afternoon snack’).

The word smörgåsbord comes from the Swedish word smörgås, meaning ‘open sandwich’ or ‘buttered bread’, and bord, meaning ‘table’. Translated, it basically means a buffet made up of many smaller dishes: ‘a laid-out table’.

While Scandinavians will never, ever talk to you at the bus stop or in the supermarket, once you have sung a few merry tunes around the smörgåsbord, you’ll be making new friends in no time. Smörgåsbord really is where Scandinavians open up the most and where you find our joy of the big, shared, happy table crammed with delicious food.

Aquavit is one of those things that can loosen up the hardest soul. It is the anti-freeze to our Scandi souls.

Hiking in Norway
To recap: smile, comfy clothes, maps, hot beverage, chocolate, orange. Happy hiking!

All Scandinavians have been brought up knowing there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

If you can’t deal with directness, don’t go near a Scandi. It is not a rude thing, it is a cultural thing. Scandinavians in general do not beat around the bush. A spade is a spade.

For this reason, if you are thinking of a long-term relationship with, or of marrying, a Scandinavian, you should probably read up on your equality basics.

Scandinavian couples have two single duvets on the marital bed – it is practical and it avoids duvet fights.

Around fifty per cent of marriages in Scandinavia end in divorce. Is it because they don’t fight to save their marriages? Perhaps, but some of the reasons behind this are that divorce is not a stigma.

Sweden tops the list with 480 days paid leave for parents. This leave can be shared between the parents, taken by both simultaneously, or used by only one parent.

It is not unusual for a Scandinavian child not to be able to read until around eight years of age.

The Scandinavian method allows the child to find their ‘thing’ later on and not feel pressured.

Scandinavian kids swear in English a lot – not because they are allowed to swear but because English swear words don’t mean anything to them.

In Sweden, Norway and Denmark, laws exist about what you can and can’t call your child as a first name. For example, you can’t name your daughter Ikea or Pluto in Denmark, you can’t name your son Elvis in Sweden, nor Veranda, and you can’t use a surname as a first name in Norway.

By and large, we hang quite left of left, even when we’re right.

In general, governments in Scandinavia are considered to be for the people, by the people. There is a trust in government and the system not often as strong in other Western countries.

And lastly, we’re really good at hygge. To make time to do things together, leave the technology behind. To find that little space in our daily grind where only friends and family exist

In Denmark, if you’ve said something to tempt fate, you knock three times under the table (under, never on) and say the numbers ‘syv-ni-tretten’ (‘seven-nine-thirteen’) – one number per knock.

Of course, you say ‘prosit’ if someone sneezes. That goes without saying.

Books I Like: The Woman in the Window

 

my favoritelines from this book...

Watching is like nature photography: You don’t interfere with the wildlife.

I think of Dr. Brulov in Spellbound: “My dear girl, you cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there.”

No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other.

As Shaw also said, alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. Good old Shaw.

Because he did lie. The averted gaze, the leftward glance, the delayed response, the fidgeting—all the tells of a liar. I knew it before he opened his mouth.

“The definition of insanity, Fox,” Wesley used to remind me, paraphrasing Einstein, “is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.” So stop thinking and start acting.