Taste Setters: SYSU International's Food and Beverage Workshop

We are at the Taste Setters: Creativity That Shapes Food and Beverage Trends workshop sponsored by SYSU International in cooperation with their partners Lee Kum Kee, Clara Ole, Tabasco, Tulip, Treetop and Smuckers here at CCA Makati. It's a series of workshops that the company and the brands are sponsoring with their partner and non partner restaurants, caterers and establishments to hone their skills using the very best products in the market. The morning sessions had them start with food trends and how Filipino restaurants and casual dining places have improved over the years, to learn how they would be successful.

Chef Louise Mabulo, a finalist in Junior Masterchef also paid a visit. Her credentials would gladly beat any seasoned Chef as she also has international ones at a very young age. She's very eloquent and has been doing workshops and seminars in the past. During the session, she shared her views on our affinity to food. She mentions it stemmed from doing feasts, and our fiesta spirit and the happiness we get from it is immeasurable. I get that we do thank the saints and God in general with these celebrations, but what gets us together is the concept of family, community and love, that's a fact. She also shared how successful blogs and social media has been just by sharing genuine food recipes that remind them of home, the Philippines.

During the activity, we were also split into groups and I got together with some food researchers, specialists and chefs from Max's Restaurant, Goldilocks, Peri Peri Corporation and a lot more. We needed to conceptualize a stir fry dish that would be innovative using products from Sysu International's brands. In the end, they worked as a team and in this manner it's not much of the company they work for but the innovation we do with these recipes that could help the food industry grow, be practiced among Chefs, R&D people and restaurateurs who choose to not only make the best Filipino representation of food, but create new ones as the word "innovate" suggests. 

I can't wait to join them in more Taste Setters Workshops that they have in store this year. For those who want to join, make sure you follow the social media accounts of the brands they carry. That's Tabasco, Lee Kum Kee, Clara Ole, Tulip Chocolates, Treetop Juice and Smuckers or their website www.sysuinc.com.ph/.

KUMAGCOW
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Ruth's Birthday and the Clara Ole Wizardry Event

Sectumsempra! (Me as Professor Severus Snape)

A few months ago, we got invited to Ruth's birthday. She's a good friend and part of our rowdy bunch called The Suspects. The premise was, we needed to dress up as the theme required Harry Potter. I was a little overly excited because I only thought of dressing up as one of the characters in the series. I have this affinity to be a little evil every now and then and I remembered how some people even teased me that I look like Professor Snape a couple of years ago. The actor Alan Rickman who played his role just recently passed away so I wasn't really feeling it, but in some way I had to do it to pay homage to the man who portrayed Severus Snape. Now I wasn't really alone suiting up as a Harry Potter character because there were others who dressed up as Harry, Hermione, Dobby and others. Fortunately, I had a Mom who slaved about 3 days with no sleep to make my costume a bit realistic so she won this one for me. She got a brand new induction cooker, pots, pans, utensils and tons of Clara Ole products in return. Love you Mom!

The party was also sponsored by the good people from Clara Ole. I've attended one of their events last year and this was a bit magical. The food they prepared had a LOT of Clara Ole products on them which had sauces, syrups, fruit preserves and tons of other products from them that made the task of preparing this EASY. Just use the usual ingredients, take dabs of the Fruity or Maple Syrup and make the easy beef slice horderves. For pasta, just use the usual ingredients but make the base with the Three Cheese Sauce so you don't have to make it from scratch. Now people might think it would be better with natural ingredients but if you think about it, the Clara Ole sauce was at par. You don't need to spend hours chopping tomatoes, grating cheese or simmering and use precious gas to have it this good. Sad that we weren't able to take photos of the food that much because people were so excited to eat them as soon as the doors opened!

We also played games during the event where several teams won goodies from Ruth and Clara Ole. I love that the place was transformed to the mess hall we often see in Harry Potter movies. Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin and Gryffindor would be proud. We also got Nimbus 2000 packs to take home so we could experience having the same Clara Ole magic in our kitchens too.

In the end, I was so happy for Ruth that she got to celebrate her birthday with friends, family and us the bloggers. We had fun too, that's what is important for her, and it was just super easy because we had Clara Ole on the side to make it a hassle free celebration. With a flick of the wrist, the swish of the wand, everything was magical and happy because we've seen ourselves transported to Hogwarts even for a day.

Team Suspects

Thank you Ruth for having us, thank you also to Clara Ole for a magical evening!

Photo Credits: All photos in this post belong to Rodel Flordeliz of Nognoginthecity.com and not mine. I had to be in character and didn't get to take photos :(

For more information about their products:

Clara Ole Philippines

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http://www.claraole.com/

Clara Olé Potluck Food Fest

Clara Olé has already gone so much more as just a brand for jams and jellys. Today, there's quite an assortment of products that they have in the market that have dauntlessly saved lives of Moms and people in the kitchen as they made them all kinds of creams, sauces, marinades and a lot of other things. Cooking became just a cinch, like chopping up ingredients, meats, boiling the pasta and pouring in the sauce which everybody loves. It used to take countless hours to do that but now, it's way better. In grand celebrations yesterday morning, they got us into a Potluck Food Fest over at R Space in Makati. They whipped up dishes using CLARA OLE products and shown us how quick they can cook dishes with it. Celebrity Mom and Homemaker Amy Perez was also there to do a short cooking demo using sausage and cream based pasta sauce from Clara Ole, check out our video!

Clara Ole is also going to several schools in order to do these Potluck Foodfests so they can show Filipinos how good it is to have Clara Ole products in their kitchen. They will be starting this April 25th and the consecutive ones after that. Who knows??? They might go to the provinces as well pretty soon! Please follow their social media channels so you can take note of the dates and locations for the next Clara Ole Potluck Foodfests next time!

For more information about their products:

Clara Ole

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Visit their official website

http://www.claraole.com/