The Halo-Halo Bistro

By Celia White Panciteria Moderna was the place to go for pancit miki and miki bihon already wrapped in their version of 'tetra pak' (banana leaves on wrapping paper tied with a rubber band). Pancit bihon was the specialty of Panciteria Wa Nam .. Kung gusto mo naman ng chopsuey rice doon ka sa Hen Wah, tabi ng Avenue Theatre. At sa Ma Mon Luk, siopao was at 30 centavos; mami was at 70 centavos or 2 pcs. of siomai (large) with unlimited soup for 30 centavos.. So with one peso busog ka na. Ngayon bigay mo piso sa pulubi, titignan ka pa ng masama. The Shangri-la in the basement of Shelborne Hotel (at the back) was the place to go for dates if you wanted a dark and cozy atmosphere. The Black Angel along Shaw Blvd near the corner of Kalentong in Mandaluyong was a very good place to listen to soft music (Fleetwoods, Lettermen, Cascades) and the lights were also quite low.. Then with the introduction of the 'black light' you look like Dracula about t...

Last year on my birthday my son Carl who lives in Brazil was visiting with us and he gave me a present, a toy he bought from Target for $40. It was an Airhog Havoc Remote Control (R/C) helicopter. It was designed to fly indoors only so I flew it in our living room and family room. One problem was it was difficult to control and several times, I crashed into Louise’s houseplants causing damage to the plants and also to my toy. Luckily, it came with several spare rotor blades so I was able to make repairs for a while. I played with it for several weeks, then after one hard crash, it was totally unrepairable. The fun I had playing with this toy was worth $40. I missed my Airhog helicopter. I searched the Internet for a replacement and found a bigger model that would also fly outdoors, the Art Tech Eagle Eye. It features an on-board video camera system that allows you to record what the helicopter ‘sees’ while airborne. The video signal is transmitted to a receiver on the ground w...

By Celia White They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery.........if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor" But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot...........they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s: Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . .. . brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouqu et when getting married. Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice ...

By Celia White How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of murdered? Why do you have to "put your two cents in"... But it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to? Once you're in heaven, are you eternally stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in? How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage? Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up every two hours? If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing? Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV? Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground? Why is "bra" singular and "panties" plural? Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane? If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil ...

By Celia White Some sage words for those who believe that growing old is a serious impediment……. “An adult with a capacity for true maturity is one who has grown out of childhood without losing childhood„ his best traits has retained the basic emotional strengths of infancy, the stubborn autonomy of toddlerhood, the capacity for wonder and pleasure and playfulness of the pre-school years, and the idealism and passion of adolescence and has incorporated these into a new pattern of simplicity dominated by adult stability, wisdom, knowledge, sensitivity to other people, responsibility, strength and purpose.” Stone and Church, 1973 With luck we will ALL attain maturity some day – remember though it’s all about how we do the journey not just getting to the destination! Herm added these gems: Maturity leads to old age. So, here's some aphorisms on aging: Colette (French author): You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the s...

By Dr. Herm Valenzuela I was a medical resident at the Albert Einstein M.C. and rotated to the Bronx-Lebanon Hospitals where I met "David" & "Lydia," retired from work, as my patients. They were old and fragile as I remember, survivors of the Holocaust as indicated by the tattoed numbers in their forearms. They may have met in The Exodus, the ship that ferried hundreds of Jews to Palestine. Then David & Lydia got married and immigrated to New York. They told me that the Liberty Statue was the most beautiful lady they ever saw. They even knew that a poem was written there by Emma Lazarus. They lived in the Morrisiana section of the Bronx for years at Jerome Avenue where an elevated train runs. David and Lydia had no child as they were a victim of the Nazi "experiments." David worked at a bakery and Lydia as a seamstress till their fingers were deformed by arthritis and their eye sights were failing them so they retired. They did not have any medical...

By John Johnston jjohnston@enquirer.com It was a small ceremony attended by only a few family members and friends. They gathered on a Tuesday in the priest's parlor at St. Boniface in Northside and listened to a young couple recite their wedding vows. To have and to hold, from this day forward... "They wouldn't let us in church," recalls the former Thelma Wiesman, who was the bride that day. Walter Shroyer, the groom, wasn't Catholic, although he later converted. "That's a long time ago," Thelma says. Seventy-five years. She was 18 and Walter was 19 when they married on Aug. 11, 1934. Now 93 and 94, they will mark a milestone Tuesday that few others attain. They're sitting on the patio of their buff brick home in Colerain Township, enjoying a summer breeze and eyeing Walter's large garden in the distance. Its dozens of tomato plants are beginning to produce plump, juicy fruit. Walter thinks back to the fall of 1933. He was working part-time a...

