By Eva Gullas
“We are all citizens of the world. What’s good for you, must be good for all. If you are lost, share a plate with a stranger… you will find who you are.”
-Jose Andres, renowned Spanish Chef and founder of World Central Kitchen
Chef José Andrés
Where there are humanitarian disasters, you will find the volunteers of World Central Kitchen. In their midst will be local chefs, most of them inspired by its iconic founder, celebrity chef José Andrés. Founded in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in 2010, World Central Kitchen established its “chef network,” of global professional chefs. The vision was for a kind of “chefs without borders” program where volunteers would enact positive change by cooking using local knowledge and resources. Last year, they even came to the island of Siargao in response to an Instagram plea for help after typhoon Odette almost levelled this idyllic paradise. WCK sponsored 2 community kitchens for 2 months serving 250 to 500 meals per day in Siargao.
WCK at Siargao with volunteers, December 2021. (Photo courtesy of Ai-Ai Garcia)
Chef José Andrés was born in Spain where he honed his culinary skills at the eponymous El Bulli under Ferran Adria. By the time he moved to the US in 1991, he was well on his way to being part of the celebrity chefs, with his Bazaar restaurant at the then SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills a favorite hang-out for Hollywood stars. Michelin stars and James Beard awards followed closely. These days though, Jose Andres spends his time in kitchens all over the world while his top rated chain of restaurants in the US continue to thrive. There’s a Bazaar restaurant at Las Vegas and Miami, and if you happen to be in the area, check out their amazing servings – it’s worth the splurge especially since it is owned by this great humanitarian!
The Bazaar Restaurant in Miami
With the Ukraine invasion delivered to us in sharp details tru social media and TV, it’s hard to ignore. And so, it was a natural conversation to be able to do something about it even in a small way. On a full-moon evening a few days ago, joining us at a beachside home for dinner was Matthew Wood, the German singer guest of Miranda Konstantiniduo who is here for a few days to shoot his latest music video. Sated with a good meal by the sea, we idly discussed a fund raising event with Matthew. We have been so engrossed with local politics and a looming election in just 2 months, that it was refreshing to talk about something bigger than our small world. Butch Carungay, seated in front of me, took the idea to heart and by the following day, he had the graphics for the event, and a ready rolodex of possible donors for the silent auction. Getting on board the following night was Carlo Cordaro, who happily lent us the second level of Asmara Resort. To complement Matthew, Cebuana singer Doods Osmena also will belt out a few songs. An impressive list of items for the silent auction is being compiled by Butch, composed of overnight stays at top resorts, artworks and furniture pieces from named artists. We will post a list on the day of event.
German singer Matthew Wood
Asmara Urban Resort and Lifestyle Village
Ribbon designed by Butch Carungay for guests at the fund raising event
It is sponsored by Zee Publications Inc., in our first foray after having been dormant during the pandemic and typhoon Odette. Zee will soon be launching a new artsy printed magazine called Eatz Cebu!
This Friday, March 25, at 6pm, we open the doors of Asmara Urban Resort (see map) for this fundraising where we hope you can join us by donating a minimum of $50 to the World Central Kitchen directly at https://wck.org/donate. It will be an evening of fun and fundraising, and entry is tru an email or digital receipt of your donation.
***
On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. By February 25, 2022, Chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen (WCK) was on the ground serving free wholesome meals to those fleeing the violence. Chef Andrés and his volunteers have already served more than one million meals to Ukrainian refugees, from basements, train stations, and shelters. Still, cooking and distributing food in a war zone comes with unique challenges. “We began operations…over two weeks ago inside Lviv,” says Andrés. “The last two days we saw some missiles falling down. So, the western side of Ukraine, that actually was a safe haven for many Ukrainians leaving war, is already kind of feeling like the war is getting closer.” For Andrés, it’s a humanitarian necessity and a call he answers. “The least we can do at World Central Kitchen is be next to them – making sure they will be fed every day.”
SOURCE: MSNBC
]]>Cebu City has etched an indelible mark in the country and of the world for a lot of reasons. For more than five centuries, Cebu has been a center of culture and a model of resiliency. “Sinibuayng Hingpit” was the former name of the city during the pre-colonial times which means “to trade”; already inherent to the name that Cebu was a center of commerce. Also, Cebu had a very big role in Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation of the world which still has been argued that had not been Ferdinand Magellan got killed on the island of Mactan, the victorious fleet would not have happened that will push back the age of discovery for a couple of hundred years. Metro Cebu on the other hand, is the second-largest population in the country.
