LEILA'S CAFE

I confess: I’ve been a crappy blogger.

Now, I can list a whole myriad of reasons why and actually make you believe I’ve been such a good girl for making the most of my provincial life or maybe even make you believe that it's still a boring life that there’s nothing to blog about, but it all falls down to I’ve been procrastinating because I don’t know where to start and quantify which seemingly mundane news would be blog-worthy. But it’s done, so time to rehash and update. Today, I’ll be posting a few blogs to update what’s happened since August 12, 2010.

I confess: I’m now an entrepreneur.

I put up a business. Yes, after much deliberation, convincing myself I can and nearly depleting my mother’s “Janina’s marriage fund”, I came up with a quaint café near Crisologo st. named Leila’s Café.

Leila’s Café is named after my maternal grandmother, Leila Aguilar-Singson. I remember telling her about naming the café after her and being the kind-hearted woman that my grandmother is, she humbly said she was happy for me but asked if my Nanay (paternal grandmother) would feel bad if I named it after her. Now of course I do not love my Nanay any less, but putting up a café and naming it after my lola Leila just came so naturally.

When we were younger, I remember so vividly my siblings and I living in La Vista with our grandmother. Good food would always be on our dining table, nothing spectacular, fancy or stiff, but always made with love--which of course made the food DIVINE. Even on days she did not feel like cooking, she’d still be in the kitchen supervising her cook to ensure my siblings, our cousins and I would have a variety of dishes to choose from and full tummies to rub after every meal. Even when we’d just be visiting, she’d always have merienda on the table, and when we’d be playing in my brother’s room when he stayed in La Vista for a few years in college, she’d gently knock on the door with a bag or tray of treats for us.

My grandmother, Leila Singson (in the center), is always mistaken as a former movie star.

And that was what I wanted to embody, a place to call home away from home, with food that offered no pretensions—only comfort and made with love—the same way our lola was, like a giant hug everytime she enters the room. And so, Leila’s Café was born:

We filled the space with pictures of our lola Leila

We also incorporated antiques from my mom’s and my lola’s collections, refurbished them to update their looks

We mostly serve crepes, sandwiches, coffee and all day breakfast items. I’m also in the process of updating our menu to provide more variety in our offerings. So far, starting this business has been such a great experience and I learn so much from my friends and family who own restaurants and cafes too.

So if you’re ever in Vigan City, please visit us and let us share with you the Lola Leila hospitality we’ve grown to love!

A vicinity map of Leila’s Café, my first full-time business venture.

Movie Fan.

I confess: I love Filipino movies. Correction, I’m OBSESSED with Filipino movies. It all started when I was still a girl growing up in a town with only a handful of movie houses, most of which show R-movies or super extended screenings of certain films. I was then confined to watching movies on TV and during that time we only had Star Movies and rented VHS tapes to watch (often outdated) foreign films. Blame it on too much TV. A lot of the local channels played all sorts of Filipino movies—and so my love story with Filipino movies started.

Now I’m no authority on Filipino movies (I tend to rate them on the levels of boredom or on their kilig factor, neither of which are probably used by the FAMAS or Oscars) and I tend to know a disturbing amount of mundane information. Never ask me which award-winning director directed such-and-such movie or the title of the most moving movies of the 80’s, things I’ve heard or read refined Filipino experts know, but I do remember random lines from the most random movie, remember the full names of certain characters and love movies I could only classify as Bubblegum Pop. Ask an expert what their favorite Maricel Soriano—“Diamond Star” and multi award winning actress—movie is and they’d probably say Mila, Soltera or any of her heart wrenching films. Ask me which one mine is and I’d say Super Inday and the Golden Bibe (or any of her Inday and Maria movies for that matter).

Maricel Soriano, the Philippines’ Diamond Star, has been in Filipino films since she was six years old

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The great thing about local channels like CinemaOne, Pilipino Box Office (PBO) or Viva, is the wide variety of films they would show. I’d often find films ranging from up and coming indie films to the black and white movies of the 60’s starring a very young Gloria Romero or Dolphy. My fascination with Bubblegum Pop movies though lead me to personally prefer 80’s ensemble hits—with the lead stars all joining together to perform a song and dance finale—and cheesy and predictable 90’s teen romance hits—complete with the best lines you’d never say in real life but just sounds so good when the stars say them. Remember Rico Yan saying “Para kang chewing gum na nginuyanguya’t pinagpasapasahan?” (You’re like gum; chewed over and over again and passed around.)

The late actor delivered the memorable line in the 1998 hit Dahil Mahal na Mahal Kita.

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Here’s 4 of my 1,000,000 favorite Filipino films; two to reminisce on the fantasy and comedy of the 80’s and two for the hopeless romanticism of the 90’s.

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1. Blusang Itim (1986). The original Ugly Betty/Betty La Fea. I remember watching this when I was a kid; I thought the ugly Jessa was some unknown actress but was totally balled over when I saw her transform to the fair skinned, perfectly shaped eyebrows and pekas-less Snooky Serna whenever shed wear her ruffle-collared black blouse. I know they say black is flattering on any woman; well this movie took it to the extreme.

