Do you speak the same language?

Do you speak the same language?

If you've never been there, you've at least heard a friend express dismay and frustration at their loved one in some iteration of this sentence:

"I'm always the one who {insert act of selfless love here} ... why can't he do the same thing for me?"

Each person does certain things to show that they care when they're in love, whether it's showering someone with gifts, cooking an elaborate dinner or giving a naughty slap on the butt when no one's looking. It comes naturally and effortlessly—which makes it all the more frustrating when the object of one's affection doesn't reciprocate in the same way. 

When expressions of love get lost in translation, it can make you just wanna scream,
"Do I have to spell it out for you?!"

In this season when we all go out of our way to show our loved ones how we feel, I thought it would be prudent to reflect on the concept of 5 Love Languages. Through years of counseling couples in rocky marriages, Dr. Gary Chapman came to realize that each person has different ways of expressing love—and that most of the time they will pick a mate who expresses love in a different way than they do.

According to Dr. Chapman, people express love in 5 universal love languages:

1. Quality time
2. Physical touch
3. Acts of service
4. Words of affirmation

5. Receiving gifts

If you rank these five according to what makes you feel the most loved and line that up against your partner's rankings, chances are there will be differences. But the way you show love will probably always be according to your list; meanwhile, the way your partner expects to be shown love will be according to his or her list.

And therein lies the problem.

Picture a husband who comes home and gives his wife a big hug to express his love—only to get swatted away because she's annoyed that he didn't take out the trash as promised and therefore sees that act of service left undone as love withheld.

Imagine the girlfriend who's showered with gifts by an incredibly busy boyfriend, and still feels unloved because to her love is shown by devoting time while to him it's expressed by doing everything he can to keep her feeling like a spoiled princess.

You think you are unloved when the other person is actually trying to express love—just in a way that's natural to him, but just maybe not for you.

It's important to find out each others' love languages so that messages don't get lost in translation and petty hurts don't fester and grow into full-blown heartbreak. In this season of love, we'd all do well to start learning the languages our loved ones speak.

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Happiness is ... a happy belly

Happiness is ... a happy belly

At a holiday party last weekend, some friends and I talked about how interesting it is to see what people skimp and splurge on.

"For some reason, I can't get myself to take a cab to the airport," I said. It's odd but the thought of dropping $60 on a cab ride is more stressful to me than the tedious process of pulling my little carry-on wheelie through subway turnstiles and tempting fate on the A train all the way to JFK Airport.

"Are you kidding me? I'd skip dinner just so I can sit in that cab and chill out all the way home," replied one of the girls.

As soon as she said that, I felt wholly enlightened about my taxi aversion. It's precisely because I could get a really great dinner for the price of a cab ride that I won't part with $60 just like that. And I guess I've always been that way. Some people eat to live; I live to eat. I grew up in a family and culture where love is expressed through the making and sharing of good food. So it's always stayed with me and to this day, I make it a point to break bread on a constant basis with the people who are important to me.  

For me, happiness is a happy belly. So my moments of foodie bliss will find their way into this blog more frequently from now on. A quick snapshot of some of the heartwarming deliciousness coming your way:

If delicious food is your definition of bliss, too, then I hope you'll enjoy the posts to come!

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On Pattie's food blog, A Slice of Pattie, she has a recipe for aligue pasta which I followed without much difficulty. Other aligue pasta recipes jazz up the sauce with seafood and cream but I like the simplicity of this recipe. That rich, briny taste of aligue can stand on its own and and dresses up some al dente spaghetti nicely after being sauteed in olive oil and garlic. A squeeze of lemon juice adds some acidity and cuts through the richness. If you like some heat like I do, red pepper flakes and crushed black pepper go with aligue really nicely, too.

The recipe also calls for fresh basil as a garnish, but I piled it on with a generous hand. Aside from the fact that fresh basil is plain old delicious, it gave the dish some texture and kept the aligue flavor from being too overwhelming.

It was so easy to make, and if you're as lazy as I am, you can get away with just using one pan to cook the whole dish in. I finished cooking in under half an hour and was immediately back on the couch, plunging my fork repeatedly into this sumptuous dish. I'm not gonna lie, I definitely felt my body slow down (I was nodding off before 10pm), and my cholesterol levels definitely climbed a bit.

But I suppose there are worse vices in life than delicious food that makes you want nothing other than to curl up and take a nap, right?

I say forget the guilt for a second and let's raise our forks to moments of gustatory bliss ...

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Happiness is ... giving in to guilty pleasures

Happiness is ... giving in to guilty pleasures

It's a freezing cold night in New York—and the first in quite awhile where I had nowhere to be and nothing to do. That in itself is a big enough treat in this city where we seem to be moving from one place to the next incessantly. But as soon as I got home, I thought I'd up the ante. I slipped into some comfy jammies and wandered into the kitchen to make a wickedly delicious yet unbelievably easy-to-make dish that I've been obsessing about for awhile: Aligue Pasta. 

