Soheila's Baklava

If you are looking for something other than chocolates to match your requisite roses...something not actually too sweet, but very addictive...try this for Valentine's Day.  I normally do not celebrate that day in any big way as I find it (along with "Mother's Day" contrived, but I do make exceptions...ever since  Kindergarten when my mom had me hand out strawberry lollipops to my classmates, with paper heart cut-outs attached to them.

http://www.facebook.com/soheilasbaklava

I just think it's nice to give a gift of sweets to mark V day. 
There are few options in the area, here's one.

Monterey in the Market no more

     Before there was South Supermarket, residents from as 'far' as Laguna Bel-air went to get their meat here and from the Mahogany market in Tagaytay.  This is the meatshop at the Paseo Country Market. It opened the same year we moved here. We got our chicken here weekly, having friendly conversation with the owner's parents.  I heard they even won an award from SMC.  We were actually sad to stop going there in favor of the nearby supermarket (and because we stopped cooking beef and pork at home).  So when we saw this last month, we felt sadder still.  

    Where are you, St.Lucky Ventures?  The mananahi at the market said you are now in Laguna Bel-air. 

The windows have been shut

     Now I can make up for all my ranting about the Asian neighbor man and his midnight breaks. (I think he works in one of the 24 hour companies).  Ever since I made my disgust felt (read the past posts in April), he has kept that particular window shut.  The curtains are still sheer, but I also, after my posts, started focusing on getting a life and stopped looking/listening/minding the neighbor! So what if anywhere from 9pm to 2pm some girl picked up from somewhere is in there. It doesn't mean I already condone this activity. It's just that I have come to realize things could be worse, like...

    Having next door neighbors with full houses and many cars; people who like to party in their garages frequently; noisy people; houses with stinky noisy dogs!  I am grateful that, nobody lives across us; next to us, there is just a couple with one child and they are very very quiet we don't even know when they're there (the ones who give me fruits from their yard); and the other side, also a practically empty house. Nobody next to us has a pet.  As for this man, the subject of my anger just when I started this blog; well, he is now more discreet.  Also, the house is empty during the day; the maid is quiet.  Perhaps it was she who advised him to shut the windows.

   I grew up in an apartment strip, in a military base, where I got used to the noise levels of next-door neighbors. Now, even if we are still in a small house, I'm not so sure I can tolerate a noisy neighborhood. I appreciate the classical piano music coming from across the street, I appreciate that we are on a relatively quiet street.  I don't even mind when the wind carries the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday Jams from Paseo to here.  It's a pleasant place.

   Now I understand why, before leaving our Metro Manila apartment, our neighbor across the street worried about "who will move into your place".  It can become worrisome, after all, over there, next to us, a family stocking and selling LPG tanks out of their back laundry area moved in.

  How easily I had forgotten.  How easy to feel spoiled by a wholesome, pleasant Sesame Street-ness down here.

Tropical Hut is GONE

     It was gone from its spot in Paseo last weekend.  On the other side of Yellow Cab, Gusto Italiano was gone too (moved to Laguna Bel-air, I heard).  On the glass windows, we read permits saying Mang Inasal is moving in!

My Provincial Life

   ...really ísn't very "provincial" anymore.  It's just that "parang probinsiya" is what we, family and friends used to sigh when we first started out here a mere two years ago.  Recalling how we spent the first six years of our married lives with the black soot of Makati near EDSA daily blanketing our things, furniture, skin, and "immunizing" our lungs makes me envy my friends who have been living here for 10-12 years average.  Their secret is out though, and things are becoming less ''probinsiya" like lately.  Come to think of it, I haven't heard any roosters at dawn, the various birds we used to see in the garden have been absent, and I haven't seen any fireflies since mid-2009. (This is getting depressing).   When the Nuvali road was built where a cogon field once was, huge snakes slithered out to the villages and birds lost their habitat.  There really is more cost than we can imagine.
  
   My husband now works in Quezon City, and comes home weekends to what he feels is a 'resort'. Note we are not even in a resort-like home, just a simple small one. The air alone is enough to recharge him. We are wondering if the air isn't the variable keeping him sniffle-free despite lack of sleep and fatigue amongst sick colleagues and family members (in the QC house) rather than just his daily intake of orange juice.



Mt. Makiling view outside two Santa Rosa Estates villages. I dread it being blocked a few years from now.

    I also quote "My provincial life" from my toddler, who had an earlier obssession with Belle of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, who sang "I want much more than this provincial life", referring to her provencal life in a leetel veelage om France.  She has aptly sung this while running across Nuvali fields, or even on the grass in the village park.  She has also happily declared "This is not my provincial life!" on her rare visits to Alabang where she stares in awe at buildings that are not even too high-rise.  This and her "probinsiyana" make up are to be blogged about in my other "mothering" site as soon as I get over raving about living in Sta. Rosa, technopark side.


Bench Depot on the left. Inside, Charles&Keith, Lyn and Pedro shoes on discount

   For now, forgive me for not getting over it. I will not get over the air over here, for as long as the views remain the same.  I can tell you it will not be long. Paseo the shopping center is shaping up to be an Alabang Town Center in design.  The grassy strips we used to run through over there, are no more. To be sure, it is a pleasant area where families frolic. While pleasantly strolling though, I feel dread, with 24 hour construction of new shops still ongoing.  So there's a Charles & Keith and Lyn's shoes discount store in the Bench Depot, but I will have to give up the view of Mt. Makiling.

Avida Estates banners, side road by Kingbee

   For now, I will remain simple and silly, laughing at my "Avida" life.  Years before we even considered moving here, possibly around 2006,  my husband and I giggled watching the "Avida" tv commercial in the cinema. It was our first time to see it, a long, computer animated ad, capturing exactly what Avida was meant to be.  A man was driving home from the office, entered his Avida village, waved at neighbors who were outside their home standing by a grill! This image just seemed funny to us at the time--so contrived, so unreal it seemed, so Stepford (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives). Here we are now, sharing food with neighbors, waving at friends on the street...living in an Avida tv ad!
 
   That's part of what the "probinsiya" life is like. I am sure I've mentioned this in a past post...but it's not completely a Pilipino probinsiya life, but semi-probinsiya. And it's just as good.

Kingbee

    Kingbee is the Chinese restaurant along the Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay highway, just after Paseo de Santa Rosa. Toward Tagaytay, it is just after Rose and Grace Bulalo.  This place is most packed on Sundays. Last year they added a big function room also in a separate building. It's comfortable Chinese food, delicious.  As is my custom I forgot to take photos of food...but then, I do not even want to venture into food blogging. I'll leave that to the pros.  A pity, as I was in the late Prof. Doreen Fernandez's freshman English classes (believe it or don't).  For those who don't now, she was the most prolific food writer.

On a clear day, you see Mt. Makiling across these fields. My fervent wish is that nothing is ever built on this land, to forever preserve the view.

 I include this shot with a bittersweet thought that this area along the highway will quickly be lined by more architecturally uninteresting buildings.  The lights are of the Phoenix gasoline station. Right before it is a newly-constructed commercial building. Right after it is the KGB call center.  Right after that, begins heavy traffic to Nuvali...

     Twilight turned me to mush, I suppose, as I stared outside, worrying about the disappearance of cogon fields and the increasingly heavy traffic on Saturdays.  On the foreground of this last photo are palm trees marking the entrance to two villages over a decade old--the Santarosa Estates 1 and 2.