“Celebrate Cebu” is a tourism brand launched by the Cebu City Government as a declaration of pride, expression of delight, or even a sign of exasperation. One of the most celebrated and largest festivals in the world Sinulog attracts about two million people – enough reason why there are 101 ways to celebrate Cebu. The Mactan Cebu International Airport is already one of the most internationally awarded travel hubs in the region surpassing Changi Airport of Singapore. A lot of infrastructure projects are about to be realized as well that there will even have the first Skidmore Owings and Merill (SOM) in the Visayas. With nearly 20 sister cities’ agreement in place, Cebu has the most twin towns of any Philippine city and five of which are already within the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.
Cebu will further expand its reputation as the city is bidding itself to be enlisted in the UNESCO Creative City. UNESCO Creative City’s bid is a natural progression from the momentum sparked by Cebu Design Week and has already jumpstarted many new projects and collaborations even before the designation was attained. In recent years, the Cebu design community has been eclipsed by the boom in tourism, construction, and BPO-IT when in fact, the design is heavily embedded in these sectors. In 2018, CDW was launched to connect, create, and cultivate the numerous creative disciplines. To accelerate the action planning for the UNESCO bid, CDW talked to a lot of key stakeholders. The Creative Cebu bid team comprises a variety of individuals from the LGU, the Regional and the National government agencies, business support organizations, professionals, associations, academe, creative hubs, and design practitioners.
United Nations defines the creative industries along the lines of heritage, arts, media, and functional creations. The main bid components are divided into three parts: (1) inventory mapping because there is no such design-related maps in Cebu, (2) statistics, and (3) atlas. Due to the definition is so wide, it is very difficult to quantify hence, facing the biggest challenge: how to quantify the effect of creative economies in Cebu?
Four months is all it took to come up with the numbers. CDW theorized that seven percent of the total Cebuano economy is based on the creative industries and is even undervalued and a very conservative number. By October 31 of last year, a surprise shocked everyone from the team as Cebu has gotten the distinction of being a UNESCO Creative City. There are seven categories in the Creative Cities Network: crafts and folklore, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts, music, and design. The design category is considered as the hardest to achieve because it is most challenging to quantify. The short term benefits of becoming a creative city are: (1) it is the great rallying point for the community to just get around, (2) it inspires the next generation designers, (3) it drives incremental tourism investments, and (4) it reasserts Cebu’s branding as the leading design destination. The longer terms are: (1) it ignites unprecedented collaborations with local, regional, national, and international partners, (2) it relies big-ticket items that force multipliers for the economy and the community, (3) it cements Cebu’s global reputation, and (4) it solidifies the importance of design in Cebu’s inclusive and sustainable development that is inlined with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030.
It is also imperative to change the common mindset of design as being purely aesthetic. Design is a creative solution to solve everyday problems hence, answering why design is important. Furthermore, it is important because the advancements of technology right now are changing so much, demographics are shifting, and consumer preferences are changing at a very fast pace. The competition is crazy for cities must level up to be able to compete with this global economy. There is a need to engage design practitioners at any level for an inclusive and sustainable city.
UNESCO has very strict guidelines when it comes to co-branding with its temple. Therefore, the team tweaks the Cebu’s branding that will be symmetrical with the temple and used the Pantone’s color of the year, Classic Blue, to signify when the bid has been done. The logo is based on the shape of Cebu City which is not very familiar with because people are more familiar with the island.
These are some several highlights that CDW is working on:
1. Museum of Design (MuDe)
Coming this September MuDe is not just any typical museum people know about. Aside from being a converging point or a showcase repository, it is an enabling point for creatives. There will also be a physical and virtual showcase, learning and working hub, and an inspiring venue and collaborative market space. MuDe will be at the Skypark of SM Seaside because of its big outdoor component.
