HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 11 – KRIEG NICHT LIEB

In last week’s episode, the US decided to pull out its entire embassy out of Pakistan and so the rest of the embassy staff and ambassador heads home leaving Carrie behind to search for Quinn who is intent on finding and killing Haqqani by himself. The episode starts with Carrie talking with Assar Khan and it seems obvious that the friendship they once shared is now gone due to what recently transpired between their two countries. Assar Khasn tells Carrie that Quinn is wanted for burning down a bazaar and abducting a Pakistani ISI officer. He admits he is under pressure to hunt down Quinn but Carrie pleads to let her find him and get him out of Islamabad.

Carrie returns to the embassy to find everything packed up and gone, well, except for Carrie’s team that she needs to still find Quinn, which includes Max who helps her in getting back the systems needed to find him. Carrie tells the remaining team that they need to all go back safely home and that includes Peter Quinn who they need to stop before he kills himself looking for Haqqani. Max argues letting Quinn do his mission and they should all just support him but Carrie turns him down. Next, Quinn is shown entering a gated compound into an apartment of a German girl who seemed to be a rather close friend of his. The girl tells her that he is now on the wanted list but Quinn refuses to stand down and seeks her help instead on the phones he found on Haqqani’s men.

While Max heads off someplace to a hidden safe, Carrie catches him with some cash and a passport that are obviously intended for Quinn. Max is angry with Carrie for letting Fara die and now wants Carrie to commit to kill Haqqani as it would in some way avenge Fara’s death. But Carrie insists that she can’t do that...she can’t bear to lose anyone else. Carrie manages to track down Quinn (maybe Max squealed) and heads over to the unknown woman’s apartment where Quinn was currently taking a shower. The woman finds Carrie at her door but she reveals that she hasn’t heard from him in many months. Carrie leaves her contact number but she knows that he is there. The German girl found the information he was looking for and sets out to find the location of the phones.

He asks to borrow the German girl’s car and on his way there, he finds Carrie waiting for him. Carrie tries her best to dissuade Quinn telling him it was a suicide mission and that there was a shoot to kill order on his head. But Quinn refuses to heed Carrie and just return home as he knew it was Carrie who convinced him to go to Islamabad and then he saw the entire station almost wiped out. Quinn proceeds to disarm and fire at the two men Carrie had with her and even chokes Carrie to back off then leaves. Quinn proceeds to stakeout Haqqani’s location, studying how best to enter the place. He photographs the ground area and the returns to the German girl’s apartment.

Back at the embassy, Carrie receives an emergency call from her sister and when she calls her back she finds out that their father died last night, in his sleep. Carrie remains unable to show emotion, as always and hangs up on her sister and tells her she will just call back. Carrie goes to the control room and Max tells her he was sorry, at first Carrie tried to act cool and tells him to find out what he can on the German woman that Quinn visited then suddenly she breaks down and Max goes over to give her a hug. Quinn is next shown back at the German girl’s apartment, making a bomb. The German girl arrives home to tell Quinn that Carrie called probably to share the sad news about her dad but Quinn chose to believe that she just wants to dissuade him on his plans.

The next day, at the embassy, Carrie gets a call from Lockhart and he offered his condolences on her father’s death. He also asked about what more had been happening out there in Pakistan since he heard that the White House had been shopping for his replacement and so he was more or less out of the loop. But Carrie tells him she had not heard anything but will do so when she does. Then, Aayan’s girlfriend is shown and she receives photographs of Aayan’s death in her mailbox. It was apparently from Quinn who meets up with her in an empty hospital room. At first she refuses to believe that Aayan is dead but Quinn convinces her that they need to help each other in order to get the bad guy that killed Quinn, his uncle Haqqani.

Carrie visits Quinn’s German friend again and it’s clear that Carrie did her research this time and berates her for helping Quinn. The woman agrees to talk with Carrie and Carrie appeals to her to help stop Quinn as this clearly is a suicide mission. She tried to ask how he intends to kill Haqqani but the German girl lied and said she did not know. Then a knock on the door signalled the arrival of one of Carrie’s men who had done a sweep of the German girl’s car that revealed a glove clueing in Carrie on the fact that Quinn was making a bomb for a possible suicide mission. Quinn is shown next still making the bomb in an undisclosed place and placing it inside a steel tube. Then he gets up to leave and attaches a huge picture of a smiling Aayan to the steel tube.

Carrie then gets a call from Max informing her that drone videos of Aayan’s death had been leaked to the internet. Max tracks the leak to the medical school that Aayan went to and Carrie realizes that this is all of Quinn’s doing, to flush Haqqani out because he can’t get inside. Then they see a flash message calling for support for Aayan thru a demonstration and Carrie immediately proceeds to the area as she knows that this protest was also orchestrated by Quinn for Aayan to get to Haqqani. Aasar Khan and Tasneem meanwhile make plans to move Haqqani to a safer area and keep watch on the demonstration. Tasneem calls Aasar Khan aside after the meeting with military personnel to hold him personally responsible if something bad happens to Haqqani.

At the demonstration, Aayan’s friends start swelling up the streets with protesters and Quinn is there holding his Aayan placard (with the bomb). He cuts through the crowd and throws his bomb underneath the grate outside Haqqani’s place. He covers the grate with Aayan’s image and then tells Kiran that she should already leave. Carrie meanwhile joins the crowd of protesters in search of Quinn not knowing that he just left. She sees Aasar Khan and hides behind a poster so he would not see her. Quinn then relocates to a safer place and watches Haqqani’s men as they make plans to move him out. Quinn sees Carrie and calls her to get out but Carrie knows that she must not let him set the bomb off for they’ll know it was Quinn and it would lead to his death.

Quinn sees Haqqani’s vehicle coming out of the compound but had no choice to let his plan go to waste. Carrie sees Haqqani come out the roof of the vehicle and she was overcome with rage seeing him waving there and so she moves to shoot him. But just as she was about to pull the trigger, Aasar Khan grabs her from behind and yanks her arm shouting at her not to shoot Haqqani not because he doesn’t want him dead but because of the man inside the van with Haqqani – Dar Adal, the CIA black ops director. OMG...WTF is he doing there???

*** photo credits from Showtime ***

NEW PAINT FOR THE HOUSE

It’s the second Christmas that we spent here at our new house at BP and I guess it is still not fully finished the way we wanted it ...[well, money problems have caused our plans to go awry]. But this time, I told the hubby that I wanted the house to look good in the pictures we shall be posting and so I told him to start painting the walls already. Before the long weekend holiday, the hubby and I shopped for some beige paint at the local hardware and he started painting the walls a nice beige hue...not so bright as to hurt the eyes but just the right cool tint that I wanted. Next we planned to paint the accents a dark mahogany brown so that the beige paint would truly pop out. At least even if we had not really done any major renovations this year, the house would look pleasing to the eye, at least in pictures.

HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 10 – 13 HOURS IN ISLAMABAD

I was excited to immediately watch this episode since I wanted to find out already if Carrie and Saul survived or if Haqqani succeeds in his attack on the embassy...and I am glad to see Carrie and Saul in the beginning badly bruised but very much alive. It seems Redmond got killed though as he was stabbed in the neck with a piece of glass. The ambassador, meanwhile, immediately tells Quinn her theory that the ISI intends to attack the embassy and the attack on Carrie and Saul was just a decoy to draw the marines out and leave the embassy unguarded. She tells Quinn they know about the underground tunnel which had him worried and so he orders an embassy lockdown and recalled the marines back to the embassy. But before they can manage to return to the embassy, the convoy is once again riddled with bullets from snipers positioned atop buildings and so they all take cover and try to return fire. Carrie decides to call Aasar Khan for help and as he was about to make the call, Tasneem stops him and makes him wait for ten minutes to make the call as she says it was time to make the American’s have a dose of their own medicine. It was then that Aasar Khan finally realized that Tasneem was in cahoots with Haqqani all along.

Quinn calls Lockhart who orders the embassy staff to destroy all documents and hard drives as there is an imminent threat to the embassy. As the embassy staff hurries to do as they’re told, Lockhart receives the embassy’s crown jewels – the list of all assets that Sandy had maintained in Pakistan all these years and proceeds to the embassy’s vault. But Haqqani and his men succeed in entering thru the tunnel and starts killing embassy staff and Lockhart barely escapes. Haqqani sees the safe empty and makes the remaining embassy members kneel in front of him to make them talk, including Max and Fara. He makes a beeline for Fara asking her where the list is and when she refuses to answer, he insults her for being a Muslim who kills other Muslims. Meanwhile, Quinn and another marine are in the basement and they overhear that Haqqani is proceeding to the vault where Lockhart and the ‘list’ is. The two start killing the rest of Haqqani’s men and proceed to the vault.

Meanwhile, back at Carrie’s convoy, the snipers have not let up so Carrie is given a gun be a marine to help them fight back but it seems she is not a good shot. Carrie is worried why the soldiers that Khan promised had still not yet arrived. Haqqani arrives at the vault and the embassy staffs (including Ambassador Martha and Lockhart) see him coming with a handful of embassy members in tow. Haqqani starts executing the hostages unless they open the door. Three more die and when they get to Fara who they take at knifepoint, Lockhart agrees to come out. Against the ambassador’s orders, Lockhart tries to save Fara but when he has givent he documents, Haqqani proceeds to kill her anyway. Quinn and the other marine start shooting the moment they see Fara fall. They manage to injure most of his men, including Haqqani himself but they were able to escape by setting off a bomb making it impossible for Quinn to follow. So Quinn returns to the vault and sees the other embassy members still in shock with a weeping Max holding Fara.

