Mad About Food Blowout

I'm glad friendship knows no boundaries. In the eight years being far away from home I've kept in touch with my closest friends and forged new friendships online...from different parts of the world too!

Many of these friendships proved what Samuel Chamberlain once said "The gentle art of gastronomy is a friendly one. It hurdles the language barrier, makes friends among civilized people, and warms the heart." Yes, food is a common denominator to many of us. Barbs of  TheWeekendKusinera and Joy of MadAboutFood, both hail from Subic are two of my best food buddies. Barbs has been a buddy since college years so we got lots of chances to eat together back then. Be it street food, fast food, Chinese or Japanese cuisine we go; she introduced me to eating sinfully: sisig with egg and taba ng talangka (crab paste)! (Grateful, I am.) Though we're not able to eat out as much as before, we still manage to  meet up when I come back home. She's one of the very few who would go beyond over time at work and traffic jams just to see me.

(photo by Joy)

I've never dined with Joy personally yet. It's something I look forward too - but whenever I look at her photos and read her reviews and blogs, I feel like I'm there personally enjoying what she and her little princess had for lunch, dinner or snack. We love salmon sashimi and we both have a sweet tooth so chocolate is that one thing that makes us tick...bad or good days, rain or shine, storm and hail. :D I clearly recall her quote from one of her blog entries: "Es gibt nichts besseres als einen guten Freund außer einen guten Freund mit Schokolade." (There is nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with chocolate.)

A friend back for vacation brought her Dubai's famous Patchi chocolates...this particular entry has always stuck with me when I think of Joy. That's why went I went back home last vacation, I saw to it that I could at least bring her Lindt chocolates. Unfortunately, she still needs to pick them up from a friend, hehe.

In celebration of one of the most influential food blogs out there, Joy, foodie; food photographer; stagemom; and bookaholic is giving out a blowout - 3 Reyes Barbecue meals worth P500 each for us foodies. All you need to do is comment on the page about your favorite food review, blog entry or photo album of MAF and state the reason why... I am writing this entry as a thanks to Joy and not particularly to win, I am not sure if I'd be home soon, but just in case, here it goes, hehe. ;-) Mahlzeit!