2. Urban Acupuncture
Urban Acupuncture is an initiative that develops small projects or small pockets of beauty and scaling them all around the city to be able to achieve critical mass. Its first target will in Downtown Cebu and hopes to collaborate with Cebu City Tourism Commission while the Department of Tourism has expressed interest. TIEZA will be funding the project of revitalizing the Downtown with place markers starting from Fort San Pedro, Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu, Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral, Parian, and Colon. Moreover, Malacañang sa Sugbo will be launched as a national museum by the year 2021.
3. Community-based initiative
Bringing all of the creative initiatives to the grassroots so it will not be perceived as elitist but rather a community-based. This is to transform the core of the city into something relevant and exciting by piloting to three communities along with three universities of Cebu: the University of San Carlos for Talamban, University of the Philippines – Cebu for Lahug, and Southwestern University PHINMA for Urgello. The reason why these universities are chosen because they are also in the process of completely changing their campuses by breaking the walls after they patterned it to the campus of Georgetown University in DC.
There will also be the utilization of community centers because they are very underutilized and placing the first design studio for kids that is hopefully be implemented by September.
People of Cebu are in high hopes of having Creative Cebu’s bid to UNESCO as the Creative City of Design come into fruition and none of these creative initiatives are made possible had it not been because of the private sector head for the Creative Cebu Grid, Butch Carungay.
]]>
This became the inspiration for the dinner we hosted to kick off the holidays–after all, does anything feel as exclusive as sitting down for a five-course dinner on an intricately decorated table in the middle of a bustling department store, while other customers are rushing through their holiday shopping?
The shop floors of Rustan’s Department Store became host to a unique dinner experience that began with cocktails on the first floor. Amidst glittering Christmas decorations, guests enjoyed appetizers while sampling the selection of drinks–specialty ginger ale, a blueberry vodka cocktail and bottles of Moët & Chandon. In the middle of the refreshments and light chatter, the group was also treated to pampering sessions from the brands of Rustan’s Beauty Source.
After hors d’oeuvres, guests were escorted to their respective tables. Our dinner hosts Regal Oliva and Divine Maitland-Smith had invited a select group of friends for their respective tables.
Basil Cabaral of Rustan’s visual merchandising department had come up with luxurious and modern holiday table settings for the event. Divine’s table on the second floor is decorated with avian accents, golden details and pops of green. The highlight of the table is a golden spiked star sculpture, which guests had re-imagined as statement accessories. Upstairs for Regal’s table is a more traditional take, with Christmas trees featuring in the chargers and as sparkling centerpieces.
[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”143″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_imagebrowser” ajax_pagination=”1″ template=”default” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]
The conversation was quick-witted and interesting, with topics that range from addressing the traffic problems in Cebu at Regal’s table (Margot Osmeña says the answer is discipline–not to kill the drivers next to you, the others added) to the best thing about holidays in Cebu at Divine’s (Butch Carungay and Jon Medalla got into a light argument about how happy we really are during Christmas).
As the night slipped into the later hours and Rustan’s shut its doors, the conversation and the wine continued to flow–the full story will soon be out in Zee Lifestyle’s next issue!
In the meantime, check out our teaser for what went on during the night here:
]]>
Marvin Natural’s exhibit at the Qube Gallery
Marvin Natural’s exhibit at the Qube Gallery
His solo exhibit, THEM, runs at the Qube Gallery until December 22.
]]>Guests were pampered with beauty treatments from La Mer and MAC throughout the afternoon, until they had to dress up for cocktail hour. A five-course degustation by Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort & Spa executive chef Frank Bohdan and a raffle of exciting prizes including round trip tickets to the Maldives with a stay at Shangri-La’s Villingili Resort & Spa preceded the main event of the evening—an exclusive fashion show featuring the A/W 2018 collection of Miranda Konstantinidou. Free flowing champagne, caviar and cheese kept the party going until the early hours of the morning.
The Zee Lifestyle Emerald Ball is presented by Arthaland, in cooperation with Mercedes-Benz Cebu, Rustan’s and Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort & Spa, Cebu. Special thanks go out to Dedon Island, La Mer, MAC, and Jo Malone London.
photography Oliver Echevarria and Ezekiel Sullano
]]>The opening saw many of Cebu’s foodies in attendance as they sampled the British chef’s creations.