The backup finally arrives to take Carrie and Saul back to the embassy. Upon arrival, they see the flag that Haqqani placed in front and knew at once that the embassy had been infiltrated. Four hours later, the ambassador and Lockhart sit and watch news of the embassy attack that left around 40 Americans dead. A call comes in from the White House and they are ordered to evacuate the embassy. Max and Carrie sit next to the bodies and Max chastises Carrie for always being mean to Fara but Carrie defends that she was just training her to be strong. In the end, she relents and agreed that she wished she had treated Fara better. Lockhart arrives to tell Carrie about the order from the White House to take U.S. presence out of Pakistan and end diplomatic relations. Lockhart tells Carrie that they're being evacuated the next morning but Carrie insists that she needs to stay behind to make sure all of their assets are safe. Lockhart admits that it was his fault for giving over the list but Carrie semi-consoles him by saying she's unsure of what she would have done too. Meanwhile the ambassador visits Dennis in his cell and she tells him that they’re returning to the US tomorrow. She also informs him that he will be charged with treason while her fate remains unclear. Dennis says he was sorry as everything was his fault for giving information to the enemy. Dennis asks for her belt in order to kill himself but at first Martha refuses to agree helping to kill him. Dennis it is the only way to save Martha’s career and spare their son, Toby from the embarrassment of knowing his father was a traitor. The ambassador relents but instead of giving her own belt, she gets Dennis’ belt from the locker and tossed it toward him before leaving.

Quinn asks Saul where he thinks Haqqani may be heading but Saul is unsure of where he was held hostage. Quinn is frustrated as Saul can’t seem to remember anything and he breaks down crying. Carrie intervenes to tell Quinn to give Saul a break as they are being pulled out of Pakistan. But Quinn doesn’t want to give up and just walk away so he decided to search the dead bodies of Haqqani’s men for clues. Carrie talks to Saul and he feels guilty for those who died but Carrie believes that Haqqani had planned this from the start that’s why he killed Sandy, even way before Saul arrived.

Carrie makes a heartbreaking call to Fara’s father to tell him of his daughter’s death. While everyone is still in a state of shock over what happened, Quinn leaves the embassy after retrieving a cellphone from one of Haqqani’s men. He knows he is being followed so he circles around and confronts the guys following him and forced them to take him to Haqqani. Upon arrival, he knocks the guy out and gets a second cellphone from him. The next day, everyone is being evacuated from the embassy and Carrie informs Lockhart that Quinn is missing. She insists on staying behind for five days to find Quinn and Lockhart reluctantly allows her. The ambassador learns that Dennis didn’t kill himself and approaches her husband with the look of total disgust for knowing he was such a coward. Carrie ushers Saul into the car and says she’s staying to find Quinn. He wishes her luck and tells her to be careful. As the cars pull away, fear and uncertainty overtakes her...I just wish she finds Quinn.

*** photo credits from Showtime ***

HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 9 – THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE GOING ON

After last week's dramatic and chair-gripping episode that almost killed Saul, we see a more submissive CIA giving in to Haqqani's demands for a prison trade. Five imprisoned commanders of Haqqani's team are being given over in exchange for Saul and Carrie believes that this is just a bonus since Haqqani had something else planned. But, Lockhart highly doubts the veracity of Carrie’s theories as well as Aasar Khan's claims that Dennis Boyd is the embassy leak. Redmond invites Dennis to his office and talks to him about Sandy – how he passed on illegal information and how the information was traced back to Martha's computer. He asks Dennis gently to come clean with it, but Dennis refuses to take the bait. I guess he knew their evidence is weak so he doesn’t admit to it but Carrie is determined to take things to the next level and make Dennis sweat.

Saul is shown badly bruised after a pretty bad beating from his escape attempt. Then a young woman comes in to clean Saul up and take him somewhere in the back of a van. Meanwhile, the prisoners too are being readied for the prison exchange. Carrie ‘invites’ Dennis once again for another ‘interrogation’ and this time she does not go all soft on him but demands from him the ISI counterpart who ran him and Sandy. Carrie also told him that she almost died when he switched her meds but it seems Dennis doesn’t care about what he had done. Carrie decided to lock him in the interrogation room overnight. Saul is then dragged into a room equipped with bright lights and a camera, then while he is bound and gagged, Haqqani makes a video message about his plans when he's reunited with his once-imprisoned comrades. He talks about "taking back" Kabul and his men all cheer behind him.

Carrie then gets a call from Saul's wife, Mira asking Carrie not to let Saul die, to bring him home safe and Carrie advised her not to worry as she would be running the exchange. Before she left, Carrie shows Dennis the video of Sandy being beaten, to make him break. Dennis looks tired but insists that he can't say what he doesn't know. Carrie threatened to torture or even kill him if he continues to refuse to talk when suddenly the ambassador enters, questions the fact that Carrie is questioning her husband and tells her that she is ‘finished’. Inside the ambassador's office, Martha and Dennis discuss what happened. Martha is fuming at Carrie and asks Dennis what it was about and he admitted being accused of spying but denied it. Then, she leaves Dennis and surprisingly enters a room with Carrie and Lockhart, sits down and very calmly tells them that Dennis didn't say anything. It seems she'd been working with them the whole time and the whole explosion in the interrogation room was part of their plan...way to go Martha! At least you have seen thru Dennis and do not condone his antics anymore.

Carrie leaves for the exchange with Saul and insist on Quinn staying on at the embassy since she feels that "there's something else going on." Clearly, Carrie’s sixth sense is tingling. She wants Quinn as her extra ‘eye up above’ in case they decide to kill Saul. Dennis tries to leave the ambassador’s house and was prevented by the embassy guards. Martha arrives and asks that she be presented with his bag and sees clothes, passport and money, obviously jumping ship. Martha asks him to stop lying and commands that he be locked up. Carrie and Redmond meet with the ISI to discuss the exchange with Saul, and Tasneem asks where Lockhart was. Mid-briefing, Carrie feigns a call from Lockhart but instead calls Aasar Khan from across the room. Carrie asks Aasar Khan what's going to happen during the exchange and it seems he wasn’t in on the planning, only Tasneem. Saul boards a van with a young boy with a bomb vest and the van heads to the exchange.

The exchange begins with Redmond and Carrie running everything on the embassy's side while in the ISI corner, Tasneem has taken the reigns. Quinn reports to Carrie that everything is clear. The ISI verifies the prisoners and Saul is then removed from the van to be shown to Carrie and Redmond. Carrie insists that the van leave before they start walking the prisoners toward the ISI members. The van drives away but leaves the boy and Carrie flips out when she sees the vest and stops the prisoners from leaving. But Saul, exasperated and exhausted, just sits down and refuses to move. He wants to die so that the Taliban doesn't reclaim the prisoners so Carrie offers to approach Saul to talk sense into him. Carrie and Saul share an emotional moment and eventually, Saul relents and they walk off together. The prisoners are released to ISI and the exchange is complete.

The ambassador goes to visit Dennis and tells him that the prisoner swap for Saul was successful. Then she rhetorically asked Dennis how their marriage fully deteriorated and it infuriates Martha most that even now, when everything is past the point of being up in flames, Dennis can still not take responsibility for his actions. Meanwhile, Redmond, Carrie and Saul sit silently in the car and gets a call from Mira but as he was about to get the phone, there's a massive explosion. Their convoy had been hit and several seconds later, there is another explosion. Lockhart deploys all the Marines to the explosion site and one Marine goes down to the cell to tell Martha what has happened. As she goes to leave, Dennis asks if all the Marines have been deployed and, FINALLY, reveals to her that Tasneem is his ISI connection and that he told her about the hidden passageway under the embassy. Before the credits roll, Haqqani and his fully armed men is seen breaking into the passageway underneath the embassy as his full-fledged attack on the embassy is about to begin.

*** photo credits from Showtime ***

HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 8 – HALFWAY TO A DONUT

The episode starts with Carrie waking up in an unfamiliar bedroom, the morning after her breakdown. She stands to explore her surroundings still a bit groggy and confused, and then she's greeted by Aasar Khan who asks her how she is. Aasar Khan reveals that his men took her from police custody and that she spoke of Brody the night before. Carrie is still extremely weak and so Aasar Khan tucks her back into the bed, shivering.

The embassy still has no idea where Carrie is but at the moment they're concentrating on Saul. Lockhart, the ambassador, and other U.S. officials attend a meeting with the Pakistani foreign minister, Aasar Khan, Tasneem and the rest of the Pakistani delegation. Before both parties sit down with one another, Tasneem berates Aasar Khan for his interference with Carrie and that he foiled her plans to have Carrie shipped out of Islamabad because of her breakdown. But Aasar Khan indicates that he didn't know their operation and that he took her into his care to protect relations with the Americans. Hmm ... so I guess Aasar Khan, is not in cahoots with Tasneem but is he truly a good guy ?

