One of the benefits of having friends that can bake or cook wonderful food is the fact that they need other people, like me, to taste their creations and give feedback to their recipe.

Efren is my office mate in Crimson Logic. Ever since I met him, I already know that he has the capability to cook gourmet meals and delicious “ulams”. So, lunchtime with him is always fun because I get to try all the meals that he cooks.

Recently, he has been into making desserts. I tried his Apple Crumble already and I like it so much specially with ice cream on top. Mind you, he didn’t get the perfect Apple Crumble recipe at first. He practiced always, which was a good thing because we were always there to taste the outcome. As for me, I liked all the outcome types that he brings to work. After not so many tries, I believe he can make an Apple Crumble even with his eyes closed. So, he started on with a new dessert recipe called Pineapple Upside Down Cake.

Today was just the 2nd time that I tried the Pineapple dessert. The first time Efren asked me to try this new dessert, I liked it right away! I love the taste of the sponge cake that he actually made for the dessert. He told me that he added crushed pineapples in the cake batter which gave the cake the sweet and salty taste.

The picture above is how the pineapple cake looks like. It looked heavenly and the taste was to die for. I liked that this recipe had somewhat burnt edges that gave the cake the chewy texture. I had this slice all to myself! I left a small part for Doms to try. I hope I can control myself from eating that small part.

Always remember that an empty drum makes a lot of noise. So to those people who just wants attention, stop blabbering and fill your head with ideas with sense.

I’ve been very vocal about me loving the latest season of American Idol. I never thought that I’ll be writing a blog about. Well, ever since Idol started, I loved watching the episodes already. But, I don’t like the audition parts. So, I always wait for the time when the Top 24 contestants has been announced and that’s the time that I will start watching it.

Anyway, in the past years, I’ve been “lazy” in watching Idol episodes. I don’t know why but maybe because I was so tired of listening to the judges’ unreasonable comments. There was even a time that I was tired of looking at them! It was really a good move for the creators of Idol to change the judges.

I was at first reluctant when I found out that Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez will join Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest in this season of Idol. My first reaction was, “Jennifer Lopez? She will just whine and be too gentle on the contestants.” While for Steven Tyler I just said, “F*ck! Who *bleep* thought of getting  that *bleep* kind *bleep* *bleep* of a person?”. But all of those initial reaction swished out of the window when I first watched an episode of Idol 10 .

The 3 judges’ aura in the television was amazing! They click together. JLo’s comments were not that sweet but very objective. A lot of contestants love her and they were starstruck when they see her. Steven Tyler’s reaction when a contestant was out of tune in singing has always been hilarious! He’s like, what?!? (with eye brows raised to the roof!). His comments were straight to the point and he knows what he is saying. Randy on the other hand, was still kinda stuck by how the past judges does their criticisms. He was like “Listen, dawg it’s not for you…” This annoys me. Why not just tell the contestant the parts that he/she needs to improve on? Anyway, good thing I don’t pay too much attention to him. I particularly liked the part when the judges met Cris Medina’s wife in a wheel chair. Steven was like “You know why your husband sings well, because he sings it for you”. I was teary eyed when I watched this.

Ryan has always and will always be the life of the party. I never realized that he can be as kind-hearted and sweet person. His interaction with the contestants and their family was just too natural. It really shows that he likes working with people.

Honestly, the past judges (Simon, Paula and Randy) just clicked to me after season 3 or 4. In the first seasons, I always feel that they were mismatched. But the judges now (JLo, Steven and Randy), clicked and jumped right from the TV the first time I saw them together.

1/3 of the reason why I like watching Idol10 was because of the contestants. The group was a combination of great talent! I can’t wait for their performances already!

Until the next episode!