Murphy's Law: "If anything can go wrong, it will..."

My Half-Eaten Birthday Cake ;-)

After chancing upon the on-duty radologic technologists leaving their area in order to have a meal together for the umpteenth time, the chief radiologic technologist had decided to feed his beloved staff some pieces of unleavened bread. These happened to be discards from the host-making process, given to the techs in the hope that they would be "transformed into angels" (roughly translated from-> "ma-anghelan unta"). This lead to a widespread, inevitable attack of the munchies for all the department staff (radtech interns, medical interns and radiology residents included). Variations included dipping the fine morsels in peanut butter. Discussions on the virtue of picking out the smaller melt-in-your-mouth pieces to the wider slabs worth a couple of mouthsful and the merits of some heavenly sprinkling of barbecue or cheese-flavored powder ensued. Needless, to say, the unblessed host seems to have no significant effect on the staff as demonstrated in the following photographs: There was half a plastic bag-full of stale left-over pieces left during my last hospital duty which I promptly took home for my mother to make some bread pudding from.

It’s just about time for us to cut the chitchat short, say grace and dig in! This banquet is officially about to commence!

FAMILY TRADITIONS:

MerryCherry, MD gives us a glimpse of how Kapampangans do their cooking in “Mangan Tamu”

DINING OUT:

Joey MD gives us a glimpse of her food choices in “Around Robinson’s Place Manila in 5 Days”

Noel gives us a sampling of international cuisine in his entry “Recent Acquaintances: Pastitsio, Kulfi & Cherry Garcia”

APPETIZERS:

Dr. clairebear takes us down memory lane with this oh-so-familiar street food in “Fishball Memories”

MAIN COURSES:

Kittymama shares how Lasagna became her comfort food of choice in “Garfield’s (Kitty)Mama”

Dr. Tes glorifies the quintessential Pinoy fiesta favorite and mainstay in “Lechon of my Life”

SWEETS AND DESSERTS:

Got meloinks shows us his sweet side as he savors the sweetness of muscovado in “The Case of the Skin-Rejuvenating Chicharong Bulaklak and the Evil ‘Kamay’, which turned out to be Muscovado”

Ness teaches us the intricacies of cooking this native kakanin the old-fashioned way in “How to Cook Palitaw”

REFRESHMENTS:

Your host, J.A. presents you with her favorite drink, on the house in “Ice Tea Girl”

I don't drink coffee. For some strange reason, this medical doctor doesn't even like the smell of this brew which has aided generations of medical practitioners in their quest to be awake while serving 35 or so hours in one shift. In other words, I abhor the drink. What kept me partially awake the whole time (and still does today, although I am an unusually light sleeper when on duty...) is iced tea.

I'm not exactly an iced tea addict, more like a connoisseur of sorts. I don't take it everyday. I don't crave it all the time. I do fully enjoy a little sip or a long slurp every time.

When eating out with family, friends or colleagues, its my usual drink of choice.

At home, I'm the one you see mixing up a pitcherful of any instant iced tea flavored mix for household consumption. Occasionally, there's some lemonsito (Philippine lemon) in the mix as well. It could also be half an iced tea mix and half another fruit flavored mix. It depends on my creativity (or the supply in our refrigerator).

Sometimes, I take my tea hot as well, or brew it hot then place it in the freezer. Occasionally, I'd brew some tea, then add powdered milk or some powdered fruit juice into my hot beverage, take it as is or chill it as well.

Now that I seldom have the luxury of time to mix things up, one usually finds me with a bottle of C2, Lipton or Sola with my afternoon snack, bought from the hospital's pharmacy/convenience store.