Monday, May 20, 2013

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Happy New Year

Green tea ice cream for a clean slate in 2010.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

The Itchy Truth

Balot, The Revelation of Human Frailty

After almost 26 years of existence, I only recently found out weeks ago that I was allergic to a Filipino delicacy - balot. It all started when my boss and a colleague each had one egg for ourselves before dinner time. I confessed that until that moment, the only time I ever tried balot was back when I was a toddler (and I'm not even sure if it really happened, that my Dad and I were seated at the dinner table and he was cracking open the egg for me). 

I was feeling brave that evening; I had cracked open the egg in my hands and obediently drank the liquid before moving on to munching on the meaty bits. At one point, my colleague who was observing me while I ate said that I had already begun eating the unborn chick (sisiw, in Filipino) and I said "Oh, really?" but kept eating anyway. 

Despite my not finishing the entire egg, I still developed huge, red welts all over my face over 36 hours later! This was after I've had three full meals, and needed to drink half a cup of milk just before bed. I thought my allergies to dairy and poultry had come back and I was devastated (this is really the right term, as I almost always cannot live without cheese in my diet).

Imagine that - if what I had eaten were poison, I'd probably be too long gone to save if the side effects took almost two days to manifest. I quickly downed two anti-allergy pills, drank a lot of water and stayed up until 2 am, hoping that the welts would go away the next day (yes, I am vain that way). Good thing my boss didn't feel guilty when I told her I found out her balot gave me allergies. She just grinned and told me that we had to try one again soon.