HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 1 – THE DRONE QUEEN

The first episode starts off with a bang, and a big one at that since it’s a bombing that Carrie was in charge of, a drone strike somewhere in Pakistan. The scene starts with Carrie inside a car, being driven by embassy personnel then she asks to get off as she had not been out of the embassy in days. So she walks the rest of the way, in a dimly-lit street with an armed guard until she receives a phone call and immediately proceeds to their ‘office’. Inside, she learns that an intel from Sandy confirms the presence of a highly-value target and they have to make a decision whether or not to continue the bombing. At first, Carrie was a bit hesitant since she wanted to have confirmation from a second source (she felt uneasy relying on Sandy’s unnamed operator for the past four ‘hits’ they made) and also the fact that they do not have ground intel on the farmhouse and whoever was inside with the ‘target’. But Sandy assured her that they would never get a second sighting of this individual and so she had no choice but to approve the hit. So the bombs were dropped and as the explosion occurs and the huge monitor fades to black, a cake with some candles and the words ‘Drone queen” written in it is brought in by her staff and everyone sings to Carrie to celebrate her birthday.

Carrie goes home and celebrates with some champagne and a sleeping pill (I guess) then proceeds to video-chat with her sister who tells her that she just missed her baby girl as she is now taking a walk with Carrie’s dad at the park. It seems to be not the first time that Carrie was remiss in her schedule to video-chat with her daughter and Maggie was not at all pleased with her. After some time, she goes to bed, after putting on a mouthguard, a face mask and earplugs. Then, the next scene shows the aftermath of the explosion with people getting frantic and screaming as they search through the rubble looking for bodies and survivors.

Next shown was Saul (Oh good! He’s still part of Season 4!) but he doesn’t seem to be working with the CIA anymore but some private agency who is having some dealings with government generals. In one briefing, he took a turn and spoke his mind about the kind of decisions they had been doing for the past fourteen years. His boss takes him out in private and reprimands him by saying “It’s not your job anymore to have a say in the matter.” Back at the CIA, Carrie watches a newsfeed confirming that their intended target had indeed been killed however, so were 40 other guests at a wedding...oops! Terrible miscalculation and Carrie is not pleased at all!

Meanwhile at Islamabad, Pakistan rallies/pickets have been ongoing outside the US embassy. A meeting is happening between the US ambassador, Peter Quinn and Sandy (station chief at Islamabad) and the ambassador wants to know what she can tell the foreign minister about the strike. Sandy defends that the wedding was nothing but a PR claim/bullshit and that even the Pakistani government wants the guy dead. But the ambassador countered that they are not so supportive if civilians are involved. Sandy further justifies that the civilians died on their own volition since they knew Haqqani (their target) was a marked man.

Next, a young man (named Aayan) is shown being nursed back to health. He learns that the rest of his family died in the bombing and he gets up to find the bodies of his loved ones...truly a heart-wrenching scene. (The guy seems familiar and later on with Google I find out he was the same guy in Life of Pi) In Carrie’s office, she was also surveying the scene of the bombing and their camera chances upon Aayan who looks at the sky-camera angrily (as if he knows they are watching). Then, Carrie gets a call from Quinn and she tried to reassure him that the brouhaha would soon die down since they are ‘bullet-proof’.

Saul and Mira are still together but it seems their marriage is still a work in progress since even if Saul was already out of the CIA, he still manages to miss important dinners and was still apologizing to his wife for not making her a priority. Then, Saul shares what happened at his job today how he screwed up and he feels that it wasn’t working out. But Mira insists that he apologize to his boss and fix things up. Then, on a bus back to his university, Aayan is seen crying as he holds his broken phone and watches a video of the wedding. His roommate is surprised seeing him alive and he shares to him how he lose his entire family at the bombing.

At a bar, Carrie is approached by a soldier (1st Lt. Edgars) who berates her for approving the mission the other night in Pakistan. It seems he was in one of the planes who dropped the bomb and now feels some guilt over the lots of lives lost in the incident. Carrie denies knowledge that they knew that a wedding party was taking place. He called her a ‘fucking monster’ which made Carrie angry ordering him to get the fuck out of her face. Later on, Aayan’s roommate convinces him to do something, to disprove media reports denying that there wasn’t a wedding. He wants Aayan to release the video on the internet but Aayan is too overcome with grief to fight anymore. He calls them cowards and that he is dishonouring his family’s name by keeping the truth.

