Anything New is Good...

I miss the days when everything seemed to be so easy. Nowadays, everything has to be cool and new. The thing about it is that you have to be updated too.

For the people who know me, I got my camera stolen last year. It was a Canon EOS 400D and it served me for almost a good three years. Everything these days seem to go well for almost three years... fads, technologies, relationships... ha ha!

Camera Love.

So since everything around me seems to be bogging down, I decided to revamp everything. Just this month, I bought a new camera, a Canon EOS 60D with an 18-135mm IS kit lens and, my beloved, 50mm f/1.8 lens.

It never ceases to amaze me how clean it looks like.

I also bought the new 15" MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz that they silently upgraded from a 15" MacBook Pro 2.0 GHz with the same price so now I'm ready to fix up this blog.

For once, I think life is really starting to go back to my favor. I guess I have to be really thankful to You for that.

I am back on track and I have to thank the people around me for giving that to me. Thanks, Lina, Marc, Jed, Ate E-Anne, my Kuya, my Mom, Skittlez, and the board gaming community. Special thanks to Mikho, Jelo, and a lot more other people that will be too many to mention.

 with Lina.

with Jed, Mikho, and Ate E-Anne.

 with Skittlez Crew.

Ultimate Frisbee with the board gaming people.

Who We Really Are?

I was wondering these past few weeks who or what Heart, Meat, & Soul Foods really is and what's it direction going to be. As I was telling my friends a while ago, I was actually walking around aimlessly in the metro. I was able to reach UP Diliman, got tired, and went back home. I was trying to clear my head from lots of things. A lot of it would be personal but a part of it was where I was going to take Heart, Meat, & Soul Foods to.

Heart, Meat, & Soul Foods is a Special Order Foods Company. We make food on a per order basis and it can be either picked up or delivered within the Metro for a minimal fee. The food delivered or picked-up will come in microwaveable plastic or aluminum foil, depending on what the dishes delivered are. We can also individually package the food or bring the food in chafing dishes with additional fees. Right now, this is what we can offer.

We are still trying to make ways to actually partner with some catering services so that you can order our food along with theirs. Right now, we're not yet capable of the manpower for catering services but we are hoping to expand to it in the near future.

But, that is all the technical side of it...

Heart, Meat, & Soul Foods is a foods company created to make home-cooked meals that your mom will make for you at home. It's hearty, meaty, and soulful dishes that simply have that homey feel. Our prices are justified by the taste of the dishes that we make. We make sure that love and passion surrounds the food that we create.

Try it out and you will never regret it.

Thesis and Double Cooking

I know I am not supposed to write it down here but I really, really want to thank the people who made yesterday possible.

I don't know if it was because I looked so sick because of my allergic rhinitis yesterday and they just looked at me with pity or was it really about the way I handled myself in the defense and the panel was a bit nicer than usual but I passed my topic proposal yesterday. In the six years I have been in college, it would be the first time that I really felt fulfilled. I know it's just a topic proposal but it's really hard to pass a topic because that's what I have been doing every term for almost 2 years.

For all the people's prayers, support, and love, thank you! It was a scary experience especially when I was just telling my friends that I think it may take another term. January (or is it February?) graduation, here I come!

I really want to thank The Edge's creative director, Ate Rory, and director for development and web marketing, Ate Ailene, for putting up with my nuisance calls every now and then. I would especially love to thank my mentor, Sir Brucelas, for helping me get my thoughts straight and the panel for letting me defend my topic. For the other supporters, you know who you are.

The feeling kind of reminds me what I felt after cooking for a hundred people two months ago. This is awesome!

Okay, now back to and moving on to cooking, I have two events today. I think this would be harder than cooking for a hundred people because, this time around, I have to cook in the morning, deliver it there before lunch, eat lunch with them because it's a family event, go back here, cook again, and deliver again before dinner.

Things to cook for today: Hearty, Meaty Spaghetti, Soulful, Tender Roast Chicken, Hearty, Creamy Mashed Potatoes, and Hearty, Cheesy Taco Beef.

Short post. Will expound on it after everything is done. Ha ha! Love...

The Man behind The Food (Part II)

(continuation)

I was out of work and I was going back to school and I was just getting my life back on track. I wanted to do something that I love and I could do along side my academics. Some of you may know, I support myself through most of my finances so it was something that I both need and want to do.

