SM Hypermarket's "SM Master Chefs" Cooking Marathon!

Asia's Finest Chicken Bounty Fresh!

SM Hypermarket has always been our go to place for the best deals and necessities on this side of the world. You guys know I cook right?! When we went to Mall of Asia last Tuesday; and I thought it was just going to be a regular run of the mill cooking demonstration that will happen inside the supermarket's premises. What I didn't know was some of the Philippines' most reputable Chefs were also appearing on the event. Since I cook a lot, I know how to whip up the best meals even at the confines of my home; they gave us a lot to think about when they prepared the best dishes starting from one great staple... CHICKEN. It wasn't just your regular chicken though, it was Bounty Fresh Chicken. It's the brand labeled as Asia's Finest!

First up was Chef Arnold Bernardo of famed Kitched Battles - QTV Channel 11! He did a lot of exotic dishes during his stint there but this time he did something comforting that's perfect for the rainy-breezy season. Think about chicken breast sliced and seared on top of hot perfectly made buttery mashed potatoes and smothered with oozingly rich cheese sauce. It was heaven... something that you would eat while watching your favorite TV show when you are trapped inside your home on a monsoon season. The chicken was so tender and juicy resulted from the searing he did on the Prime Bounty Fresh Chicken thighs/breast fillet. The cheese sauce was not too salty and it can practically be paired with other things than this dish. It was so good and we ate it all even after the program. No wonder he won that show! He's currently the Executive Chef for Montemar Beach Resort's La Marea and Lanai Restaurant; also the Wheatberry Bakery and Cafe in Quezon City; so make sure you give him a visit one of these days. I'm impressed; and so were the other people in that event... we loved it!

Feast your eyes on the Bounty Fresh Chicken and Cheese Casserole!

Next, it was an honor to have met one of the most decorated Chefs this country has ever produced Chef Sau del Rosario. One of the Philippines kitchen superstars, Chef Sau showed us two dishes using a Whole Pollo Primero Free Range Bounty Fresh Chicken.

The Chef actually stayed a couple of years in Thailand and he wanted to cook something from that region. He cut them into pieces for the first one and made a mix of lemon grass, the usual sauteing ingredients and green curry for this Thai dish. Cooked it with first squeezed coconut milk and reduced a little... et VOILA!

Green Thai Bounty Fresh Chicken Curry!

It wasn't as spicy as I anticipated it to be (which is the one I prefer) but he set a couple of pieces of Labuyo for people like me who would want to have it HOT! It was nice, refreshing, yet very warm after a couple of spoonfuls of the coconut milk broth. It was comfort food and perfect with piping hot rice! Oooh just saying that makes my mouth water!

But NO! He didn't stop there! He cooked another Asian favorite and this time it was Bounty Fresh Chicken Sate. It was authentic... I love how he marinated it in several spices that were available in local groceries like SM Hypermarket. It was accessible and easy to prepare. Cooking time was also short because in a few minutes we were looking at several pieces of this!

Bounty Fresh Chicken Sate in Spicy Peanut Sauce! Mmmmm!

It was the BEST Chicken Sate that I have ever tasted. The ones in Singapore that I had were a little tough and dry. His spicy peanut sauce was also divine! If we had more I would have finished that whole cup of sauce for the chicken and this is perfect for those occasions where you are drinking with some buddies over beer or even dinner + rice. It was really nice pairing and we raved about it by telling the Chef himself! They were so nice! I bet you guys would want to meet them too right?!

Well YOU CAN! In celebration of their 10th Anniversary SM Hypermarket will be doing these rounds on their branches for the whole month of September all over Metro Manila and on their other branches in Visayas and Mindanao! PLUS you also have the chance to win a Kitchen Makeover by simply purchasing 500 Pesos worth of items from SM Hypermarket, fill up a form with your personal details and attach 3 clear photos of your kitchen. Answer the question "Why does my kitchen deserve a makeover?!" in 50 words or less and 5 winners would have the chance to get their cooking place made up by experts from Philippine School of Interior Design. Isn't that just sweet?! :)

So what are you waiting for! Head on to your favorite SM Hypermarket Branches nationwide and ask about the activities now!

Capisce?!

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Bounty Fresh Chicken

First Astroplus - OrangeMagazineTV Blogger's Blowout!

Eagerly awaiting for the products to be shown and featured on Astroplus Greenbelt!

People, gadgets, bloggers, music and technology were all present at the Astroplus/Astrovision Greenbelt 5 in Makati City. It was one great day of presentations, giveaways and information dissemination on the best products out in the market so you and I can enjoy the best music experience in this sound forsaken land we call the Philippines!

Big boys showing their toys! =)

It was an audiophiles nightmare and heaven all in one. Nightmare goes to the wallet while you'd go to heaven in your ears as you listen to the sound coming out of those cans they brought. The world's best brands like Pioneer, Audio Technica, BOSE, Sennheiser, WOW Videoke, Aerial 7, Dr. Dre's Beats, TDK, and JAYS (and a lot more!) were there and it was all so addicting... I immediately took them to the test with my IPAD2 on full blast with the latest music synced from my personal playlist which consists mostly of house and trance. Beating the pieces to its maximum sound capacity. Who made it to the cut?! I'll tell you on my next posts!

Tech bloggers get their hands full on a one night only affair at the Astroplus Greenbelt 5 Branch!