The next day, before Carrie fully awakens, she receives a call from Lockhart informing her about a video that had been uploaded on the internet two hours ago. It seemed authentic and so Lockhart wanted Carrie and Sandy to spin some damage control. So Carrie heads out to Islamabad to meet with Sandy and Quinn while Saul watches the said video online and tries to contact Carrie but fails. Aayan confronts his roommate about the video going viral and demands that he take it down. Quinn tells Sandy that Carrie is arriving soon but Sandy had to go out and meet someone outside so he tells Quinn to inform him when Carrie arrives. Sandy takes a circuitous route outside the embassy (probably to evade the protesters outside) to meet a mysterious person he was texting earlier

Quinn meets Carrie at the airport and she gets briefed by Quinn about what has been happening so far. They also discuss about Sandy and how his intel had been good until now but his sketchiness in his dealings had even his superiors and case officers worried. Then, they discuss Carrie’s job at Kabul – her cold-blooded/calculated killing with a designated hit list with the help of Sandy who supplies the coordinates of whom to hit. As they were talking, they see a picture of Sandy being flashed on the TV news. Sandy heads to an apartment where he seemed to have keys but they seem to be not working so he texts the person to ask if he changed the locks but got no answer???

Quinn calls Sandy who says he was at his residence but apparently he was not as security was just there to get him and so Quinn told him that his cover had been blown and they need to take him back to the embassy. Sandy tells them his location and when he sees some commotion outside the apartment he goes thru the back door and makes his break. He manages to make it out the street but gets caught in an ambush by a mob of locals. Quinn and Carrie arrive in time to save him but the mob manages to smash the car windows and get Sandy from the car. Carrie attempts to jump out to save him but Quinn insists there was nothing they can do and barely escape the madness.

Quinn and Carrie drive back to the embassy in silence and upon arriving, Carrie is all seriousness and wanted to head straight to the briefing with the ambassador but Quinn wanted to have a minute to compose himself after all that happened. Carrie and Quinn then get into an argument as she said they could have done more but Quinn disagrees and tells Carrie off. She demands that he get inside in five minutes and before the episode ends, Carrie is shown in a bathroom numbly wiping blood from her face. I guess this just shows that we now see a different Carrie – someone totally emotionally detached from what she is doing – after all it is the only way for her to keep sane and still be working for the agency that was responsible for killing the man she loved.

KITCHEN MISADVENTURE SERIES – OVERNIGHT OATMEAL WITH STRAWBERRIES AND CINNAMON

This morning when I woke up at 5:00 a.m., since I was not able to make my overnight oatmeal last night (I forgot eh!), I hurriedly mixed up a cup of rolled oats, some leftover strawberries (from the hubby’s recent trip to Baguio), cinnamon, maple syrup and low-fat milk which I then popped into the fridge while I exercised some thirty minutes on the stationary bike. After an hour of mommy duties (cooking, cleaning stuff) I took my bath, got dressed and took a ride to work with my baon/breakfast in tow so that when I arrived at the office at around 9, my overnight breakfast oatmeal is ready to eat...just like it was prepared the night before - yummy! (the strawberries were a bit sour though maybe because they weren’t in season. Next time I’d try putting them in syrup the night before to make them sweeter.)

THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 5 EPISODE 3 – FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF

The episode starts where the last episode ends with Bob still as Gareth’s captive and him waxing philosophical to Bob about why all these (eating people) is necessary for survival...(particularly theirs) then he tells Bob that he was gonna hunt down all the members of Rick’s group and eat them all after what they did - destroying Terminus and killing his mother (Helen). He is particularly salivating for Carol’s blood and Gareth continues by telling him that Sasha would probably taste better than him since she is pretty. They have this theory that pretty ladies taste better than men. At first Bob was just whimpering in pain and revulsion then later on he convulses into unmistakable fits of laughter and when the hunters find his laughter uneasy and circle around him like vultures he gleefully reveals that he had been bitten by a zombie and that he is now – TAINTED MEAT! (Huh! I was right!) Gareth, in his rage, kicks him unconscious and tried to placate the rest of his group who were by now gagging up all over the place, by telling them they cooked him so his meat must already be safe to eat.