Aligue is what Filipinos call crab roe—that rich, unctuous treasure that is as sumptuous as it is treacherous on the arteries. I spotted some crabs in Chinatown a few weeks ago just overflowing with the good stuff. It was all I could do not to pick them up and lick them right there.

Lovers of artery-clogging food and generally enterprising folks that Filipinos are, some bright minds back in the Motherland thought of bottling up these treasures, making aligue readily available in grocery stores—you know, so you don't have to put too much effort into tempting a heart attack.

Outside the Philippines, bottled aligue is available in some stores that sell Filipino products. I scored a bottle of Navarro's Crab Paste at Fou Lee Market while on vacation in Seattle. My dear friend Pattie, who is a food enthusiast, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York and the woman behind the beautiful Cintai Corito's Garden in Batangas, recommends this brand's Premium Quality version, but I had to make do with the regular variety and it was still pretty good.

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Happiness is ... a pile of cookies baked with love

Happiness is ... a pile of cookies baked with love

I spend most of the year on the opposite coast from my family. So when I come and visit Washington, it's such a treat to spend quality time with my baby sister, Katie.

We spent a cold winter day holed up inside in our jammies, the scent of cookies wafting through the house and songs from the Glee Christmas album filling the air. I loved baking when I was Katie's age but I haven't made a single cookie in the last decade. Meanwhile, she has been baking up a storm. So in all honesty, the only thing I can claim credit for as far as these cookies are concerned is that I didn't ruin my baby girl's masterpiece!

Is it just me or do lovingly baked cookies just taste so much more delicious?

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Amsterdam on my mind ...

Amsterdam on my mind ...

Last summer, I spent a few days in Amsterdam and was absolutely smitten. Against the backdrop of cerulean skies, the canals lined with colorful boat houses and elegant merchant homes dating as far back as the seventeenth century were just charming beyond belief.

Summer on the canals is quite fun to observe. You can catch folks hopping off boats and into canal-side cafes for an espresso. You might even see a canal packed til bursting with boats for a summer concert.

I sampled the ubiquitous bitterballen, which is basically a deep-fried, battered meatball, eaten with a dash of mustard—is there anything about that not to love? Next time, I'll have to try it with a glass of Heineken. But strangely enough, what Amsterdam has got me jonesing for is Indonesian food, which is widely available here—while for some reason being off-the-radar in both New York and my native Manila!

My darling Dutch guide also took me to the quaint village of Lage Vuursche, just about a 40-minute drive from Amsterdam. It's off the beaten path of international tourists and is just quintessentially Dutch. Nestled within a verdant forest, this hamlet is the location of Princess Beatrix's residence, Drakesteijn, as well as a number of picturesque little Dutch pancake houses. It was here that I got my first taste of Dutch pancakes: just a wee bit thicker than a crepe; loaded with apples, bacon or whatever your heart desires; and simply a big and decadent treat.

On my next visit to the Netherlands, the weather will be colder and more gray, but I don't mind. Winter may have its own charms ... stroopwafel, coffee and cuddles by the Amstel await!

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I can live with this.

I can live with this.

"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants,
rather than to create it herself." 

- Anais Nin

Personally, I find nothing wrong with a man and woman building a world together; if you have that, you are very lucky and I am sincerely happy for you. But for someone like me who isn't quite at that stage, there's no reason to sit around waiting for a man to give me the life that I want. With some supportive friends, a few trusty tools, and a lot of cold beer, a girl can build her own little piece of heaven—and enjoy it, too!

The day after I got the keys to my kingdom, I undertook a project that still has the unusual ability to make me simultaneously shudder and glow with pride to think of: painting the apartment.

While I thankfully had help for the more tedious parts like taping up the molding and laying out drop cloths, every inch of those walls was covered in two coats of Benjamin Moore Classic Gray with pure Celine muscle power. The exhaustion penetrated deep into my bones, but the feeling of accomplishment I got after I pulled off the blue tape and saw my home transformed made all the effort totally worth it. Nothing says "new beginnings" like a fresh coat of paint.

After the paint job, it was time to build. For what felt like an eternity, my days looked like this:

Turning boxes of planks and screws into furniture was difficult but incredibly gratifying. You know how some parents love to show pictures of their kids, whether you ask to see them or not? Well, I've been like that with the furniture I built. After hours of battling with screws, puzzling over assembly instructions, and lugging around furniture that weighs almost as much as I do, you'd better believe I'd like to show off my handiwork. So without further ado, here are my "children" ...

My hands and forearms hated me for what I put them through making that fabric-covered pinboard and putting together those Ikea Helmer drawer units, but the lovely splash of color and extra storage made the pain worthwhile.

I'm especially proud of my Ikea Norden table, which required some heavy lifting and loud hammering to build, but was totally worth the hard work. My baby does such cool tricks!

It's not easy building a world on my own. But it is supremely satisfying to look around, see that everything is just the way I want it to be, and think, "Yes, I can definitely live with this."

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