We are what we eat. The more we understand what goes into the claypot and how it transforms into food that nurtures and defines us, the better we appreciate our own culture. This November, “Paano Naging Pagkaing Pinoy: A Seminar on Filipino Food and Identity” aims to engage participants in a lively conversation (and tasting!) on the subject of Filipino food.

The event will be held on November 17, 2012 (2:00-6:00 p.m.) at Carelink Asia Institute in Quezon City, with food and culture researcher and blogger Karen S. Shih as facilitator and speaker. The seminar will feature a discussion on the evolution of Filipino food – its history, ingredients, and Filipino eating habits – and includes a sampling of representative traditional dishes.

It has been ages since I started craving for pancakes. Any type – buttermilk, banana, oatmeal, or whatever I might come up with. For some reason, I never found time to make any.

A few days ago, my neighbour gave me a bag of sweet potatoes (camote). They were small, very sticky when cooked and quite sweet. I thought I’d make pancakes!

I also had a few carrots that needed to be used quickly. They had been sitting in the refrigerator too long, because I was vacillating between a carrot cake and a meatless pasta sauce, and failed with both. Well then, sweet potato pancakes with carrots? Might it turn out well?

Pretty soon it will be obvious that I have become very fond of our edible ferns. They have been quite easy to grow and we get to pick their tips (what we eat) almost everyday.

There is a standard pacu salad served in restaurants and this is not it. I will post it sometime in the future. This one is a variation that I made up, remembering how my grandmother would add sua (Citrus maxima or Citrus grandis, suha in Tagalog, pomelo or pummelo in English) in our vegetable salads, when the fruit was in season.

From The Globe and Mail Tomato, Honey and Pinenuts Tartlets Credit to Alamy

This article, You say tomato, I say dessert from The Globe and Mail, got me really interested. Tomatoes in something sweet?! Isn’t that unthinkable? Well, I guess if one isn’t used to thinking out of the box.