Next scene shows Sasha using her night vision scope to look for Bob then she is followed by Rick and Tyreese who informs her that Carol and Darryl were also missing so they must have been together. Sasha angrily returns to the church and demands from Father Gabriel where their missing comrades were. Sasha feels that Fr. Gabriel had something to do with the others that had suddenly gone missing and Rick wants him to come clean with whatever it was that was obviously bothering his conscience. Father Gabriel insists that he was alone, always had been...then he breaks down and tearfully admitted that when the people outside started turning into walkers, he locked his church doors and refused to open them again even to families and other members of his congregation who came to the church hoping to find sanctuary. They begged for mercy and continued to scream and damning him to hell and now he is convinced Rick and his group has come to punish him.

Then, suddenly they hear a low whistle outside and they see a body on the grass outside. They also see some walkers about to approach the body and so the group run out and see Bob without his legs. They carry Bob inside and get rid of the walkers, not seeing the blood red letter ‘A’ sign painted on the side of the church. Inside, Bob explained what happened to him – how he was at the graveyard and somebody knocked him out then next thing he sees they were eating his leg and he also tells them that Darryl and Carol drove off together somewhere. Then, when they try to provide him some painkillers to ease his pain he sits up and reveals to everyone that he had been bitten during that time at the food bank. They try to make Bob comfortable and sit him on the couch at Fr. Gabriel’s office and leave him with Sasha.

Father Gabriel admits knowing where the schoolhouse was located that the Hunters had been hiding out in and so Rick and the others try to make plans to run after them. But then Abraham insists that they should instead leave now for DC while they still can and avoid the threat, anyway, they already fixed up the bus early this afternoon. But Rick demands that they wait for Carol and Darryl (who by the way saved all of them at Terminus) but he says they may not be coming back at all and he has a mission to take Eugene to DC so they could save the entire planet. Glenn steps in saying they all need to stick together and convinced Abraham to stay the night, help them fight off the Hunters then tomorrow he could leave with Eugene on the bus. But Abraham countered that he would only leave with Glenn, Maggie and Tara the next day. So against Rick’s wishes, Glenn agreed. It was interesting to note though that when Abraham asked Eugene to get ready he was a bit hesitant to do so...maybe in due time they would learn how much of a fraud he truly was. (just like in the comics)

They come up with the plan to attack the Hunters at the schoolhouse. Sasha insists on coming with them as she wants to take revenge but Tyreese advises her to stay with Bob as he has little time left. Instead, Sasha leaves Tyreese her knife with instructions to put it into Bob’s brain when he turns. So the group with Rick, Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, Abraham and Tara leaves the church to find the Hunters while Fr Gabriel, Carl, Tyreese, Rosita and Judith are left behind inside with Bob. Then, the Hunters are seen next walking down the road towards the church which they effortlessly enter. Inside, they identify and taunt the ones left behind saying they knew that the others had already left on a senseless mission to look for them (or so they thought!) But just as the Hunters had finally decided which door to open (as they heard Judith cries from beyond the door), two of the Hunter’s heads suddenly exploded and Gareth’s hand gets blown off. It seems Rick and his group only appeared to leave but doubled back to the church. The remaining three men and a woman were made to get down on their knees and Gareth tries to reason with Rick telling him that he would not hunt his group anymore that can still go their separate ways but Rick learns his lesson by letting Gareth go once before.

Besides, he already made him a promise before that to kill him with his red-handled machete and proceeds to just hack down the poor guy. Sasha also guts Martin with her knife repeatedly while Michonne and Abraham also kill/hack their two captives. During all these bloodshed, Maggie, Glenn, Tara, Rosita and Tyreese just look on in horror. Then, Michonne sees her katana with the girl she just killed and pulls it out from her but with a bit of hesitation since as she said during the last episode, she doesn’t really miss the sword. Rick and Sasha counters that they only did what they did to defend themselves...as they look at all the blood and gore that now desecrated the church. Father Stokes cried, ‘This is the Lord’s house’ but Maggie replied the episode’s title, ‘No this is just four walls and a roof.’

