am a cyber chef…

the lovely photograph of sous chef amelia is from facebook.com
am brewing up some depth charge, cooking up pastilla and feijoada for the anniversary catering and yep still needed 2 tesla coils and 7 flux switches for my lightning stove assembly….
did you think I’ve gone mad and started talking gibberish? the statement above makes total sense, at least to the 2 million people hooked on this game in the much-visited, most famous networking site, Facebook – the caffeinated gamers of caféworld, that is!
I have started playing this game a little after jared was born. in between chaging diapers and feeding and doing my son’s laundry and later on add a tiring day from work (as i have gone back to work a few more months from maternity leave before finally turning my back and decided to be a SAHM in may) into the melee, i would find a couple of hours each day, if it were possible, to go online and squeezed in playing this lovable game whilst I check my mail or change my shout out in facebook. I was hooked. For a struggling and frustrated cook such as myself, who wouldn’t get past my staple of frying a tacky sunny side up or sautéing, it was a person’s dream come true and for someone dreaming of putting up his own diner in the not so distant future this is a restaurateur’s idea of nirvana. I can easily whip up a yummy triple berry cake, or fix lox and bagel, or cook up a homestyle pot roast and later on, can even brew some cappuccino and lattes. But unlike in real life, where a few dishes could probably take you elbow greasing in the kitchen for 3 hours or so, dishes in this game could be whipped up in 30 seconds, an hour and some could run in up to two days depending on its level of difficulty. So must watch out when you’re cooking time’s up lest you want unpleasant aroma of spoiled food wafting thru your entire restaurant. 
Apart from the sheer joy of a click-away cooking, caféworld also offers an array of kitchen functionalities to choose from, be it a lightning stove which allows you to cook a meal in just a single click, or an assortment of fancy counters, or funky wall and floor decors and every bit of accessories you might want to add in your café. Possibilities are endless and it is 100% pure fun! And as your customers doubled up, your levels reaching sky high, a little something will be given as a token like you can cook this particular dish if you reach this particular level and of late, they’ve given each café junky a coffe machine where you start practicing your brews before opening up your own coffe joint a la starbucks! And yes they have also introduced catering, wherein you need to cook specific dishes and complete several items for special occasions such as dinner parties, weekend barbeque, a children’s party and more importantly a first caféworld anniversary party.
October 02 marks the end of a week-long first caféworld birthday celebration, and to mark the momentous occasion zynga has cooked up something special for all its avid followers. You cook 4 special dishes for the occasion, complete it in seven days, get a three-star rating and you get to keep the special dishes, unlock the next catering order and you can even win a roundtrip ticket for two.  Plus, you can even recruit your friends to help you with all the work in the kitchen. How fab can it get?
So we cook away….
but several days past and I haven’t finished my catering task so I would have to forget about the three star rating and unlocking the next catering order. Probably this is what happens when taking care of my baby is the utmost priority and everything else, yes including the café addiction, falls crammed up to second place. And for someone who’s idea of a computer game actually only includes having the main character plunge into the abyss a number of times till I used up all my turns, what I achieved in my jared’s café is actually worth the noble prize (or whatever is the equivalent in cooking!). so here’s the point I give meself a pat on the back!
Kudos, too, to zynga and for the wonderful ideas you’re coming up with to make my café adventure swell. Cheers to more years of brewing, catering and tinkering with the pots and pans in my cyberrestaurant. And to everyone out there who’s hooked too, I’d very much appreciate it if you can add me as a friend, am such a dearie, I’ll spice your dish while you’re away, send you gifts and yep, help you to achieve that ever elusive catering three-star, so what are you waiting for?
In the meantime, the mummy has to attend to this little man tugging at my sleeves,30 minutes to one hour is all that he allows me to play this game, enough for him to marvel at the graphics, enjoy the catchy sound and let him be entertained and hopefully just enough for mummy to finish all her tasks, coffee brewing and stove and other assembly and keep all them hungry customers at bay.
So enjoy brewing, keep the kitchen spick and span and continue serving those mouth-watering café dishes. And don’t forget to send me that flux switch while you’re at it!
 
Cheers!
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a mummyblogger event


i was doing my daily habit of browsing thru the topics in the SP Forum yesterday when i came across this one from mommy lace, another one of the lovely mummy blogs i follow, i didn’t know she was in SP as well. so i quickly signed up to get information and it turned out  she has  prepared a small party for mummy bloggers and our little ones at ActiveFun, SM City North Edsa for this coming friday, 08 October.  

that sounds great, right? i have never been to any blogger event before and this is a great way to start that adventure, and i’ve asked permission from daddy as well right before i send my RSVP.

got your invite to the event yet? i’ve provided the link here. and don’t forget to visit mommylace.com as well.

am looking forward to meeting all you blogger mummies come friday .