]]>Just like any other new restaurant in town, it can get overwhelming to decide what to have, especially with The Pig & Palm’s selection of mouthwatering dishes. With Zee Lifestyle present at the media launch right after it opened, we give you some of the early favorites that’ll definitely keep you coming back for more.
SQUID CRACKERS
Squid crackers, potato aioli and black onion
Don’t be wary of the black color! The squid crackers, potato aioli and black onion is a light appetizer, with the dip bringing out the unique flavors of the squid. This would surely stave off the hunger pangs while making you look forward to the other courses.
CHICKEN KARAAGE
Chicken karaage and sriracha mayonnaise
When you have sriracha mayonnaise, you can’t really go wrong with anything… especially not with The Pig & Palm’s chicken karaage. It’s a slightly heavier appetizer so tasty that you’re going to want to keep grabbing seconds. This, or the main courses? Yep, this definitely makes setting priorities difficult.
OLD-FASHIONED PORK TERRINE
Old-fashioned pork terrine, pistachio, “onion-onion & onion”
The old-fashioned pork terrine is pleasantly cold to the taste buds, the temperature allowing for an irresistible burst of flavor. Just like the karaage, this loaf is quite the delicious treat that would easily make you decide to have it as a main course. And, no, we can’t really blame anyone for that.
KINILAW
Kinilaw of shrimp, calamansi, pickled papaya, chili and coconut
Every Cebuano knows what kinilaw is. Jason Atherton elevates this delicacy of sorts with a fresh take, serving the kinilaw on shells set on a bed of ice. The zesty flavors brought about by the calamansi makes this dish ridiculously addicting.
ROASTED SUCKLING PORK
Roasted suckling pork, soya onion gravy, apple, mustard leaf
Sure, call it lechon, but you’ll have to admit this is roasted pork unlike anything else before. The meat is temptingly tender, the skin roasted to that perfect crisp, and that soya onion gravy is a surprising twist that makes a lot of sense. If there’s a star in Atherton’s Pig & Palm menu, this would definitely be it.
Do you agree with our list? Sound off in the comments with your other recommendations!
See photos from The Pig & Palm’s grand opening below:
THE PIG & PALM
Open Tuesday to Sunday
8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
MSY Tower, Cebu Business Park
website | 63. 929 481 4668
Zee Lifestyle’s October 2015 Luxury Issue: Dina Arroyo-Tantoco and Catherine Tantoco Huang (Sittings Editor: Shari Quimbo/Photography by Filbert Kung/Production Assistant: Patty Taboada/Styled by Sheryl Songsong/Makeup by Byron Velasquez of MAC/Hair by Eddiemar Cabiltes/Clothes available at Rustan’s Department Store)
With the launch of a bigger and better Rustan’s Department Store dedicated to bring to Cebu the world’s most luxurious lifestyle brands, cover girls Dina Arroyo-Tantoco and Catherine Tantoco Huang show the family dynamics behind the premium brand.
To give the lowdown on luxury, Leslie Ann Reyes, Patrice Huang, Chin Onglatco, SJ Quitevis, John Franco and Preston Nicholas share experiences and purchases they consider their ultimate indulgences.
Similarly, this month’s Conversations feature pits together Maris Aznar Holopainen and Annie Chen, Denise Fajatin-Pegarido and Allen Zaldarriaga, John Rey Guadalquiver and Tasha Dixon, Kyle Uy and Michael Goho, Allen Tan and Lor Torres, Michelle Yu and Dr. Cecilia Ramos-Bernad, and Drs. Fremont Base and Peter Mancao to find out their individual luxury preferences.
Zee Lifestyle also sits down with Alexandra Seno, Jon and Tessy Pettyjohn, Leigh Carcel, Mia Borromeo, Yiouri Augousti, Gerry and Pamela Montanus, Derek and Mary Ann Arculli, and Butch Carungay for The Call of Luxe, a dinner discussion focused on defining luxury and figuring out its various aspects.
This issue also features a rundown on the latest indulgent trends in the world as well as the best luxury that Cebu can offer, including Amparito Lhuillier’s home, designs by Debbie Palao, and the most premium accommodations in town.
Read more in Zee Lifestyle’s Luxury Issue, out on stands this month. Grab your copies at National Bookstore and Fully Booked. For subscriptions, click here, or download the Magzter app on your device and search for ‘Zee Lifestyle’.
]]>