Food Critic ng mga Food Critic

In my Friendster profile, I wrote “Food critic ng mga food critic” (Food critic of food critics) under Occupation. I thought I’d write something different to perhaps stress my point that, since childhood, I have had a love affair with food ever since the first time I tasted tinola (chicken broth) and Gerber Baby chow.

Along with that love for food was the pursuit of setting my sights on colorful images and the happiness and excitement it constantly brought. Like most children, I was drawn to cartoons and the various food items that the characters gulped, slurped, sipped, and swallowed. No wonder TV commercials about cereals and foodstuffs that targeted kids had cartoonish endorsers that bumped, boinked, bounced, gudushed (sound effects mine), and careened on screen.

Cartoons and food = excitement and contentment. Interesting equation.

I’d like to believe that my tastes and preferences in food have somehow reached a level of sophistication. The usual kanin and sarsa (rice and sauce) my yaya slapped on my plate was now replaced with sushi and Kikkoman with wasabi. Yes, I am that sophisticated as well as mababaw (shallow) in my food choices. What can I say? One man’s foie gras can be plain adobong atay (chopped liver in soy sauce) to another.

When I grew older, my cartoon viewing choices evolved from Voltes V to The Simpsons (my wife argues that this is hardly evolution). While I enjoy Family Guy and Drawn Together, she’d step out and would rather change the wallpaper in our PC’s desktop.

Then the Pixar movie Ratatouille was shown. My wife and I watched it and both of us adored it. At first it started satisfactorily funny with the expected hilarious facial expressions that were, of course, cartoonish in a bizarrely human way.

The end scenes where Peter O’Toole, (who gave life to Anton Ego, snootily intimidating food critic) delivered the last lines was simply brilliant. It’s writing was flawless and excellent. His critique was like a blog written by omnipotent entity. In my humble opinion, Anton Ego in Ratatouille was one of Peter O’Toole’s best performances…and he was not even seen in it. I will not dare use more corny adjectives to stress my point. Watch…

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