The next scene shows everyone saying their goodbyes to poor old Bob and when they were all turning to leave, he called Rick to thank him for taking him in at the prison and giving him a chance to find love and be part of a family. He also tells Rick to not lose hope and hold on to his humanity because this nightmare is going to end (this was a continuation of their conversation in Episode 2 while on their way to the food bank). Sasha says one final goodbye to Bob and as she sobs uncontrollably and holds her knife to his head, Tyreese comes in and does it for her. So Tyreese is now definitely over that phase of his life and could now confidently kill walkers again.

Then, Sasha is shown setting up a cross for Bob’s grave, wearing Bob’s jacket. After that the bus is shown all set to leave - with Abraham, Eugene, Rosita, Glenn, Maggie and Tara. Abraham hands over to Rick a map to D.C. and tries to convince him to follow. Rick says he would and smiles a bit upon seeing inside the folded map an apology from Abraham – “Sorry I was an ass. Come to Washington. The new world is gonna need Rick Grimes.” Then Rick sees Tyreese digging more graves (probably for the Hunters) and he comes over to help him. That night, Michonne is sitting outside in the moonlight with Father Gabriel who confides that he can’t sleep as he still hears the voices of the people he kept out of the church. Michonne tells him that in time, all that will fade and it provided him some small comfort.

Then, Michonne hears some rustling in the bushes and goes to investigate while Father Gabriel runs inside the church. We see that the noise came from Daryl so Michonne immediately asks, ‘Where’s Carol?’ Then, Daryl suddenly has this unhappy look on his face before calling out to whoever was behind him to come out...then the scene fades to black and it was another cliffhanger ending that the TWD so loves to foist on us! They are so fond of doing that - making us wait and cringe and wait some more until the next episode arrives! I just wonder who really was behind him – is it Carol? Or maybe Beth? Or worse...new enemies who have managed to capture him and make him lure them back to where Rick and his group are hiding? But I don’t think Daryl would do that... I sure hope I am wrong this time! This scene is definitely not in the comics so there’s nothing I could look back to that would give me some clues...and so just like everybody else, I am also completely clueless and couldn’t stand the one entire week of waiting for Episode 4. Adios Bob...

KITCHEN MISADVENTURE SERIES – EGG N TUNA LETTUCE WRAP

The hubby arrived late last night from a short overnight trip to Baguio and, of course, aside from the usual strawberries and ube jam pasalubong, he brought home one of our family’s favourite vegetable – the lettuce. He brought home two kinds – the iceberg and the much healthier romaine...and so for dinner tonight I decided to make/add this egg-tuna salad with lettuce wrap. This dish is relatively easy to make and is just like your usual egg-tuna sandwich dressing with chopped white onions, chopped hardboiled eggs, tuna flakes (without the oil), mayonnaise, plain yogurt, some salt, pepper and sugar. Then, the hard white parts of the lettuce is cut off, washed and served with the egg-tuna mixture on the side. To eat or serve, the egg-tuna mixture is placed inside the lettuce, then the leaf is rolled much like pita bread and then entire thing is eaten like a burrito – a healthy one at that!

THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 5 EPISODE 2 - STRANGERS

Well, after last week’s exciting episode of the group’s breaking out of Terminus due to Carol’s heroics and the tearful reunion between Rick, Carl and Judith, Carol and Darryl, and Sasha with her brother Tyreese, this episode was comparably mild but still thought-provoking. The episode starts with the group shown going out on the road again. Rick talks to Tara and tells her he understands that she didn’t want to be there, with the Governor at the prison. He thanked Tara for saving Glenn and she responded that he also saved her and welcomed her into their group. Carol and Tyreese are filling bottles of water in a creek and he wants her to let the group know what she did at the prison. Carol says they don’t have to accept her but Ty thinks they would as he did but he would rather not let them know what happened to Lizzie and Mika as it is something he himself wants to forget.

The group continue their journey thru the woods and that night they make camp in the woods. Rick talks to Carol and thanks her for everything. Carol counters that it was Tyreese who was at the prison and saved his daughter. But Rick insists that he regrets kicking her out and now they have to live with her on the road if she’ll have them. Carol accepts Ricks apology and pulls out his watch that she got from Terminus. Later in the woods, Carol and Darryl find themselves alone and after a long silence, Carol says she doesn’t want to talk about it since she just needs to forget it. Darryl relents but hears a noise and after a while figures it was nothing but something or some shadow actually ran off.