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2. Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang (1988). Chichay will always be engraved in my mind as Lola Basyang. She totally epitomized the aging lola wearing old garb and sitting in an old rocking chair with her eager grandchildren gathered at her feet. The consisted of three parts, a Sleeping Beauty adaptation with Snooky Serna and Gabby Concepcion, a comedy-horror story of lost travelers starring Maricel Soriano, William Martinez and Manilyn Reynes and a musical about an angel coming to earth to help Nora Aunor and Tirso Cruz III free child-wor. While this movie did not contain a song and dance number finale, the end had the three loveteams (Snooky & Gabby, Maricel & William, Nora & Tirso) in a Santacruzan passing outside Lola Basyang’s ancestral house and her grandchildren all watching and exclaiming that they were the characters in their lola’s stories.

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1. Flames the Movie (1997). This two-part movie was based on F.L.A.M.E.S., the 90’s teen-romance TV series. This series had two of my favorite 90’s loveteam—Claudine Barreto and Rico Yan in Pangako and Jolina Magdangal and Marvin Agustin in Tameme. It had usual teen romance clichés: unspoken feelings and forbidden relationships. If they added a third story and featured falling in love with a best friend then it would have been the movie that defined the whole decade. Favorite parts include: Leslie (Jolina Magdangal) pushing Butch (Marvin Agustin) to the floor and Butch retaliating by pulling her beside her during a class on forces and Karina’s (Claudine Barretto) deaf younger brother Emil (Marc Solis) signing that she looked like his teacher while she was dressing up for a party. Ah, life’s simple pleasures.

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2. Isang Tanong, Isang Sagot (1997). 1997 was a good year for teen romance! Donna Cruz and American celebuspawn Jason Everly star in this movie about an American brat falling in love with his maid. I will never forget how madly in love Liezel/”Hey!” (Donna Cruz) was with Eric (Jason Everly), smelling his clothes and hugging his picture while exclaiming “Mahal ko siya!!!”

Some people may find it ridiculous and has even resulted in my Probinsiyano exclaiming “Ang baduy baduy mo!” but I find watching Filipino movies refreshing and a great distraction from day-to-day life, especially since moving here means having less time spent in traffic and more time at home and unwinding after a long day. From the day I came back, I have found myself switching to my go-to Filipino movie channels and looking forward to another movie to love, so get ready for more entries regarding Filipino movies from this certified Probinsiyana Movie Fan!

The First Confession of a Probinsiyana

 I confess: I am a probinsiyana. I have spent practically my whole life in Vigan and embraced all that being a Bigueño, Ilocana and probinsiyana entails. After graduating high school, I lived in Manila to study college. I felt like screaming “FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOM!!!” the minute I stepped on the streets of Manila—which then resulted in me spending five years to take up a four-year course. After getting over the initial promdi-set-loose-in-the-city phase (which resulted in that extra year in college), I managed to get my act together and pretty soon I was planning all the amazing things in store for me after graduation.

My parents never demanded it but I knew in my heart that I was meant to come back to my hometown, return to the provincial life I yearned for when I was living in Manila, and make it big. I was a total visionary, not really having a clear cut plan but knowing I aimed to, in just one year, put up businessES (yes, plural) and earn more than I would if I worked for a company in Manila, to balance all those businesses AND teach in a nearby university, manage to work for both my parents separately, and still maintain a healthy social life.

Practicing my badass professional look during my college graduation

ONE YEAR LATER: I earn less than what I would have if I worked for a company in Manila, work for my dad and try to come up with small time businesses on the side that I can’t focus on because I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BALANCE MY TIME, do not teach in the University, spend too much time on the net, try to have a social life, and wallow in the constant question of “WHAT THE HECK DID I GET MYSELF INTO?” I was almost ready to just pack all my stuff again and go back to Manila thinking I had failed. It’s not that I didn’t have the opportunities (they were everywhere!), I just got overwhelmed with all the idealistic plans I had, only to realize that sh*t happens—not everything can go as planned (and everything definitely did not). I also made the mistake of rationalizing that maybe I made the wrong choice and I would have succeeded if I had stayed in Manila. I was stuck and felt stuck in the hometown I was so eager to go home to, worse of all I had lost sight of all the things I loved being a probinsiyana for. I was miserable.

Recently though, I had the brilliant epiphany that the idealistic visions I was desperately trying to pattern my life on were made in Manila and did not fit the real situation I was put in when I came home. More importantly, I realized that my visions were not really planned out and did not include all the hard work it entailed. I was too excited for the end goals that I ended up DREAMING and not actually DOING. Once I understood this, I became a lot more realistic with what I had to do to make it work.

I had to narrow down what I wanted to do and find out which ones were actually doable NOW, putting off the other goals for later so I could focus on the tasks at hand. More importantly, I had to remember the reasons why I wanted to come back: my family is here, time stops in the province, the cost of living is lower, I have friends here I’ve known forever who are more than willing to help me, and the simple life always entailed simpler problems. Most of all, I had to realize that living in Vigan—or any place for that matter—literally meant LIVING. No more oversleeping, excessive day dreaming, staying in my room the whole day, too much Internet, or any combination of the four, I had to go out and embrace my hometown and the provincial life with open arms and an open mind.

And that’s why I decided to start this blog, to chronicle the long overdue journey I’m currently taking to reach my goals and live the provincial life. It will be fun and funny, insightful or confusing, it might be appetizing, enticing or frustrating, it’ll be a lot of different things but I’m sure it will be exciting. So park the kariton, pull up a bamboo bench, grab a cup of kape and read on.

WELCOME TO MY PROBINSIYANA LIFE.