Keep It Real: Spaghetti Squash in Pesto Cream with Pan-Fried Scallops

As a rule, fakes suck. Fake labels? Tacky. Faking a love for sports, opera or books to impress? Even tackier. And sucking up to further a secret agenda? Well, that's just sad. It's also exhausting. Seems to me that it would be easier to just be who we are. Besides, we'd be so much more fabulous at being ourselves than trying to be a pale imitation of someone else.

The same applies to food. My unfortunate addiction to diet soda notwithstanding, I think fake and wannabe foods generally suck and should be avoided. I' like yoghurt but not when it tries to pass itself off as ice cream.  Fat-free cheese is an abomination. And don't even get me started on vegetarian restaurants that feature entrees in quotes, e.g.,"beef" stroganoff or "chicken" a la king.

Spaghetti squash, however, is a notable exception. This poor misunderstood squash never claimed to be pasta. It's not its fault that its insides just happen to scrape up into luscious, spaghetti-like strands that clock in at roughly a fifth of the calories of regular pasta.

Spaghetti squash is what it is and is perfectly happy to be what it is. And having never seen one in Manila before, I was perfectly happy to take one home when I spotted it at Metro Supermarket.

Simply the Best: Insalata di Caprese

It almost feels like cheating to post a "recipe" for something so ridiculously simple, but it wouldn't hurt to be reminded once in a while of how good simple can be.

I served this dish with some basil pesto on the side and not counting the shopping, the whole thing took about five minutes to prepare (maybe 10 if like me, you stop in between steps to send a bunch of text messages).

The dish makes a great starter when you're preparing something a little more elaborate for dinner. OR... you could add some cold cuts, olives and nuts to the mix, maybe throw in a hard cheese, some great bread and wine and call it a day. Or more accurately, a night.  A REALLY good night.

Because great food, like great relationships, jobs and everything else in life, really shouldn't require so much effort. Or if they do, then you should at least be passionate enough about it and/or enjoy the process so much that it doesn't FEEL like effort.