The delegation and the embassy sit down to discuss Saul's 'kidnapping' but this time Haqqani's men have put Saul on camera. Saul tells them not to give in to any of the demands as well as some not so nice words which made Haqqani's men pull Saul out of the camera’s view. Haqqani makes his own demands and mentions names of prisoners he wants released in exchange for Saul. Saul is taken back to his cell and manages to procure some rusty nails secretly along the way. The delegation alleges that they're shocked by Haqqani's demands, Lockhart is fuming, and the ambassador remains calm and pragmatic, suggesting they all meet again the following morning with a plan of action.

Carrie wakes up again, still at Aasar Khan's, and goes to the bathroom to freshen up and take her meds. When suddenly she realizes that her meds taste different and makes the connection that they've been tampered with. When Aasar Khan arrived, she asked if he knew about the switch but he insists that he doesn't know. So Carrie leaves and goes straight to the doctor at the embassy. She meets with Quinn and tells him her theory of a possible security breach. Lockhart and Quinn also brief Carrie on Haqqani's demands for Saul. Carrie is flabbergasted at the list of the names Haqqani's asking for - all Haqqani's closest associates! Lockhart and Carrie resolve that they need to find a different way to get Saul so Lockhart leaves to tell the ambassador about the breach. After Lockhart leaves, Carrie tells Quinn the true details of her "kidnapping".

Lockhart meets with the ambassador to discuss the breach with Carrie then as he was leaving, Dennis the traitor arrives. The ambassador confides in him about the breach and also tells him to try to stay inside so he can stay safe. Meanwhile, in his cell, Saul uses his stolen nails to attempt to pick the locks on his handcuffs. After much struggling, he succeeds. Then he fakes his own suicide-by-hanging and takes out the guard who tries to cut him down, and escapes. While escaping, Saul also managed to grab a cellphone and he calls the embassy. They locate him via GPS and direct him toward the nearest CIA asset where they can extract him -- a location 20 miles on foot from where he currently is. He requests to speak to Carrie alone and Saul makes her promise that if he gets recaptured, she must do everything she can so that Haqqani's demands do not get met. Saul forces her to promise that she will kill him if they can't extract him. Carrie tells Quinn what Saul told her and Lockhart tells Carrie that he and the ambassador will stall the Pakistani delegation while Saul gets to safety. Dennis approaches Tasneem to tell her that they know about the pills and she calms him down and gave him another task to do...all this time Aasar Khan look on as they talk quietly.

A very dirty and exhausted Saul finally arrives at the extraction point at the same time that Carrie suddenly realizes why the Pakistani delegation is quite calm despite knowing Saul's escape. Carrie realizes that the reason is because they know where Saul is headed so she leaves the meeting and goes to the control room, finding another way to get Saul safe. She finds the CIA forces waiting at the outskirts of town to see if they can extract Saul but the Taliban had them surrounded. So Carrie contacts the CIA asset to inform Saul that he needs to head to a new extraction point. Saul then leaves and with Carrie on the phone giving him directions of where to go to find safety. But the Taliban forces were just too many for Carrie to be able to get to Saul and Saul realizes that so he stops at a courtyard and puts a gun to his head. Carrie talks him out of killing himself by lying to him and saying that she's going to direct him to a safe zone. Instead, Carrie directs Saul directly into the arms of the Taliban and the last we see of Saul is him getting taken away, while screaming invectives at Carrie.

A dejected Lockhart goes back to the Pakistani delegation and tells them that they will meet Haqqani's demands. The delegation silently leaves and Tasneem tries hard to hide the smile on her face. Carrie feels terrible for lying to Saul, but she knew it was the only thing left to do to keep Saul alive. Quinn reminds her that she hasn't slept in two days and suggests she do so. But before she could sleep, Aasar Khan calls and they meet in the middle of the night to discuss Carrie's pill situation -- Aasar Khan reiterates that he had absolutely no idea that anything was being done to thwart her. Carrie struggles to accept this as fact but ultimately realizes that he's being truthful and tells him so. Aasar Khan then informed her that it was Dennis that swapped her pills but still left out Tasneem's complicity in the entire operation.

*** Photo grabbed from Showtime ***

HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 7 – REDUX

The episode starts with Tasneem having some mystery drugs manufactured at a pharmacy. Lockhart arrives in Islamabad to handle the Saul situation and meets with Quinn and Redmond immediately after he arrives. Redmond and Quinn brief him on Carrie's behaviour during the Haqqani operation. But Quinn, unsurprisingly, defends Carrie's outburst despite Lockhart's assumption that she's become uncontrollable and unpredictable.

Meantime, Carrie was monitoring at the 2nd base with Fara and Max looking into what drugs Aayan got from that nurse a few episodes back in an attempt to find any clue that will lead them to Saul. Carrie feels guilty about Aayan's untimely death and she spoke aloud what she felt Fara was thinking. But Fara did not want to argue and just conceded they were all responsible for Aayan's death. Quinn, goes to her apartment to track her down on behalf of Lockhart but she's not there. She tells him she'll meet with him soon and as he leaves Carrie's apartment, Dennis was there to swap out several of Carrie's pills for the mystery pills that were given to Tasneem.

Back at the CIA station, Lockhart met with the members of the team and expressed his displeasure with the recent series of events that has fallen on the Islamabad station. Carrie arrives late further infuriating Lockhart but she somewhat redeems herself when she indicates that she has a lead on Haqqani, they just need confirmation on what the medicine was and what disease Haqqani is grappling with. She also stresses that the rest of the station will be working 24/7 to find Saul. Lockhart seems slightly contented to hear this and they proceed to the meeting with the Pakistani delegation. Haqqani is obviously enjoying his time outside and he says so during the car ride with Saul. Saul tells him that he is of no intel value but Haqqani makes it abundantly clear that he's not planning on getting rid of Saul as he is the shield Haqqani needs to be able to go out in public unharmed.

Back at the embassy, the ambassador, Lockhart, Carrie, and other embassy officials meet with the Pakistani delegation -- a group that includes Tasneem and Aasar Khan, the ISI guy who met with Saul. From the start, the ambassador lays out that the United States simply wants Saul back and wants to know how he got to be taken in the first place. Lockhart disbelieves the Pakistani minister and says that he knows they were all a part of the plan to take Saul. The minister gets angry and urges him to stop but Lockhart takes it a step further and tells the delegation that he will pull the federal aid given to Pakistan if they don't release Saul. The Pakistani delegation leaves in a huff after this and the ambassador is not happy with Lockhart, saying that threats will not help in this situation and that Lockhart doesn't have the ability to pull the funding. But Lockhart says that he indeed has the president's permission.

Carrie runs after the delegation as they leave, calling Aasar Khan and berating him about Saul. She's intent on proving that the delegation cannot be trusted and that the ISI had something to do with Saul's disappearance. She convinces Aasar Khan to let her see the security footage from the airport that would implicate Farhad Ghazi in the kidnapping and they agree to meet at the airport a half hour later. She goes back to her apartment to take her 'pills' and freshen up before going to the airport with Quinn. Dennis meanwhile heads into his wife's office at the embassy and finds her drafting a resignation letter. She's obviously infuriated by Lockhart's ability to undermine her foreign relationships and hates that Lockhart is using the federal aid package as leverage. Dennis calmly convinces her to not give up on her life's work and this made Martha wonder a bit as she thought Dennis wanted them to leave Pakistan.

Quinn and Carrie head to the airport to meet with Aasar Khan and it's clear that Carrie's medication is not working at all. She's talking fast and her eyes are way shiftier than normal. Quinn expresses concern but Carrie says she's fine and they continue to the airport to watch the footage from the evening of Saul's disappearance. They find out that the cameras on the terminal that Saul was in were down that night...well HOW CONVENIENT! Carrie thinks that Aasar Khan is hiding information and footage but her 'new meds' just made her seem out of control and paranoid.

Haqqani drives through the streets of Islamabad and gets a hero's welcome as he continues using Saul as shield. The embassy monitors his movement and they are not at all pleased at all with the fanfare and almost-hero worship. Haqqani heads to his compound, with Saul in tow, and greets his family for the first time in ages. As the entire station watches, they try to work on how they are going to rescue Saul. Carrie suggests an absurd rescue mission and everyone is looking at her like she's got nine heads because her mania is out in full force. She retreats to her room to regain control and she is shown overwhelmed with dizziness, confusion, and complete inability to handle what's happening in her brain.

At Haqqani's compound, a huge welcome feast is happening and Saul is sitting at his right hand, like an old friend. The two discuss the Pakistani-American relationship and their discussion heats up as Saul dares to talk to him on radical Islam, 9/11, and cultural confusion. Then, Carrie wakes up from a nap, still disoriented, with a call from Max. It seems they have tracked down the nurse and will be conducting an operation for her. Carrie takes her pills again, but she's still nowhere near normal when she leaves her apartment. Every sound, person, color, and movement is intensified in her world at present yet she leaves for the hospital and finds Kiran almost immediately after entering. Carrie verbally assaults Kiran, physically assaults a nurse who she believes is Quinn, vomits in the street, shoots two civilians, and gets arrested by Pakistani police. I guess Carrie has indeed been fucked up by the meds given her.