The next day, the group continue on their journey and as they walked Darryl tells Rick that he did not find any tracks from the movement that he heard last night, but he still stands by the fact that he felt someone was watching them. Abraham tries to talk Rick into heading north and finding a vehicle once they hit the road. Suddenly, the group hears a cry for help and they rush in to find a man up on a rock surrounded by walkers. The group immediately dispatch the walkers to save him and after he pukes, introduces himself as Father Gabriel. Father Gabriel says he has no weapons and he says the word of God is the only protection he needs. Rick proceeds to ask him his three basic questions – How many walkers he killed? How many people he killed? What he has done to survive? By the way, this scene of meeting Fr. Gabriel happened in Volume 61 of the comics and their meet-up happened just about the time they encounter the cannibals so they feared he was somehow connected to them.

Father Gabriel admitted he had not killed anyone or any walker, he had sinned but he would only confess his sins to God and not to any stranger. He tells them that he has a church nearby and the group agreed to go there with him. They enter the church cautiously and see lots of emptied canned food, drawing on the walls and bible verses written on notebooks. The group agreed that the place was clear and settled in for some rest to regroup, gather supplies and ammunition before they decide what’s next. Rick finds out from Fr. Gabriel that the reason he survived for so long was due to the numerous canned food donations and that there were more where he was supposed to bring them before the ‘madness’ happened but there were walkers inside so he never ventured in. Rick decides to bring a few people and the priest to said place to get the much needed food supplies. But before he leaves, Rick tells Carl to always be on guard as he still doesn’t trust the priest as he knows he is hiding something from them. Carl counters that not everyone can be all bad and that they could still be strong and continue helping people.

Carol and Darryl go out to fill up some water in bottles and they both decide that they both need to start over. They see an abandoned car on the side of the road and check it out but it seemed lacking in fuel but it was still working. They decide to leave the car there for back-up in case things get bad at the church. Tara, Glenn and Maggie are on a mission to find ammunition and they hear Glenn making a ruckus inside a gun store and he admits sheepishly that he tripped over a mop but found some silencers. Rick and his group reached the food bank and they find walkers wallowing in icky chest-deep water in the basement where most of the food supplies are kept. They go down and use the shelves as barricade while killing off the walkers one by one. Gabriel reluctantly goes down with them but after a while he panics seeing someone he used to know and tries to climb up a staircase that suddenly breaks and he ended up falling in the water. Rick saves Gabriel and Sasha saves Bob from being bitten by a walker who was immersed in the murky water. The walkers in this scene are kind of gory, much like the one they made in the well scene (back at Herschel’s farm) with drooping faces and their skin and flesh almost falling off after being immersed in water for so long.

The group eventually come out of the food bank with carts full of food and as they walked back to the church, Fr. Gabriel says he was sorry for panicking. Rick also asked Michonne if she missed her sword but she says she didn’t, she missed Hershel and Andrea though. When they reach the church, Rick finds Carl at the back of the church and shows to Rick some scratches near the windows signifying that someone may have wanted to get in. They also see a scratched in sign that reads ‘You’ll burn for this.” That night, the entire group is celebrating with much food and wine (from the church). Abraham proposed a toast for them all for being ‘survivors’…then he asked them to consider if they just want to be mere survivors or follow him and Eugene to Washington to finally get rid of the walkers. They believe there’s a facility there with plenty of food, ammunition and they would be able to save the world for baby Judith. Rick says that if Judith is in then he is in and they all applaud and agreed to go to Washington to save the world.

Tara sits beside Maggie and she was with the group of Governor who raided the prison but at the time, she did not know who he was or what he was capable of doing. Maggie gives Tara a hug, in a way forgiving her for her association with the man who killed her father. Rick approaches Gabriel and thanks him for the hospitality and the communion wine. Rick warns Gabriel that he knows that he had something to hide and if that secret would hurt the people here he considers his family, then Rick will have to kill him. Carol goes out to fix the car and Darryl sees her asking where she’s going. Then they see a car speed by past them and Daryl sees it’s the car with the cross that took Beth and so they get in the car and follow it. Bob meanwhile, goes out of the church and weeps as he looks at the people inside. Then, someone smashed his head from behind and he blacks out.