So I asked myself three things:

• What do I love to do that is light for me to do along side my academics?
• What can easily click to people?
• How will I start?

And the answers were just there. I can start cooking for people because that is what I do when I am trying to release all the stress from studies, work, or business. So why not make your stress reliever your business? It clicked with my friends, relatives, and some people from work. I would guess it would click with most other people. I thought I can start it from my savings, one order at a time. But it needed a kickstart…

I was reviewing it with my mom. My mom is Lorraine Timbol, former Editor-in-Chief for Appetite Magazine. She helped me start it off. We started standardizing my recipe for my spaghetti. I started thinking of the name. She thought I could pull it off since I already have a customer base of friends, relatives, and other guests at home who I have been serving for a couple of years every time I was stressed. But there was still no kickstart…

In the middle of planning, I was talking to a mom of my friend and telling her all about it. I was telling her all about my pasta, my cooking, how I am supporting myself, and how I am planning to start this business and she just tells me, “Can you deliver this weekend?” From that question alone, what was supposed to be a month or so long of planning became a less than a week cram. Heart, Meat, & Soul Foods was started on May 1, 2011. The name was finalized. The logo was created. The recipe for my spaghetti was standardized. And, everything was just done.

The funny thing was… that week and until now, my friend’s mom still has not ordered. But that is okay.

Anyways, from that journey on, I took the leap from cooking good for 10 people to a 100 people, from cooking pasta to roasting chicken, from thinking of survival to actually enjoying life, and it has been one of the greatest feelings I have had in my entire life. I have had several orders since then and hopefully more to come. I have had the pleasure of actually trying to sell or advertise something that is close to my heart and something that really comes out from my own doing.

Heart, Meat, & Soul Foods is not just a name. It is an embodiment of my passion to give my heart, body, and soul to cooking for other people.

It started out as something that I never really thought would be my main focus in life but it has become a joy to share my passion for cooking to others.

If you are reading this and you have come this far, I thank you and I hope you keep on reading the next ones. Hope that you get to try my food soon!

Francis Fabie is an undergraduate of De La Salle University - Manila taking up AB Organizational Communication. He takes after his mom, Lorraine Timbol, former Editor-in-Chief for Appetite Magazine here in the Philippines. He puts his heart, body, and soul to put the heart, meat, and soul of his cooking. A passion he always has for the things he love to do.

Heart, Meat, & Soul Foods is a special order / semi-catering service that was started on May 1, 2011 by Francis Fabie with a goal to serve people just that, hearty, meaty, and soulful dishes that are just simple and flavorful.

The Man behind The Food (Part I)

Hi, everyone again! I am Francis Fabie and I am an undergraduate student of De La Salle University - Manila, taking up AB Organizational Communication. For most of you, you still remember me as who I was before this. I could have been the dancer, the photographer, the dancing photographer, the geek (but that’s still until now), the soldier, the annoying businessman, the condo sales agent… and for a very few, the cook.

I never was the person who normally cooks and brings food to events and parties. Heck, I was never going to volunteer to cook for anyone out of the boundaries of my home and kitchen. I was just your typical cook-when-your-stressed type of guy. I never got formal lessons and my first experience with cooking outside of Pancit Canton was a mix and mash of different left over ingredients from my group mates in Home Economics class at my third or fourth year in high school. Well, it turned out to be a gastronomic ingenuity and that was were the Taco Beef with Mushrooms smothered with Cheese Sauce was born. Even one of my group mates who was allergic to mushrooms could not get enough of it.

For people who might ask, that dish is still not being served in my menu yet. It will be soon. Anyways, getting back to the story…

After that time, I still never thought of it as my main focus in life. I became engrossed in dancing, then photography, then ROTC, then a direct-selling business, then condo sales, and many more. I just cooked at home whenever I was stressed with studies, work, or business. I mostly cooked for my girlfriend then who accuses me of getting her fat most of the time, which could have been true for the most part. I also loved to cook for my friends whenever they would go to my place. The crowd favorite was my pasta and the Taco beef and my cheese sauces were the next. It was just actually all okay but something happened…

(to be continued)