The ambassador confronts Lockhart about what he said to the delegation that morning. She told him he just wasted four years of diplomatic relations she painstakingly built and tried her best to reconcile with the foreign minister. She shared that they may have "positive news" for them the following morning at 7am. Lockhart insists that he be there for the meeting and the ambassador counters that if he comes, they're playing it her way. Haqqani continues to keep Saul prisoner and told him his plan to use Saul in a trade with the United States. Saul insists that the United States won't go for it, but Haqqani has done his research and assures him that they will have to. Carrie is being held in a jail cell with bugs, wet floors, dirt, and fear. Several men come in to the cell, take Carrie, and put her into a car. They drive her to an undisclosed location, which ends up being a pretty swanky house and leave her there. A man approaches to find her and she instantly attacks before she stops and realizes that man she's attacking is BRODY. For a while there I really thought Brody was alive but it seems to be Carrie's hallucinations were in overdrive when it was actually Aasar Khan who saved her...it just wasn't clear what his intentions were.

*** photo grabbed from Showtime ***

KITCHEN MISADVENTURE SERIES – Chicken mami

It’s the day after Christmas and expectedly there were a lot of leftovers and most of us had decided that we have already gorged ourselves full for the past two days and so for our dinner tonight we just decided to have something light for our dinner – chicken mami. The vegetables were leftover from the chopsuey we had for noche buena and so we just bought chicken bones and pressure cooked it with a whole lot of water for our stock. Then, when the soup is ready and the veggies have all been cut up/ julienned, we served ourselves with whatever veggie or condiments that you want inside your bowl – it’s your choice really – there’s shredded chicken, cabbage, carrots, fried garlic, spring onions, etc. Then top with the steaming stock, let the hot soup cook the veggies a bit and dig in!

P.S. By the way, the pics I used for this article were the ones from the chicken mami that we replicated at our own home in Bulacan (sometime Jan 2015) since I was unable to take pics anymore when the mami was cooked hehehe...

CHRISTMAS 2014

Merry Christmas everyone! Had another fun time spending Christmas with the entire brood...it was noisy, crazy, but still so much fun! Here are the pics to prove how much we all enjoyed the night away!

HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 6 – FROM A TO B AND BACK AGAIN

The movie starts with another 'ewwww' moment showing Carrie n Aayan lazing about in their bed clothes like old lovers. Carrie helps Aayan how to answer in case he is interrogated about his new identity. She gives him his new passport and some money and make plans to leave tonight for London. But Aayan insists that he needs to get some of his things from school before they catch the flight. Carrie wants him to just leave it all but Aayan says that it's all he has left so she relents. Carrie returns to base to form a team for an operation for Aayan but Quinn is hesitant and still disgusted with Carrie's methods so Carrie walks off and goes to seek Redmond's help.

Aayan goes to his old dorm at the medical school to get his limited possessions and he chanced upon his girlfriend, Kiran, demanding to know where he's going. Aayan refuses to answer while he haphazardly throws things into a bag. Kiran is heartbroken when finally Aayan admits leaving for London and asks Aayan to take her with him. But Aayan refuses and when she learns that the "journalist" helping him is a woman she asks just knows he has feelings for Carrie. He leaves the dorm but on his way out he saw some guy looking like an ISI operative stationed directly outside the exit. So he heads back and uses a different exit but the guy still follows him back to the safe house.

Dennis Boyd goes to the embassy under the guise of delivering a "thank you" bottle of booze to Redmond for that night at the bar. Quinn takes Dennis to Redmond's office to drop off the bottle and Quinn seems a bit suspicious when he starts asking about Carrie then he gets distracted by another embassy worker who briefed him that Ghazi, the guy Saul was following was not on the plane to Johannesburg so he told the guy to contact Saul when he touches down at DC.

Carrie returns to the safehouse and we see the same man that followed Aayan at the medical college just outside their apartment hideaway. When Carrie learned what happened to Aayan she started freaking out over everything, particularly the fact that Aayan told Kiran where he's going. Aayan tries to cool Carrie down and insists that his uncle, Haqqani, will help him with safe passage to England. So Carrie gives him the passport and money when suddenly intruders break into the apartment. They attack Carrie and chase Aayan out onto the street. But when Carrie gets thrown into a car and her mauling is followed by casual conversation with the attackers we realize that they're not attackers but rather fellow embassy members and the whole thing was staged. It seems Carrie has convinced Aayan that she's been kidnapped by the ISI and he is now officially on his own so he can now lead them straight to their real target - his uncle.

Fara, Max, Redmond, Carrie, and the "attackers" all convene at the embassy to discuss the operation with Aayan. Fara asks Carrie what's going on and Carrie takes the opportunity to berate Fara for failing in her mission to get information out of Aayan. Both Fara and Quinn seem to be unhappy about her behavior with Aayan so she defends her actions by saying that what she did saved their country. She then makes Fara go back to the safehouse. to clean out any remnants that might implicate either of them. All the while, Dennis has been secretly looking on from a secluded corner and followed Fara without her knowing.

The team now settle in to watch Aayan on cameras situated at the bus terminal and they watch him get on a bus to Goza, the first leg of his journey to London. Then they encounter a glitch mid-trip when the bus stops so that papers can be checked. Aayan panics as the men harass him on his identity, but ends up getting out of a potentially fatal situation by offering them the only money he has on him. Carrie tries to hide the smile on her face knowing she has taught Aayan well. The journey continues.

Back in Islamabad, Fara cleans the apartment and is unaware that Dennis has been lurking around. After creepily looking through a few windows, he disappears and Fara is unaware that he stole something from Aayan's bag. Back at the embassy, Quinn gets an inkling that Saul is missing as he can't be located at D.C. but he refuses to consider yet the possibility that he may be kidnapped since he asked the guy to try asking Langley first to contact the wife ...oh please Quinn! Do something to save Saul.

Carrie and the group continue their monitoring of Aayan via video feeds from a drone. In his last stop, Aayan calls his uncle on a pay phone and the two arrange a meeting place. After hanging up, Aayan calls Carrie and tells her he loves her and that he can't wait to see her again. Carrie replies that she loves him too knowing that her entire team is listening in...well, she has to encourage the boy to go on, right? . Afterwards, Carrie asks Redmond what everyone thinks after hearing the phone call and Redmond essentially says he's pleased with her for getting the appropriate intel to get to Haqqani. But in the same breath, he tells her without telling her that he doesn't particularly agree with how she went about it...

Dennis meets with Tasneem, right outside Carrie and Aayan's lovenest, to show her the photos he took at Carrie's apartment, evidence that Carrie is bipolar. Dennis informs her that the apartment building they're across from was a CIA safe-house then he gives Tasneem a bag of Aayan's personal stuff that he got from the safehouse. Tasneem seems pleased with everything Dennis gave her and quickly leaves to report her find. Meanwhile, Quinn sees a message on his desk that Saul never boarded his plane...that means he never left Islamabad as he planned. Alarm bells suddenly started ringing in his head and he goes off looking for Carrie.

After Aayan has crossed mountains and streams, he settles in to wait (like a happy child) on a white slab of marble under the sun until armed men arrive to take him. They walk towards three cars, one of which opens up to reveal Haqqani. At that moment, Quinn enters the monitoring room to inform them about Saul missing. Carrie and the rest of the embassy watch as what should be a quick bombing operation of their target suddenly turns sour when Haqqani pulls the kidnapped and bound Saul from the car. Haqqani then tells Aayan that his friend is a member of the CIA, a daughter-figure to the man (Saul) who stands in front of him. He also tells Aayan that there is a drone overhead watching their every move. Aayan is reeling from the information and, before he even has time to process, Haqqani thanks him for all the medicine he gave that saved his life then just SHOOTS HIM IN THE HEAD. Oh NO!

Everyone was shocked by the appearance of Saul and the death of Aayan, but they all remain relatively composed... except for Carrie who insists that they continue the attack and take out Haqqani, even if that means they also take out Saul. It isn't until Quinn shakes her and says to her face "Are you out of your mind? That's Saul down there...Saul!" Haqqani leaves the scene in a car, with Saul, and disappears. Aayan's body is left lifeless in the middle of the desert as Carrie desperately cries and throws a tantrum inside her office. I’m sad about Aayan's death but moreso that all their efforts to get Haqqani were nullified because of Saul's capture...which made Aayan's death all the more in vain. But it seems Carrie feels no guilt or emotion at all...not for Aayan who she sent to his own slaughter nor for Saul who was like a father to her.

*** photos grabbed from Showtime ***

A NEW FAD – KOREAN ICE CREAM

This afternoon, when we finished our shopping for the Christmas Noche Buena and as we waited for our ride to pick us up, my daughter and I chanced upon this new kiosk serving Korean ice cream...they said when it was first introduced the lines were just humongous but I guess that’s just how it is with fads, you need to create much hype to create much interest and make the people curious enough to wait in line...pretty much like what happened with Krispy Kreme when it was introduced or the cronuts. But in time, the public will soon get to distinguish the hype from those that truly taste good and this is what happened to the Korean Ice cream. Well, the ice cream itself was not spectacular, just the regular plain vanilla and chocolate that can be usually be bought in dispensable soft serves sprouting all around in malls. What was unusual was the cone that the ice cream comes in, as it was shaped like a J and had ice cream on both ends – just cool!

HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 5 – ABOUT A BOY

The episode started with another ewww moment showing Carrie in bed with Aayan...then he sneaks a peek at her naked body and it was then that I realized that it was Aayan’s first time – oh, I just can’t believe Carrie did this to him! Carrie catches him watching her and she gets up naked nonchalantly then kisses him on the arm before going out to get them some food. Quinn and Fara, meanwhile find a new stakeout spot near where Fara saw Haqqani in the hopes that they might see him again. During the stakeout, Fara shared that she feels uneasy doing what they are doing as she thought she would just be posing as a journalist but Quinn assures her that she is quite good at her job. They start talking about Quinn’s friendship with Carrie and he says that Carrie can train her well - manipulating people and exploiting their weaknesses, but that it can get ugly sometimes.

Carrie meets up with Saul when she went out to get breakfast and asks Saul to relay the info about Haqqani and Aayan to Lockhart but that Lockhart should keep quiet about it. Saul asks about her progress with the boy and Carrie shares she only has three days before he starts wondering why they are not yet leaving for London. He wishes her luck on her mission and promises to call her when he gets home to D.C. When Carrie gets back to the safehouse, she finds Aayan getting his things ready to leave because he changed his mind. Carrie tells him that he has nowhere safe to go and can’t go back to his girlfriend and school as he had been expelled. Carrie deduces that Aayan feels guilty about what happened the night before and so she assures him that it won’t happen again.

Professor Boyd talks to his wife again and tells her that he changed his mind about leaving but Martha doesn’t seem too pleased and informs him that she knew he was lying all along and that he should just tell her the truth if he wants to really leave. Then, we see that the woman who approached Boyd is working with the guy who met with Saul at the restaurant since both work for the ISI. They know about Saul’s itinerary and that he changed his plans after talking with Carrie and meeting with the ISI guy. Boyd tries to sneak into Carrie’s apartment, pretending to bring something for her from the ambassador, but miserably fails.

Saul is at the airport leaving for D.C. and suddenly spots Ghazi. He calls Carrie but reaches only her voicemail and so he proceeds to follow the guy. Back with Carrie and Aayan, Carrie starts the ‘pretend-interview’ and starts at once with the question about his relationship with his Uncle – Haqqani. Aayan shares stories that suggests he idolizes the guy and treats him like a father. Until Carrie suggests that some may believe he is still alive – this angered Aayan and so they stop the interview. Saul takes a seat when he sees Ghazi settle in to wait and he calls Quinn to relay Ghazi’s flight information so they can have someone else tail him when he lands.

Martha goes to the embassy to look for Quinn but he was out at the stakeout with Fara so she had no choice but to ask for Redmond’s help to get her husband who was out at a bar acting up. Redmond just shrugs and proceeds to the bar. Aayan and Carrie wash dishes in silence and Carrie admits she may have gone overboard and made him angry so she switches gears and ‘opens up’ to Aayan about her baby, Frannie and about Brody...she gets emotional about it and I guess she was just her being her manipulative self and they end up in bed...again.

Redmond drinks with Professor Boyd at a bar and Redmond asks him what the problem seems to be...Professor Boyd was about to tell him about the current mess he was in when suddenly, Tasneem, the ISI agent who forced him to stay walks in on them and this leaves Boyd obviously shaken and so they get up to leave. I guess that means, someone is listening in on Boyd and watching his movements. Redmond and Martha put Boyd down to sleep after bringing him home from the bar and Martha tells Redmond that Dennis had changed a lot from the time she first met him and had deteriorated even more. Dennis hears everything as he was not really sleeping at all.

Meanwhile, at the airport, Saul sees Ghazi getting up and heads to the restroom. He watches as two suspicious men soon follow then quickly go out. After a bit of waiting and Ghazi still hasn’t emerged, Saul walks in to the restroom to look for Ghazi and is instead stabbed in the neck with a syringe (to make him sleep) The same two guys who entered the restroom were seen taking Saul out in a wheelchair. Ghazi calls Tasneem and tells her, ‘It’s done.’ Fara and Quinn start to move as they see the cleric with Haqqani go out. They follow the car into the Taliban territory which scares Fara so they try instead to put a tracker on the cleric’s car but they fail to get near it. A checkpoint guard drove her away and so she failed to see Saul bound and gagged behind the trunk of the cleric’s vehicle. The two had no choice but to turn back to the stakeout headquarters empty-handed. They were trying to contact Carrie to get permission for a drone operation to track down the car but she was unreachable by phone.

Professor Boyd gets up and proceeds with his mission to enter Carrie’s apartment using the key Tasneem provided. Boyd photographs Carrie’s meds and other personal items in her apartment, to give the ISI something to use against her. The next morning, a very angry Quinn goes to Carrie’s safehouse and makes her come outside, breaking protocol. He angrily confronts her about missing his call about the cleric and Saul’s call about Ghazi then gets angrier at her for ‘messing with a child’. Carrie angrily asks why he had to care...but Quinn did not take the bait and the two separate in a huff. Carrie returns to the apartment and finds Aayan on the roof, looking out at the world below. He is obviously unguarded now and finally reveals to Carrie that his Uncle is indeed alive...way to go Carrie! You got what you wanted...but at what cost??? Please don’t let it be Saul...

***photo grabbed from Showtime***

HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 4 – IRON IN THE FIRE

The episode starts with Carrie doing some research about the guy Quinn sent him on the video. She searches files of members of the Pakistani intelligence then Redmond walks in on her, sees the photo and tells her the guy’s name – Farhad Ghazi – a local hood for the ISI. Redmond leaves and tells Carrie she should be thankful he helped her as she would not be able to find his file on any database. Aayan, meantime, goes back to his girlfriend’s house to retrieve the bag he left with her for safekeeping but then he finds out that her girlfriend’s father found his bag and destroyed the vials it contained. What’s worse is that her father called the medical school and reported him for stealing meds from the medical school. The father soon arrived and angrily drove Aayan out of his house, calling him a drug dealer and may soon be expelled.

Carrie meets up with Saul who is on his way to the airport, and she informs him about Farhad Ghazi and how he orchestrated Sandy’s death. She asks Saul to connect with old ‘friends’ in Islamabad because she needs intel on Ghazi. Saul advises Carrie to inform Langley or the White House but she disagrees as they would never get the truth on Sandy’s death if that happens. Then, finally Quinn arrives back at the safehouse ...Yahoo! Quinn is back! Aayan also unexpectedly arrives at Carrie’s ‘office’ and so Fara goes out to meet him but he says he will only talk to Carrie. Aayan agreed to wait for ten minutes inside Fara’s office. We also find out that Redmond has apparently sent someone to tail Carrie but he doesn’t seem to be quite good as Carrie was able to elude him and was only able to follow her until Carrie left Saul at the hotel. He then asks him to find out where Carrie got the photo image of Ghazi.

Carrie returns to the office and immediately talks to Aayan albeit acknowledging Quinn’s presence in the other room. Aayan is intent on getting out of Pakistan that’s why he was desperate enough to contact Carrie. He asked Carrie for 80,000 rupees but won’t tell her why he needs it so he turns to leave. But Carrie shows him a photo of Ghazi and tells him that his life is in danger if Ghazi is the man who had been threatening him. Aayan breaks down crying and so Carrie comes over to console him and asks him what’s wrong. But he still won’t say anything so Carrie relents and gets the money from the petty cash. Carrie asks him to return to her as soon as he has finished what needs to be done and he leaves, unaware that Max and Fara are tailing him. Quinn asks Carrie how she intends to get Aayan to a new med school in London but she refused to dwell on that and instead fills him in on the threats to Aayan’s life. She mentions here the title of the episode saying that Aayan is an iron in the fire...he knows something he’s not saying.

Meanwhile, a Pakistani woman approaches a professor at Aayan’s med school, Professor Boyd. The woman tells Boyd that they should keep the ‘relationship’ he had with Sandy Bachman despite Sandy’s death...that he should continue providing information from the ambassador’s desk. But the professor insists that she may be mistaken and abruptly leaves. Saul, apparently stayed on to give in to Carrie’s request and talk with an old friend, a retired general of Pakistani military. Saul asks the general if he can facilitate a ‘talk’ between Saul and a member of the ISI. The general tried to deter Saul saying he is a private citizen now and should lead a quiet life. But Saul insists and even alludes to an old debt that Bunny seems to owe him and so he concedes.

Carrie and Quinn manage to set up a surveillance operation into Ghazi’s apartment but fail to tap into his phone. But they need to get within five feet near his phone in order to clone it and so when Ghazi slept, Quinn breaks into Ghazi’s apartment and taps into his phone. Then it suddenly rings and wakes up Ghazi so Quinn hides in the other room. It was a friend asking Ghazi to come out to party but he declines and returns to sleep so Quinn hastily escapes. Fara and Max were able to follow Aayan to the teaching hospital and they saw him give the money to a girl who seemed to be wearing a nursing uniform. They all wait until the girl returns. Professor Boyd is seen next on the phone talking with someone as he seems to want to get back to the US at once. He is confirmed to be the husband of US Ambassador Martha Boyd and has relayed to Martha his plans to get his old job back in the US. He also reasons out their son, Toby needs them – yeah, flimsiest excuse I’ve ever heard! So he needs to leave within a week.

