food!

I'm not a picky eater. I usually eat what's on the table without scrutinizing if it came from a mammal. At home, I prefer simple meals. I'd be happy with fried fish and boiled camote tops dipped in soy sauce and calamansi. I like seafood better than chicken or pork, but fresh crabs and shrimps have gotten to be a luxury, it's sometimes easier to hit Jollibee and buy takeout food that my kids would enjoy.

But when we eat out, I go Italian. I even eat alone, at Sbarro in Megamall, and attack a slice of Chicago White pizza or a half baked ziti with a pinwheel.

At Amici, I'd go for vongole and the four-cheese pizza. At Green Tomato, I'd have the shrimp and feta pasta. At Yellow Cab, it's (what else?) the Charlie Chan pasta and the Manhattan Meatlovers pizza, with lots of Coke. At Pizza Hut, it's their garlic, shrimp and mushroom pasta, and stuffed crust pizza. Gumbo has a wonderful seafood pasta. And ok, I'd also eat the carbonara at Red Ribbon, and the Hawaiian Overload pizza at Greenwich.

I don't cook well. Hell, I seldom cook, and I have to be in a very good mood if you catch me cooking fried rice and fried Spam for breakfast. But I can cook spaghetti for my kids, although the sauce is never the same taste twice. One time I also tossed some canned tuna and grated cheese on pasta drizzled with olive oil, which my daughter pronounced non-edible.

So really, it's better to eat at all those restaurants that serve pasta and pizza, and drool over the menu, and remember which dishes I'd come back to. I also dream of an Italian vacation, where I'll visit all those places Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about in Eat Pray Love and eat pizza and pasta the whole day long. Unlike Monette , I can't blog about food; I end up making stories about my fellow diners.

But since I'm the only one in the family who actually got upset when we can't find the Yellow Cab in Imus, I sometimes relent and allow my husband to take me to dinner at Seaside in Daang Hari. We eat crabs and shrimps, and take bets on who will get hypertension when we grow old. Then when I'm in the office, I'd happily play eenie-meenie-minie-moe on which Italian restaurant in Megamall would fulfill me.