California Crunch Cassava Chips: Healthy Alternative to Potato Chips

It may sound weird that I am starting this post by telling that I love potato chips. Potato chips rule the world in terms of food snacks, well at least for me. Truth be told, I cannot live without it. Yet, a bagful of extreme indulgence to such would always send me into a mental sparring with an imaginary cardiologist named Dr. Guilt. It isn't always a good experience, I tell you.

Good thing that someone introduced me to a healthy alternative to my well loved potato chips, California Crunch Cassava Chips. While it is made out of cassava, in terms of taste, it is by far the best substitute for the usual potato chips we all grew up with.   

I have been impressed with how well cassava (Kamoteng Kahoy) fairs well as an ingredient for some of the best local desserts we all loved.  Now, I am equally impressed that it is now used as a healthy snack with benefits to boot.

Chef Gene Gonzales Partners with Cookworks and Maxim

Last July 27, renowned celebrity chef Gene Gonzales has once again sealed the deal for continued partnership with Cookworks and Maxim through a contract signing held at Café Ysabel in San Juan City.  The event was further highlighted with Chef Gene’s cooking demo using his trusted cookware brands and a festive lunch.

The force behind Café Ysabel and The Center for Asian Culinary Studies (CACS), Chef Gene was in constant search for a perfect cookware that is at par with the one he used during his culinary stint in France and Italy. During the time when Chef Gene together with his junior protégés Chef Gino (Café Ysabel executive chef & CACS head instructor) and Chef Giannina (resident food stylist and CACS school administrator) was mapping out the fate of their new restaurant, Buenisimo, they discovered the two cookware brand which finally met Chef Gene’s standards in terms of reliable cookware.

Pepper Lunch with The Breakfast Club

I have heard about Pepper Lunch hailing from the Land of the Rising Sun from friends who had traveled and eaten in Japan way back even before it was brought here in the Philippines.  While the food, they said were crave-worthy, it was the cooking of your chosen dish that can make the experience quite a ride.  I made a mental note about Pepper Lunch when I was contemplating on traveling to Japan but as luck would have it, it was brought here in the country way before I managed to save up for a plane ticket.

A while back, I had these episodes when Pepper Lunch cravings wouldn’t let up that I made several trips to Pepper Lunch in Shangri La alone just to appease my cravings.  The distinct flavor of their pepper rice and the sizzling thin slices of teriyaki beef mixed together with the bright wobbly egg was my default fare.  Loyalty to the dish got the better off me that the only dish I tried aside from Teriyaki Beef Pepper Rice with Egg was the Rib Eye Steak.  What a bore, I know.

Good thing though that our friends at Breakfast Magazine invited several food bloggers at Pepper Lunch through their Breakfast Club to learn something about this restaurant and to sample some of their dishes.  This gave a chance to reacquaint with an old favorite and to check on what I have been missing all these years.