Bob wakes up with a group of people around a fire and he sees it’s Gareth and the people from Terminus. Gareth explains that they did not want to hurt him or pull him away from his group…these are things they need to do to survive since he and his people took away their home. Now, they have to hunt and once they devolved into becoming hunters and ‘eating people’ they can’t ever go back, not like the way Bob wanted them to. Then as he explains this, he starts eating a little piece of meat and Bob realizes that he is missing his left leg and he sees what’s left of his foot on a BBQ grill. Gareth assured him though that he does, in fact, taste better than they thought he would. In the comic book, this exact same scene happened in Volume 63 of the comic book, the main difference is that it happened to Dale. Then, in the comic, the group belatedly realizes that they are actually eating tainted meat since he had been bitten (that’s why he was going off into the woods to die by himself---maybe why Bob was crying, too???) Ohh..this is exciting! Then in the preview to the next episode, the group realizes that some of them (3, actually) had gone missing and they feel like being watched. I wonder when Beth will return???

Here are pics of the actual comic page where some of the scenes of this episode were lifted... the first page shows the group meeting Father Gabriel and seeing the church...looks familiar, huh? (Volume 61, dated May 2009)

Meanwhile, here's the story of how they met the Hunters...the man cannibalized in the comic was Dale though, not Bob but you would notice that even the dialogue that Chris/Gareth says is the same...(Volume 63, dated July 2009)

KITCHEN MISADVENTURE SERIES – KANGKONG IN OYSTER SAUCE/BROCCOLI SOUP/CHICKEN FILLET IN HONEY-ORANGE SAUCE/HERBED SOY STEAMED CHICKEN/DULCE DE LECHE AND CHOCOLATE COOKIE TRIFLE

This was our dinner last night, as it was our weekend at home again, I decided to make something special for the kids n the hubby. I started cooking the vegetable entree which was quite a simple dish really as one can often see this dish as an appetizer in Chinese restaurants – KANGKONG IN OYSTER SAUCE. I used shredded chicken that I sautéed in garlic and onions before I added the kangkong then some water and oyster sauce. I let the kangkong cook for a few minutes then I turned off the fire and kept the dish covered so that the lingering heat would continue cooking the vegetables enough but not make it wilt as I still have more dishes to cook. (in picture collage, lower left)

Next in line was the BROCCOLI SOUP, I chose broccoli since my daughter loves this vegetable and quite nutritious too. This is another easy dish that simply requires frying garlic in a few teaspoons of butter then adding the broccoli and some more shredded chicken. Then, when the vegetables have softened I added chicken stock, let it boil for a few minutes and turned off the fire. The next step is not actually required but I liked doing it since it gives my soup a thick creamy feel but for others who may just want their soup to remain chunky, this step may be skipped. The next step entails the aid of a blender in order to puree the broccoli with about a cup and a half of the soup stock. Then, the greenish pureed mixture is returned to the remaining soup, placed again on the stove, add a cup of milk (any kind) let it simmer then before turning off the heat, garnish with chopped onion leaves and voila! – healthy green soup! (no picture)

Next item on the agenda is the main meal, which in this case, is the chicken fillet. I wanted to stick sana to my healthy food theme for tonight but it seems I can’t because for one thing, I would not know how my family would react to this steamed chicken recipe as I know they are such ‘fried fanatics’ and so I opted to just cook the chicken in two different ways – steamed and fried. About three hours before cooking time, I marinated the HERBED SOY STEAMED CHICKEN which I also scored diagonally so that the marinade would seep through. I browsed the internet for recipes but found none where I had the complete ingredients with and so I decided to just mix and match what I had in my pantry at the time – of course – salt, pepper, basil, rosemary, ginger, calamansi juice, soy sauce, garlic, and sesame oil. Then, come cooking time I just placed the chicken fillet, together with its marinade, in a foil packet and placed in a steamer for 30-40 minutes. (in picture collage, lower right)