Quinn and Carrie get to talk while on a stakeout for Ghazi – about Quinn wanting to leave the agency – how he got seriously affected when he killed that kid in Caracas...but he’s there now, for Carrie. Carrie insists that he should look at the bigger picture, he may have killed some but only to save the greater good. She needs someone to help her, not someone to pull her back. Carrie leaves then to go back to the embassy. Fara and Max see the girl re-emerge from the hospital with an orange bag in her hand, full of meds which she gives to Aayan and they soon part ways. Fara and Max follow Aayan again. Back at the embassy, Carrie asks Redmond to call off the dogs tailing her but Redmond insists it is for her protection so she won’t end up like Sandy. Redmond tells her about the tunnel that they use so they easily could go back and forth to the embassy, hidden from the public view.

Saul meets with a member of the ISI and he starts asking about Sandy’s death. The man appears quite cold and even frisks Saul and refuses to give out any information. Saul questions him about the ISI operative on the ground that day, in the crowd...Saul wanted to know who gave the order to kill just Sandy and not the two other operatives with him. The ISI guy refused to budge saying he agreed to just a chat not an interrogation and leaves Saul feeling frustrated. Carrie returns to the Ghazi stakeout and tells them what transpired with Saul so she feels something ‘big’ may happen anytime today. Carrie takes Quinn aside to thank him for coming despite what she realized about him last night. Fara and Max get stuck in traffic so Fara sets out to follow Aayan on foot. Soon, she sees him giving the bag of meds to Haissam Haqqani – the target of the drone strike – but he is alive!

Back at the stakeout, they see Ghazi get a call telling him his laundry is ready and they see him packing up his things to leave hastily and they seem unable to trace the caller. Carrie says they need to grab him now but Quinn disagrees as they are not yet ready and the situation was dangerous. Then, Fara calls to tell them about seeing Haqqani alive. Carrie is flabbergasted and only believes when she sees the video. She tells Fara to get back to the office immediately and they soon realize that Sandy’s death was staged to save Haqqani and make it seem that he was dead, when he was not at the wedding they bombed at all...the big issue now is why?

Professor Boyd had started packing up his office but the Pakistani woman who visited him earlier was in his office with two other thugs and they refuse to let Boyd leave by blackmailing him. She tells him that if he leaves, the FBI would receive a package implicating him in all the documents he stole from his wife – making him liable for treason and his wife an unwitting accomplice. Terrified, Boyd agrees to conduct more treasonous acts with the assurance that he will be allowed home once it’s done. Fara is left in the office to wait for Aayan so that when he arrives she shall take the boy to Carrie at the safehouse. Fara wants assurance from Carrie that they would make good on their promise to Aayan for safe passage to London but Carrie disagrees since that was before they knew he was aiding a known jihadist. Carrie tells her that they plan to hide behind Aayan who will lead them back to his uncle.

Fara soon arrive in the middle of the night with Aayan at Carrie’s safehouse but Aayan thinks they leave for London at once. Carrie tells him they need to stay for three days while they get his passport and other documents ready. Carrie makes up the couch for Aayan to sleep in and proceeds to flirt with him – ugh! (she’s too old for him!) The flirting seem to work and Aayan tells her he was kicked out of med school ...he asks how it would affect his chances of entering a London medical school and it seems Carrie doesn’t have an answer for him so she just proceeds to make out with Aayan to make him stop asking questions....I just can’t believe Carrie! How could you do ANYTHING just to get what you want?!?! Sexually manipulating a boy???How could you??? One thing is emerging though, the reason why they seem bent on exposing the link between Sandy and the professor is to make Lockhart accountable...so that he would get the boot and Saul would be able to return as CIA Director – yippee!

***photo grabbed from Showtime***

KITCHEN MISADVENTURES - CARROT CAKE AND CARROT MUFFINS GIFTS

This recipe for carrot cake, I got from my brother’s current beau who is also a baker herself in Abu Dhabi. But in most sites I browsed, the recipes for carrot cake are more or less similar. The difference lies in the type of sugar used but most of the ingredients are quite the same. The first thing I did (which is the actually the most difficult part of doing the recipe) is to grate the carrots then mix it with the muscovado sugar, raisins and set aside for an hour.

After that I preheated oven to 350F then called my daughter from her room as it was her turn. In a large bowl, my daughter beat the eggs until light and gradually added the white sugar, oil and vanilla. Then she stirred in the pineapple (no crushed in the supermarket so I used tidbits), the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon which I already combined earlier (all dry ingredients). Finally stir in the carrot mixture and walnuts. Pour the mix evenly onto a 10-inch cake pan but in our case we only had one pan so I used muffin pans with the rest of the mixture.

I was the one who popped the pan into the turbo boiler for 45 minutes and the cupcakes for 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. We let the cake cool for about thirty minutes before frosting with cream cheese frosting.

For the frosting, we used 2 eight-ounce packages of cream cheese frosting (softened) creamed together with 1/2 c butter (also softened). Then we added 1 tsp vanilla and 2 cups of confectioners’ sugar into the mixer until the cream cheese is a bit fluffy. The frosting was then applied evenly on the cake while on the muffins, the icing was piped on top and decorated with chocolate chips n sprinkles. Truth to tell, baking has become a very vital bonding experience for us – my 2 children and I. What’s best is when we jostle around to eat the cake mix after it has left the pan and only a few dribbles are left on the bowl and on the beaters/spoons used. Yup...we definitely have fun not just in making and decorating the cakes/cupcakes but also in eating them afterwards...

P.S. The cake was packed (with the round glass dish included) to my father as a Christmas present (turns out though that he is not really fond of carrots, so I need to remember that hehehe) While the muffins were given to my mother.

CHRISTMAS GIFTS ATSARA

Every Christmas, whenever I have the time and the money, I make an effort to make my Christmas gifts special. Sometimes, I bake goodies and place them inside pretty plates or bowls or jars to give away to friends. Or sometimes I make chocolate candies then wrap in colourful paper or boxes for those who have the proverbial sweet tooth. But most of the time, it is usually the ever reliable and most often requested staple that we give away - the Kapampangan atsara. Many of our friends and relatives have looked forward to our gift of atsara because it is usually at this time of the year that the atsara is quite needed to partner with the regular Christmas food that we often enjoy - lechon, ham, crispy pata, and the like. And so this time around we did not fail them even though making it is such a tedious and arduous task, we continue to do so because I knew they expect it from us. I just hope they continue to enjoy our atsaras in much the same way that we enjoy making and giving it to them. Happy Christmas and Happy eating everyone!

HOMELAND SEASON 4 EPISODE 3 – SHALWAR KAMEEZ

Finally, after such a long time I was able to watch Homeland since the Walking Dead Season 5 had already finished and I am not anymore attending masteral and had just completed my assignment for the first subject that we had...so now I have time for Homeland – yippee! The first scene shows Carrie now back in Islamabad and Carrie clearly shows the men who picked her up at the airport who is their new boss. She asks to return to the place where Sandy was killed. She asks the people inside the car why Sandy was outside without any protection from any of them and they simply said he was a difficult person to work with and only asked to be driven on official business and his foray outside the embassy that day may not have been official.

Back at Langley, Quinn was shown talking with someone who seemed to be a psychiatrist, a process he needs to undergo before he can quit the CIA. The interviewer asks him about his last year’s attempt to quit then also about recent events in Islamabad. The interviewer tried to insinuate that something may be going on between him and Carrie but Quinn snaps and abruptly leaves. Meanwhile, Dar Adal watches the interview from a hidden room and shows no reaction even when Quinn left.

Carrie then proceeds to the embassy and she sees the busted car they used to try and save Sandy and upon arrival at the office, she wonders where everybody was and learns that the entire embassy is on lockdown after the Sandy incident. She told them that she asked for a full-staff meeting that morning and so heads to the ambassador’s office where she sees Redmond, station staff who looked obviously displeased to see her. The ambassador tells Carrie that the lockdown was necessary for the staff’s safety but Carrie argues that if they want to fix Pakistan-US relations, her men should be out in the streets.

Redmond calls the staff for a meeting with the new station chief, Carrie and she starts by thanking everyone for coming on such short notice then she asks them about Jordan Harris and why no one else seems to be suspicious of Sandy but her and Harris. She asks them to try to find out what happened to Sandy on that fateful day but they say they can’t due to the lockdown. Carrie and Redmond talk by themselves inside Carrie’s office and Redmond’s bitterness is revealed since it was him who was supposed to become station chief until Carrie came along. Carrie just condescendingly told him that she asked nicely, that was why she got the job and told him to clean up and stay sober.

Quinn drinks booze with her at the poolside and tells her about his frustrations about wanting to quit his job and having a difficult time doing it. His phone continues to ring and he ignores it so he throws it into the pool. Carrie arrives at her new apartment in Islamabad and was just about to settle in when she gets a text from a mysterious number that just says ‘Landed.’ So she goes out of the embassy, takes her drivers out on a drive to a hotel, goes out the backdoor and takes a cab to another location. She feels that she is followed by some members of the Pakistan Intelligence so she creates a diversion with kids and steps out the cab and walks onto an alley to a secret office where she meets with Fara, the face behind the text. In the office, Max is also there and they discuss plans about the operation with Aayan the next day.