By Loi Gillera In the fall of 1964 I was doing some schooling in one of the amphibious school of the U.S. Naval Training Command at San Diego, California. One of my classmate was Lt(jg) Lawrence A. Grant of Bangor, Maine. Our initials are both LAG so we're always next to each other in roll calls inside the class, on shipboard exercises and in field activities. We even shared the same BOQ billet. Hence, we became good friends. There were many weekends we spent together just being ourselves (share stories about our lives, hike the mountains of Laguna, take Santa Fe trips to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle). But the recreation we loved most was ogling the fair sex in and out of the base. It was not long then when both of us got our "Susans". Larry's girl is Alice and mine is Lesley. The 4 of us remained inseparable, particularly Larry and me, until the end of our training. Thanksgiving of 1965 was the last time we're all together. Larry proceeded to Texas to ...

By Dr. Herm Valenzuela After a backyard BBQ and servings of tea/coffee I was asked to compose an "Essay" on sugars & artificial sweeteners. The adverse effect of sugar are well known. Nearly all simple sugars are absorbed and metabolized quickly and disrupt insulin levels, contributing to most chronic illness. Sucrose is the common table sugar, fructose from fruits and lactose from milk- all are transformed into glucose or blood sugar. They're all carbohydrates, as all foods made from flour, w'c serves as a major energy source in the diets of (faunas) animals that produces about 4 calories per gram of it. Proteins also give 4calories per gram and fats about 7 calories. A calorie, FYI is the amount of energy to raise the temperature of 1 Kg of water by 1 degree C at 1 atmospheric pressure. You can imagine a hi-gasoline octane rating produces more heat for your car's motor performance. Vitamins are not considered foods- they are various organic substances (mi...

By Loi Gillera Some of you guys must have heard of "Mike Boys". When we're in our 4th year at Mapa, "Mike Boys" is one of those smaller teenage gangs whose turf includes the general area where our school and neighborhood is. What's unique with this teenage gang is that almost all of its members are sons of well-to-do families and schooled in private institutions. Most notorious of this pack is one named Peter Francisco. One late afternoon, I was walking home alone and just about where the tall mango tree outside Mapa High in the junction of Hidalgo and Plaza del Carmen, Peter, with 2of his sidekicks pounced on me. I learned later I was mistaken for someone eyeing Peter's girl and the idea was to hurt me bad. They did not ask any question, much less give me time to talk. The blows rained and before long I was kissing dirt. Both my eyes are almost shut but in the blurr of the scuffle. I saw 2 guys in khaki uniforms joining the fray. Coming to my defense, t...

By Dr. Herm Valenzuela Some weeks ago Zack asked me to open some lines of commo for our Halo-Halo Bistro blog previoulsly known as Minyong's Halo-Halo Stand. He suggested a piece on snoring so, here it is- I hope you won't find this boring! I haven't edited and fine-tuned my poignant tale about The Song of Ruth yet. Mykonos Island (many years ago): In Greek mythology, Lodine was a beautiful godess who fell in love but was spurned by a fisherman (no, his name was not Hermes). She got enraged and cast a spell on him that if he sleeps, he will die. This is called central sleep apnea (Lodine's curse) and the chap died in his sleep. This maybe a factor in SIDS- sudden infant death syndrome. Hundred Islands, Summer of '66: Juanito R. from Alaminos (Greg's friend from NTC) arranged a vacation for fun and frolics for a few days in the sand. So, in the day, we sang and danced and horse-played in the sun. But the nights were a different matter. Nobody was able to sleep...

By Dr. Herm Valenzuela To all the ladies I've known before- This health bulletin is a rehash of what I've previously condensed about C.A.D but this time is from a lady physician from Mt.Sinai M.C. just issued this week. Coronary artery disease is the no.1 killer in the U.S. accounting for almost 1/2 M deaths in 2005. More than 16 M Americans live with C.A.D. and 1.3 M angioplasties were done in the U.S. in 2006. The survival rate for coronary intervention in N.Y. State is 99.2% - This is significant & encouraging (Source: Dr. Annapoorna Kini). "The heart is a muscle that has to keep pumping for us to live, but it requires oxygen to function. It gets that 02 thru the coronary artery, a branch of the aorta. When fatty deposits block this blood flow to the heart, it becomes an extremely serious medical condition," says Dr. Kini. Coronary (baloon) angioplasty is a minimally invasive procedure to compress the lipid plaques to re-establish blood flow and using stents ...

In early 1950's, my Uncle Pelagio, who drove a taxicab in Manila for a living used to tell us kids a scary story about his encounter with a white ghost on Balete Drive. In those days, Balete Drive ghost stories were quite popular. Uncle Pelagio related picking up a passenger on Balete Drive one early morning at around 3 am, a pretty teenage girl dressed in white. The passenger asked to be taken to her home close by. While travelling along Balete Drive, she started telling my Uncle her sad love story, and when he asked where the guy was, her image dissappeared from the rear-view mirror and when he looked at the backseat she was no longer there. The story being circulated in those days was that this lady in white who would normally appear after midnight between Bougainvilla and Mabolo Sts. was a student of the University of the Philippines. While on her way to Balete Drive from her school, she was raped by a cab driver and her body dumped in this area. People who lived in the ar...