While the chicken fillet steams, I also cooked CRISPY CHICKEN FILLET IN HONEY ORANGE SAUCE. It was a recipe I got from “Mga Luto ni Dennis at iba pa” blogsite, just check out the complete recipe at his website. The chicken fillet was cut into serving pieces, marinated in salt and pepper. Then, it was dredged in a mixture of flour and cornstarch then deep fried until golden brown. To make the sauce, sauté ginger, garlic and onions in a little oil then put some orange juice (the original recipe called for fresh orange but I did not have any, so I just used the powdered kind). Season with salt and pepper then add a bit of cornstarch and some honey to thicken the sauce. You may return the chicken fillet in pan to coat them in the sauce or choose to serve it on the side to use as dip. (in picture collage, upper right)

The final dish that I prepared for tonight is of course, the dessert and this time, I got the recipe from Casa Veneracion and it’s called – DULCE DE LECHE AND CHOCOLATE COOKIE TRIFLE. If you want the complete recipe just hit the search button of her blog – suffice it to say that the dessert was such a big hit! My family just loved it...and I loved it too since it required no baking at all, just mixing and mashing of ingredients and then some layering of cookies and cream. (BTW, her recipe called for cream cheese which I did not have at the time and so I just substituted chilled all purpose cream and it still came out tasting great!) (in picture collage, upper left and center left photo)

THE RETURN OF THE WALKING DEAD (SEASON 5)

Finally, after seven (was it just seven? It surely felt like forever!?!) months of waiting, it’s finally here! The much-awaited season premiere was shown yesterday (Monday) at 11:45 a.m. and again last night at 8:55 p.m. in Manila but just too bad I was not able to watch both…boohoo! I was then waiting in line at the HPO clinic from 11-2pm yesterday to seek treatment for my recurring cough and so I was not able to watch the 11:45 showing that jived with the US timeslot. Then, again at the 8:55 pm showing, I was unable to watch because WE DON’T HAVE CABLE ANYMORE…another boohoo! And so I waited until this morning when Raymond, our resident ‘pirate’ arrived and gave us copies of the episode which he downloaded from the net…thank God for kind souls like Raymond. What’s more he also gave me 3 episodes of Homeland Season 4 (which is not yet showing in the PH, by the way, I wonder why???)…yippee! But I will write about that in a separate post…here’s the synopsis of the TWD’s Episode 1, aptly titled – NO SANCTUARY.

The episode takes off from where the last season ended when the group of Rick and company find out that Terminus offers no real sanctuary for any of them. So the group decides to get ready in case any members of Terminus men come in to get them. They fashion crude weapons from belt buckles, zippers and whatever comes in hand. But when somebody finally comes for them, it was not a person that came in but a gas canister. Next scene Rick is shown being dragged outside by a Terminus tough guy in a gasmask and placed inside a room with about 7 other men, including Glenn, Darryl and Bob.

A body is being cut up in a separate table while they were tied and gagged in front of a stainless steel trough. Then, the killing begins – four strangers were hit in the head with a baseball bat then their throats are cut and gutted like chickens. Next in line is Glenn then Gareth comes in asking for an inventory of the shot count from the two men conducting the killing. Rick takes out a weapon and waits for an opportunity to break free. Bob talks to Gareth and pleads for the group’s life claiming that they have a man, who knows a cure. But Gareth says it’s too late for that, he talks to Rick and asks what was in the bag he had before coming in to Terminus. Rick tells him it contains guns, the ones he will be using to kill Gareth. The executioner gets ready to hit Glenn with the bat when suddenly they hear a loud explosion outside and more shots are fired. Gareth tells them to stay behind while he goes out to find out what’s going on.

Earlier, we saw Carol and Tyreese with the baby walking towards Terminus. Carol tells Tyreese that she will help them get there but won’t stay (after what happened with Rick). She kills a walker who walks up behind them because Tyreese still can’t bring himself to kill after what happened in the cabin (with the 2 other girls). Then they see a horde of walkers approaching and they take cover in a nearby trench. They hear gunfire and see the walkers also headed in the same direction. They decide to go a different way but still proceeding towards Terminus. The two chance upon a Terminus guy out on patrol, looking for supplies and setting up firecrackers to distract walkers. They also hear him talking on the radio about the kid with a hat and the chick with a sword so Carol holds a gun to his head, tie him up and ask him where their friends are. But the guy refused to talk so Carol heads out on her own and leaves Tyreese and the baby with the man inside a cabin.