Dar Adal goes to Quinn and convinces Quinn to stay on at the CIA. He too accused Quinn about having feelings for Carrie and that is why Sandy died. In rage, Quinn almost chokes and kills Dar and when he was able to stop himself from killing the man, Dar congratulated him as he knew he wasn’t totally out of control just yet. Dar leaves after telling him to ‘have a nice life’. Carrie jogs around the embassy and when she returns t the office, she sees the ambassador chatting with Saul. Carrie seems relieved to see him and at the same time shocked because she did not expect Saul to be the one to personally deliver the new security equipment. She doesn’t want it to look like she needs Saul’s help but actually she does, particularly to get the lockdown lifted as he seemed chummy with the ambassador. Saul even asked her to be good to the ambassador as she is ‘one of the good guys’.

The operation with Aayan proceeds with Fara posing as a journalist but Aayan rebuffs any of Fara’s attempt to talk with him. Quinn continues to drink and watch Sandy’s video on the day he died that was uploaded on youtube. Meanwhile, Max and Carrie discuss alternative courses of action on how to get to Aayan. It seems he seems afraid to make contact with anyone and so Carrie decides to think up more ways to get to him. While she smokes a cigarette at the rooftop of the embassy, the ambassador arrives to also smoke and the two discuss Carrie’s transgression earlier that day when she went out the embassy despite the lockdown orders. So the two decide that they may have gotten off on the wrong foot and so they decide to start over. The ambassador told Carrie that she almost married Saul when they were in Beirut together a long time ago but she admits that she is not lifting the lockdown because of Saul but because she knows Carrie is right. She just wants Carrie to update her periodically and they share another cigarette before Carrie leaves.

Quinn awakes to find the fat manager clearing up some trash inside the apartment and Quinn obviously upset asks her to just stop talking then asks her to leave. She gets her stuff but before leaving she asks about the CIA guy in the news the other day. She also tells him that she bought some food for him in the fridge and that whoever Carrie was she is a lucky girl. Saul and Carrie meet for breakfast and the two discuss the goings-on in the embassy although they are not actually discussing it since Carrie cannot divulge the agency’s secrets. So Saul starts guessing and he tells Carrie that she needs to get Sandy’s networks running again but she still do not have anyone yet that she can trust in the embassy and so she needs to set up a second station with her very own people. Carrie just smiles and Saul realizes that she’s done that already which makes Saul quite proud of her, much like a father to his daughter. Carrie gets up to leave and asks when Saul’s flight is and he says it’s tomorrow...he leaves her a message – Happy hunting! But I really wish Saul would stick around to help Carrie.

Carrie sets up another contact with Aayan, posing as a sick woman in the ladies room of the coffee shop where he just happened to be drinking coffee that morning. Carrie offers Aayan to be the one to tell his story in exchange she offers to get him protection and relocate him to the US. She slips her card into Aayan’s pocket and he leaves without agreeing to anything. Quinn continues to watch Sandy’s youtube clip and then suddenly spots a man with an earpiece in several of the videos. He realized that the entire attack was coordinated and rthat he could not have done anything to save Sandy. He calls Carrie and sends her a link to the video. Carrie begs Quinn to come help her resolve the issue and despite his qualms about working with the agency again, he agrees...so I guess he truly is in love with Carrie...just hope she doesn’t burn him too like what she did with Brody.

*** photo grabbed from Showtime ***

KITCHEN MISADVENTURE SERIES – Choco cream pie dessert

This recipe is from the cookbook that my kids gave to me as a gift last Christmas - Best desserts from Good Housekeeping. It's actually called Chocolate Cream Pie that requires minimal baking, a bit of cooking and just some bit of assembling...the only problem was that it required a bit of time to make that we failed to anticipate (well, it was my daughter who read the recipe so I was unable to see that some time was needed to allow the filling to set)

My daughter started to crush the choco wafer cookies while I started cooking our dinner Sunday night, the recipe said 12 packs with 2 wafer cookies per pack but we did not use all that she crushed so I guess ten would suffice. Then I melted 4 tbsps butter in the microwave and added 1 tbsp sugar to the crushed cookies which my daughter pressed to a 9-inch pie plate. This was then popped into the oven for ten minutes at 375°F and allowed to cool.

Then in a heavy saucepan, my daughter combined 3/4 c of sugar, 1/3 c cornstarch, 1/2 tsp salt and 3 3/4 c milk that she stirred continuously until smooth and free of lumps. The pan was then brought to the fire and cooked over medium heat still stirring constantly until the mixture has thickened considerably. Let boil for a minute. In a small bowl, lightly beat 5 egg yolks. Then add 1/2 c of the now hot milk mixture into the beaten egg yolks. Slowly pour the egg-milk mixture back into the saucepan, stirring rapidly to prevent curdling. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until very thick.

Remove saucepan from heat and stir in melted chocolate (3oz unsweetened), 2 tbsp butter, and 2 tsp vanilla until butter melts and the mixture is smooth. Pour hot chocolate filling into cooled crust and press plastic wrap onto surface to prevent skin from forming. Refrigerate until filling is set, about 4 hours. Then with mixer at medium speed, beat 1 cup heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Spoon cream over choco filling and top with chocolate curls or shavings.

Truth to tell, it was my daughter who made most of this dessert herself, since as I said earlier, I was busy making our dinner. Our only problem came when we read that after pouring the choco cream mixture into the wafer crust, we had to wait for four hours while the filling sets inside the refrigerator... uh-oh so I guess our plans for dessert that night just went kaput! So the next day, it was my daughter who made the cream icing and added the chocolate shavings before we got home from the office...I guess she decided not to wait for me anymore and just did it herself. And the verdict – it tasted great! Kudos to my daughter for making this wonderful dessert all by herself!

LATE LUNCH AT SIZZLING PEPPER STEAK

After a hectic shopping spree for clothes at SM City Fairview, the kids and I had a super late lunch at Sizzling Pepper Steak. It was already around 2, o’clock in the afternoon by then and the kids were quite hungry. But I argued against eating at just any fastfood joint since we rarely get the chance to visit the mall so we might as well take advantage of the opportunity to eat at a joint we haven’t eaten yet. And so we ended up at Sizzling Pepper Steak – my daughter ordered her fave food from Jollibee (burger steak) but served on a sizzling platter and it was good. My son, on the other hand, had sizzling beef tapa and good thing the tapa was tender and the egg done just right. My order naman was a healthy chicken platter without rice...it tasted good too just that the veggies were a bit less than what I had envisioned, I guess they should have added some mashed potatoes. Would we eat there again? Well, the meals weren’t cheap at an average of PhpP200 per meal – but their food tastes OK – not bland but not spectacular either. Maybe, if I had extra money and didn’t want the usual fastfood fare, I would eat here again.

KITCHEN MISADVENTURE SERIES – Drunken pork in hoisin sauce

On some occasions, I still cook pork since the kids still want/crave for it sometimes and so I relent and cook them a few dishes like this next dish that I made for the kids’ baon today that was inspired by another fave food blogger Dennis (with website at Mga Luto ni Dennis at iba pa). What I just do is I hide the finished product from the hubby when I finish packing the kids school lunches so he doesn’t have to be tempted to taste the pork dish that I just made.

I marinated the meat (I did not have pork lomo or loin so I just used liempo cut) in some salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary, star anise, soy sauce and calamansi overnight. If you would notice, the title is drunken pork so I needed to use some gin but since I did not have any (and didn’t think the kids would like to have something alcoholic in their food, I did not add this anymore) Then this morning, I pan fried the meat slices in a little oil until browned. After a few minutes, I added the marinade and let the meat boil to cook. I added a bit more soy sauce and some water to cover the meat. After that I added the hoisin sauce and brown sugar, stirred the meat to allow the sauce to cover everything then I turned off the fire and served with hot rice while the rest went to the kids’ lunchboxes. Quite easy really and yummy too! Thanks Dennis!

KITCHEN MISADVENTURE SERIES – Iced milk tea

I was not in a good mood at all for most of the day…you see I took a leave of absence from work so I can do some work on my masteral school assignment but then my plans got derailed by the laptop/netbook that refused to cooperate with me and just wanted to conk out and not charge despite the fact that I already bought a new universal charger for it…oh dear, I think it is actually telling me to buy a new laptop but alas I don’t have the funds for it yet!?!?! So to cool myself down, I decided to make some iced milk tea…it’s really very simple which is why I don’t understand why it costs so much to buy this when it’s quite easy to do. Just steep a bag of tea (any kind will do but it is preferable to choose black tea) for about two minutes in a cup. Then, add some condensed milk depending on how sweet or milky you want your tea. Next, fill a glass with ice cubes half way, then pour the milk tea mixture over the ice, stir a bit and enjoy your iced milk tea!