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meet me on monday

i chanced upon this blog hop from mamybelle, one lovely blog that i follow, and thought it very interesting and quite easy too, all i need to do is answer 5 questions about myself each monday. this is a fun way of learning about other people in the blogosphere and learning a thing or two about myself in the process as well  and to stock up on my blog, since i just barely started it 2 months back and most importantly combat writer’s block (which i have perennial bouts with). and although it is technically a tuesday, my tuesday begins later when my son awakes so it is still monday on my book…so here goes my very first meet me on monday

Questions:

1. What is the best dish you can make?
2. How often do you change your sheets?
3. What is the longest car trip you have ever taken?
4. What is your favorite fruit?
5. Would you rather have breakfast for dinner or dinner for breakfast?

and my answers:

1.  i am not really a cooking mum, but would love to be one real soon so i can serve delicious and nutritious meal for my baby.   but i really love my mama’s spaghetti and it is really one of the best dishes she can make, in fact it is one of the things that everybody misses about her. i would one day soon make a version of it!

 

2. taking into consideration that i share the bedsheet with a one year old, who often that not has ocassional spit ups, or would just sweetly drool on it unaware in his sleep, i normally change the sheets every week just to make sure we keep it clean and good-smelling.

3. the longest car trip i ‘ve ever taken is 9 hours

4.  my favorite fruit is strawberries, healthy and yummy at the same time.

5. i’d readily choose breakfast for dinner cause we normally have that at home.

if you would like to link with meet me on monday, just click here.

take care one and all!

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my little snuggly bear..

no more staying up late at night for me, my new mantra is to sleep when my son sleeps.

i would normally wait for my son to sleep so i can give my full attention to blogging or whatever task am doing and would normally end up staying up late into the night till the wee hours of the morning before i hit the sheets and my son ending up sleeping on his own in our bed where we are supposed to be co-sleeping!

we’ve started co-sleeping since jared was brought home from the hospital, first having his crib at arm’s reach (cause i was afraid at that time that i might crush him while we sleep so he has to stay in the crib for a while until i had enough guts to have him lay beside me in bed)  in my bedside so i can attend to his every need in a drop of a hat, and after a few weeks have him sleeping beside me or in my chest.

i have read quite a few interesting facts on co-sleeping and  is fully convinced that babies benefit much from it, even reducing the risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), being less susceptible to stress related disorders and will, in later life, exhibit more independence than their peers. plus, mother-instinctively-speaking, i felt it is the best thing to do.  and it wasn’t only my son who’s benefiting from it.  i seem to relax more when i feel his breathing rise and fall and consciously would hold my breath a little to sync with his. plus i love the smell of my baby, for me it is my small bit of heaven (or big bit as my boy is quite a big baby!) i delight in the pleasure of having my son and all his 12-kilo (or more since it has bee a month since we’ve last been to his pedia) glory lay on my chest as he sleeps soundly.add to that the joy that it brings me to feel him tug me close while he sleeps or reach for me when he awakens, the bliss that is motherhood…

so the new routine now goes: i sleep with my son when he sleeps and if i wake up later on, say 2 or 3am, that’s when i plug in the pc again or read a book or go to the loo (that’s the bathroom) as quickly as i can, or anything i can do without leaving the room or waking my son up. but if i sleep soundly, blame it on my son for rubbing it on me, then it’s another long uninterrupted (save for the times i had to wake up so jared can feed or when i had to change his dappy) sleep and a more than welcome change.

how about you, when did you start co-sleeping with your baby?

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pink for october..

you’ve probably encountered an assortment of colours here, i’ve gone green and of course, in honor of the little man in my life, from whom the inspiration to make this blog came from, the blog theme all throughout has to be blue/green. this month, though, to support a very worth cause, jared’s little corner of the world.. has gone pink to support breast cancer awareness month.


Breast cancer is the number one cancer in the Philippines with a 40% mortality rate. In fact in 2007 alone, there were about 13,000 new breast cancer cases in the country and out of than, 7,582 patients died. Very alarming if you ask me, and i believe it is high time that we help raise awareness on this concern so we can reach out to as many women as we can, and hopefully, in one way or another, help out in early detection, cure or even preventing this big C!

here are a few ways how:

1. arm ourselves with important information on breast cancer
2. get regular breast cancer screenings
3. show support to breast cancer advocacy organizations,
4. eat right, pepper your diet with leafy green and yellow vegetables, fruits and unrefined cereals and lastly,
5. stop smoking

let us all turn pink this month to raise cancer awareness, for more info visit www.pinkforoctober.org



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