The bread turned out the way I remembered it. Soft. Luxuriously soft bread sticks coiled like croissants. Beautifully browned. Buttery and sweet.
The delicate grit of sugar crumbled between my teeth as I took a bite. A ridiculously huge bite, I am embarrassed to admit. I brushed the sugar off my cheeks and took another [...]
I’m in a funk and I just can’t snap out of it. I’ve been feeling so crestfallen lately and I don’t know why. Like last weekend, it was a perfect day for a walk or a drive somewhere but I was completely content in staying at home. Content in rolling dumplings for supper’s soup. Stuffing [...]
Schloomp went my knife as I cut through the potatoes — first, into flat planks, then into strips as long as my stubby fingers, and then into nearly perfect cubes. I stacked them up high next to my plump red bell pepper and my pile of diced carrots. It felt great to be back in [...]
People say gathering twelve round fruits on the eve of a new year ushers in prosperity and good fortune. One round fruit for each month of the new year, they say. My mom faithfully follows this tradition, which I have adopted as my own.
It has been a remarkable year for Jun-blog — a year [...]
The plane touched down and the entire cabin broke into thunderous applause. The group of balikbayan nurses in the last row cheered “Merry Christmas!” while the lady seated next to me teared up and gestured the Sign of the Cross. As we taxied to the gate, I gazed at the dawn sky breaking outside. Festive [...]
“It’s time to wake up, Jun,” my mom whispered. I felt a tap on my shoulder but I barely moved. I remained still and tucked in under my blanket on an unusually cold December morning.
“You have to see the paról,” she prodded.
I quickly jumped out of my bed as soon as she reminded [...]
I skimmed through the wall of nuts in front of me. The selection was staggering.
Pecans and pistachios. Macadamia nuts.
Whole walnuts and halved walnuts.
Cashews of every size. Large, extra-large, and large ones crushed into tiny million pieces.
Almonds of every kind. Sliced and slivered. Salted and unsalted. Raw and roasted. Dry roasted and [...]
My eyes were too heavy but I couldn’t drift off to sleep. In a few hours, the bus would reach Coalinga and the half-hour stop in the middle of nowhere would surely ruin it. I was on a Greyhound back to San Francisco after spending my first Thanksgiving in Las Vegas with my uncle from Los [...]
Jimmy Dean hissed furiously in the kitchen. I had been living off two-for-one Jimmy Deans ever since I emptied my pantry of corned beef and Spam. Those twofers were lifesavers back in the day when I was a cash-strapped student. They were deals too hard to pass like those sugar-laden cereals that were [...]
It looked as if it rained candy sprinkles in my kitchen. The rainbow-colored specks of sugar were everywhere. On the counter. On the floor. In the sink. On Stanford’s wet, cold nose. On my finger smeared with thick chocolate buttercream frosting.
It was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting kind of day. In [...]
My dad has been on my mind lately. Just the other day, I was perusing a gift shop and a stack of playing cards instantly reminded me of him. My dad never tired of playing solitaire. He could spend hours playing the game with his old, beaten-down deck of cards. When he was still alive, [...]
The air was still and the fog glided in a stream that virtually kissed the ground. The blanket of early morning mist that rolled across the marshlands of Coyote Hills looked strikingly dramatic. The slender reed stood tall, nearly motionless, against the faint orange sky lit by the sun that peeked through Mission [...]
I want Jun-Blog!
Jun Belen is a Philippine-born San Francisco-based professional food and cookbook photographer. Jun-Blog is his mouthwatering Saveur-nominated collection of Filipino recipes, stunning photographs, and heartwarming narratives about cooking Filipino and being Filipino away from home. Subscribe to Jun-Blog and receive new posts by email.
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