KITCHEN MISADVENTURE SERIES – Swedish chicken balls

This is a recipe that I got from my fave blogger Connie (website: CASA Veneracion), the basic difference is that I used ground chicken meat instead of pork and beef then I also did not bake/broil the meatballs but fried them...next time when I have the inclination to bake, I would, but I wasn't too keen on baking today so I just fried them in oil. For the exact ingredients, just browse her website.

I followed her recipe to form the meatballs and cooked them until lightly browned. Then, I cooked the white sauce and when it had boiled and thickened a bit, I placed the meatballs in a platter, poured the sauce and since I did not have parsley to garnish the dish, I used onion leaves instead...Thank you Connie for another delicious and different viand for our dinner tonight! In fact both of my kids loved it, only the hubby said it was a tad salty but I guess it was due to the cheese.

INTO THE STORM – A movie review

It was a school night last night but we were kinda getting tired of watching our usual soaps so we decided to watch a movie and we ended up choosing, Into the Storm. It is a movie released just last August (2014) about a group of storm chasers out to film the biggest tornado that has ever hit their town in Oklahoma, like Twister (1996 movie). The film begins with four HS teenagers hanging out in their car one night, well actually making out was more like it. Then, they suddenly hear a storm brewing and from afar see several transformers blowing out. One student bravely go out to film the tornado while the others are already begging for them to leave. But by the time they do leave, it’s already too late and the tornado sucks up their vehicle, killing all of them.

In the next scene, the Titus Team is introduced, a group of filmmakers who are intent on filming tornados. Pete is the leader of the group and he is kinda pissed since they missed the tornado last night. The group is composed of two teams, one rides the Tornado Intercept Vehicle – a heavily armoured van where the filmmakers ride to take video footage. The other team are in a van filled with numerous monitors for tracking storms and tornados, manned by Allison and Daryl. They soon learn that a Tornado Watch has been declared for five states so the group gets excited since after many months of filming nothing, they may soon get to film their first tornado.

Meanwhile, high school vice principal has tasked his two sons, Donnie and Trey, to film a time capsule video for the students to watch in 25 years. But while Donnie was filming his piece Trey comes in to disrupt his message by leaking about Donnie’s crush on another HS junior, Kaitlyn. He introduces his brother, Trey and also their father who is a bit distant to the two boys, or maybe he is just busy with the graduation ceremony later that day. Trey makes his own message for the time capsule then Donnie decides to take the bike to school and not join his dad and brother in car. His father realized he was mad and so he tried to apologize but Donnie brushes him off saying he’s used to his indifference by now.

Allison and Pete get into an argument on where to go to track the storm, Allison’s instincts tells them to go to Silverton but Pete wants them to go elsewhere. They decide to follow Allison as she was the one with the degree on this. Meanwhile, we meet two idiot buddies who are trying to make a youtube video using an ATV that they crash into a lawn rubber pool which ends up wrecked in the process. But the two are quite happy with what they’ve done thinking they would soon be famous...well, until their mom sees the ruckus they made and yells at them to leave.

Back with the Titus team, Pete introduces his Tornado Intercept Vehicle and marvels at its unique features particularly designed to run after and capture tornados on film. Then, Allison gets a call from home and she tries to reassure her daughter that she will be coming home soon, after they get footage of the storm, after all she had been away on the road for three months already.

At the school, Trey secretly videotapes Kaitlyn being reprimanded by a teacher so Donnie approaches her to ask how she is. Trey also records his approach and he learns she needs to do a video project for her internship application but the video got corrupted. Donnie offers to help her out with the video but he needs to tape the graduation ceremony so he makes Trey do it so he can help Kaitlyn with her project. So Trey proceeds to do the interviews for the video time capsule and interviews different students and school personalities. He also starts to set-up the camera for the upcoming school graduation and when their dad asks where Donny was, he replied that he didn’t know but he must be around somewhere.

The Titus team watch news about the storm and Pete gets a bit mad at Allison that she was wrong about its location then suddenly a hail storm happens while they were at the hotel and they realize that the storm is headed their way. Meanwhile, Donnie and Kaitlyn are already at the abandoned papermill to take some footage for Kaitlyn’s project just as the graduation ceremony has commenced. The team drives down the fields to take footage just as Donk and Reevis approach and they also try to get video footage of the tornado. Rain starts to fall on the graduating students and so they finish the speeches and the storm alarm goes off so they all head back to the school building.

The Titus team anchors down the TIV in a field and wait for the tornado to pass its way but surprisingly the tornado veered its course and turned left towards the school. The principal and the students keep their heads down as the tornado hits the school directly and throws a tree through the doors and tears a hole through the roof and sucking a few students out. Gary tries calling Donnie but he refused to answer the phone thinking he would just be mad for skipping out on the graduation ceremony. He used Trey’s phone instead and so Donnie answers but he was unable to warn Donnie about the tornado approaching since the line was cut-off then the paper mill suddenly collapses around them.

The Titus team tracks a second tornado headed downtown and proceeds there just as Gary and Trey head off to find Donnie. As they pass thru the town, they see the devastation wreaked by the tornado and help their neighbour and his dog to safety. Allison, meanwhile stops to advise the two drunkards – Donk and Reevis to go somewhere safe but they refuse to heed her advice as they want to also film the tornado that suddenly appeared in front of them. The team runs to safety and while Trey was able to join the others inside a nearby cafe, Gary prevents Allison from being sucked by the tornado and holds on to her until it dissipates. The storm chasers decide to take Gary and Trey with them as they need to get to the paper mill but can’t anymore since their car got wrecked. Meanwhile, Pete’s newbie cameraman (Jacob) wants to quit since he was afraid that he may not make it out alive, chasing storms like this. So as backup, Pete talks to Trey to just keep filming and he will buy his footage for three thousand dollars.

Meanwhile, back at the paper mill, Donnie ties up a cut from Kaitlyn’s leg and he shared his mom was a nurse which is why he knows how to do that. He also shared with Kaitlyn his resentment about his mom leaving them and how on the last day he saw her he barely acknowledged her goodbye but little did he know it was the last time he gets to see her before a car accident takes her life. Then they hear some knocking sounds and figured it may be someone trying to find them but it turns out to be a pipe breaking and suddenly water begins to fill the hole they fell into, flooding it. Donnie succeds i n finally getting a signal and tells his dad that they are being flooded before getting cut-off again.

Pete tries to pep-talk Jacob into staying and apologizes for yelling at him a lot. He also tells Jacob that when he was younger, he was scared too but this is the chance he had been waiting for all his life and they are going to be fine. The team sees the tornado split into many more tornadoes and when one of them hits Allison’s van they decide to take shelter at a nearby church. Donk and Reevis get sucked inside one of the tornadoes and the team watches as one of them becomes a firenado. Jacob stops to take footage and when he drops his camera and turns back to get it, he gets pulled into the firenado. In the church, Allison blames Pete for Jacob’s death but Daryl steps in to take the blame saying it was him who convinced Jacob to stay on for just one more day. He opted to stay and find Jacob’s body and contact his parents. Allison shall take Gary and Trey in his vehicle to find Donnie and Pete is left alone in his TIV to finish filming.

Donnie and Kaitlyn feel that hope is running out as the water keeps getting higher and no one seems to be coming to find them. They both decide to record a final message for their parents, making their apologies and sending their love. By then, Gary receives Donnie’s message in his mailbox and they proceed to the paper mill even faster. When they reach the paper mill, they see a beam that traps them underneath which is too heavy for them to lift. So Trey rams the van to push the beam but also causes something to fall on Donnie’s leg. They pull Kaitlyn out and Gary jumps in for Donnie, cutting him loose with Trey’s knife. They perform CPR on him until he coughs and wakes up. Gary hugs him and Trey and they were happy to see Pete come back to help them and so they head back using the TIV as the van is now unusable.

The group sees a larger and more powerful tornado coming at them and so they proceed to the school to warn everyone as the warning signals are all down. They manage to get everyone inside the buses and get to safety. But as Gary and his family, with Alison get on a bus, a powerline falls and blocks their path so they turn back to find another way out. The group decide to take refuge inside a storm drain and as the giant tornado comes, the group inside is threatened when the grates are pulled by the wind. So Pete drives the TIV down the drain and uses the anchoring system to keep the grate in place. The storm intensifies while Allison and Gary hold each other and the kids down and Pete and the TIV are pulled up into the air. Pete soon finds himself high up above the clouds and sees the sun and marvels at the extreme beauty of it all before he falls back to the ground and dies.

The tornado finally leaves the town and in its stead, the devastation it left was enormous. The entire town was destroyed and the next scene shows the town citizens returning to their homes and putting back what they could together again, finding relatives alive. Allison assures her daughter that she is coming home and Trey finishes the time capsule video by recording the citizens and how thankful they were to be alive after the storm. Gary and the boys make their own video tribute and it seems they became closer after what happened. And before the movie finally ends, Donk and Reevis are shown hanging on the trees and they were both darn happy to have survived the storm. They just knew that their latest video would finally make them both rich and famous.

What do I think of this movie...? Well, it was reminiscent of the early Twister movie back in 1996 but then the fact that it dealt with tornados too was the main reason I watched the film and I ended up getting just that...a film about the tornado and not much else, even the characters they introduced were forgettable...I guess I am just glad that the effects were definitely much better than the previous disaster films.