What are the results?! I won't tell!... make sure you stay and watch posts on my site as we take on the best earphones, earplugs and ear shattering products I've seen in the Astroplus/Astrovision and OrangeMagazineTV.com 1st Blogger Blowout!

Before I do the reviews let me take this bit to thank the guys and people from Pioneer, Audio Technica, BOSE, Sennheiser, Dr. Dre's Beats, Aerial 7, TDK, and JAYS who made arrangements and let us test a couple of their products. Special shout out also to the generous people from Astroplus/Astrovision, LG, Greenbelt and OrangeMagazineTV who made our lives a little better that when we found it. Thank you to Ms. Katherine Choy and Mr. Jimmy Lim who hosted the event. The event itself was awesome, just wait for the products I chose to be the best! All here on kumagcow.com!

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The Great CRUMPLER Store Sale!

For photographers like me, this is staple. I've been using my blue 5 Million Dollar home for quite a number of years and it doesn't look a day old. For those who carry around heavy laptop computers and tons of other stuff for post processing this is what you call SOMETHING GOOD!

No matter how big or small you need, they've got it... all in awesome colors! You have to see how much the prices are yourself because they will be going DOWN! DOWN! DOWN! How far DOWN? How about 50-70%? I know right?!


It's official! This is the END OF SEASON SALE of CRUMPLER! Head to the stores as soon as the mall opens! And as Ms. Cecille Van Straten always says in these kind of events... SIRAAN NA NG WALLET! Hahaha =)

IBM's Initiatives and the 2011 CIO Study

IBM in it's continued love for investing a lot in research and development added another feather in their hat last September 1, 2011 at the Press Briefing held at the Mandaluyong Ballroom, Shangrila Makati. I was excited since this was in the line of the programs I was running for my day job and true enough I had some great inputs from experts in the industry who had experience from the ASEAN, Philippines and US perspective. This study was conducted over a four month period from October 2010 to January 2011. I learned a couple of things specifically on the roles of CIO's (Chief Information Officers) and how it is essential in the structure of a corporation.

Mr. Giuseppe Bruni, ASEAN Business Sales & Delivery Executive, IBM Strategy & Transformation, IBM Global Business Services talked about the importance of CIO's as resulted from the 2011 CIO Study. The ASEAN perspective was somewhat different from what the Global perspective is but there are quite a number of similarities. "With technology becoming both an enabler of competitive advantage and embedded in every facet of the enterprise, the role of the CIO has never been more essential." says Mr. Bruni.

CIO's play an important part in running companies. It shows on the technology and innovation that they bring to the table. CIO's must think business first just like the CEO's. In their centennial year IBM is bringing to the table a research that includes the best CIO's in the US and elsewhere in the world. They wanted to show the importance it plays in the structure and survival of the complex organization you are in. They initially gave importance to the CIO position in the 50's and 60's. Almost all these critical positions and its studies were started by IBM at that time. Today they take Business analytics and other significant studies to another level. They started interviewing real deal CIO's from different companies and started asking about three key takeaways.

- How the CIO's role become fundamental
- How CEO's and CIO's way of thinking should be very closely aligned
- How to be successful and how CIO's need to identify and communicate their mandate weather it would be to have leverage, expand, innovate, pioneer it or transform.

It was a pleasure to also meet Mr. Rodney Regalado, Country Executive for Global Technology Services, IBM Philippines gave a small talk about how this study reflects in the Philippine Market. He also gave a funny anecdote about so called government experts that were not quite experts at all. I beckon more studies on the regional perspective should be done so it would reflect the real comparison between local conditions and those which has been done by first world countries. We'd be able to see where they are succeeding and we are failing. I'd like to make that a point of comparison so to speak.

They sampled around 3018 CIO's around the world to get this data with the mandate that not one is better than the other. Rodney Regalado of the C-Suite Study Series campaign mentioned some basic facts on what this data actually means for the local Philippine market. The services business in the Philippines is where IBM eventually wants to play. They want to make and support infrastructure, give importance to basics and immerse people in situations that can add value on current businesses. It was really enlightening for people like me in the Programs Management field.

Mr. Cort Isernhagen, Vice President, IDC giving us a few ideas what to ask in the press briefing. He asked a couple of hypothetical questions about the industry's insights and the impact of this study to various existing public and private corporations.

IDC a third party firm who works in analysis and market research said that they make stern conclusions on studies about how corporations would be able to use these fields to create products quickly and what similarities the CEO and CIO should have in order to achieve it. It's one of the ways that a corporation would be able to add value to "current services" and know the industry per ce so they in return can support more and over deliver. They advised me to try and show more value even if the client corporation doesn't need it even on a very limited project such as IT infrastructure projects.

Giuseppe Bruni, ASEAN Business Sales & Delivery Executive, IBM Strategy & Transformation, IBM Global Business Services; James Velasquez, President and Country General Manager, Rodney Regalado, Country Executive for Global Technology Services, both from IBM Philippines, and Cort Isernhagen, Vice President, IDC

They predicted that the Philippines is more focused on the basics right now but will veer away in the next few years specially in the banking and mobile communication industries. CIO's and CEO's should be aligned in this integral transition. IBM realizes that business intelligence and analytics will continue to stay as top priorities for businesses and industries. CIO's must stay pro active and IT must be presented as a "cool" thing again. This is still part of IBM's goal of a Smarter Planet!

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