Tyreese is left alone in the cabin with Martin, the Terminus guy while Carol disguises herself in walker blood so she can walk with them inside the compound. Martin tries to convince Tyreese to just get up and leave with the baby in the car outside as he will surely die outside anyway, being too kind a person. Carol approaches the fence and sees Rick and the others being dragged from the boxcar. She also sees some of the Terminus residents trying to repel a bunch of walkers getting near the fence but they got panicky seeing there were so many of them. So Carol shoots at the propane tank to make it leak then fires a skyrocket into it to make it explode.

Inside the execution chamber, Rick quickly makes his move when Gareth leaves. He stabs one of the executioners in the head and the other one he stabs in the stomach and left him to die and turn. Carol gets inside the perimeter, still disguised as a walker. She sees a Terminus soldier firing at the group of walkers she is walking with so she hides and shoots him in the head. Meanwhile, Rick and the others enter the butcher’s room where they see human torsos hanging on hooks and they get some knives and machetes to defend themselves and free the others. Carol enters a room and finds clothes, jewelry (including Ric’s watch), weapons (including Daryl’s bow) and children’s toys. She takes the bow and the watch and enters the candle room where she meets Mary (the woman who welcomed Rick and his group) ordering her to turn around and drop her guns. Carol manages to shoot the woman in the leg and asks her why they are doing this. Mary explained that Terminus actually started out as a true sanctuary but evil men came and tortured/raped them. They fought back, won and now adopted the mantra – ‘you’re the butcher or you’re the cattle.’ (which explains the writing on the walls – NEVER AGAIN / NEVER TRUST) Carol did not kill her but instead lets walkers enter the room.

Back in the cabin, Tyreese hears walkers approaching and goes to the window to look out, providing Martin the opportunity to get near Judith and threaten to snap her neck if he does not go out to where some walkers await. With the sound of walkers attacking Tyreese, Martin tries to contact Terminus but fails. Suddenly all becomes quiet outside and Tyreese bursts back into the room, overpowers Martin and beats him. Inside the boxcar, the group gets agitated with the gunshots and noises that they hear outside but Carl assures them that his dad will come back for them. Sasha asks Eugene to tell them how to save the world in case he dies. But he explains that the process of fighting ‘fire with fire’is complicated that even if he left detailed instructions with pictures and videos, they still would not be able to reverse the process without him.

Meantime, Rick and the others battle walkers to get to their boxcar. He sees some of Gareth’s henchmen shooting at the walkers and takes the opportunity to get their guns and shoot them with it. They finally get to the others and they shoot/knife their way out to jump up the fence and get into the woods. Rick sees Gareth and his men still busy battling with walkers and shoots at him, wounding him on the shoulder. The group circle the woods to search the cache of guns and supplies they hid before entering Terminus. Rick tries to convince them to go back and kill all of them but Maggie and Glenn reason out that the place is already being run over by walkers and gutted by fire so they should just leave. Then, Daryl suddenly sees Carol going towards them and he hugs him with tears in his eyes. Rick, realizing that it may be Carol (whom he banished from the prison) who saved them hugged her also to thank her.

She takes them back to the cabin where Rick and Carl excitedly run towards Judith. Sasha and Tyreese also tearfully reunite. While, watching the heartwarming reunion, Rosita and Abraham talk that they need to tell them about something, but just not yet. Rick decides that they need to move on, away from Terminus instead of going back to destroy it. As the group leaves, they see a Terminus sign that Rick wipes down with mud and instead writes NO SANCTUARY to make other people stay away. Then, a flashback is shown (which was also by the way shown at the start of the episode) wherein the people of Terminus that we met were themselves inside the boxcar and some other men came inside to torture and rape their women. Gareth then vowed that they would fight back and regain Terminus back. In all, it was a good first episode…at least they’re all back together again (well, except for Beth). It’s also great to have Carol back as she was able to redeem herself quite well and save them all …then in the teaser for the next episode, it seems that they shall be meeting up with Father Gabriel (from the comics) and I just hope that he has Beth with him.
(photo grabbed from AMC)