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Love is in the air. Sometimes, it's nice to think of love in terms of metaphors. One of my favorite lines about love can be found in the Barbra Streisand classic Evergreen. She sings "love soft as an easy chair," to which rap group Salbakuta replies with the word "stupid" in their anthemic rap song "Stupid Love."

It was a bitter twist to the love song because a lot of love stories do turn sour. That's why this Valentine's day, I look to food to find love. Some pairings are traditional and some are strange, let's take a look at some perfect pairings from my friends on Twitter. Maybe we can apply some or most of these pairings to this day of hearts!

This is my own personal list of favorite food pairings:

1. French fries and caramel sundae
2. Atchara and chicharon (I learned this from a family of Pampangeños)
3. Champorado and tuyo (This used to be our midnight snack in Lireo where we taped for Encantadia)
4. Chokolate and grilled Mary Grace ensaimada (I tried this in my Tita's house

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Photo courtesy of @djmodshowtime(UPDATE) Everyday, we see madlang people ("Showtime" audience) from different parts of the world visit the Showtime studio, greeting friends and family from their respective hometown. Time to turn the tables around. The entire "Showtime"  family flew to Dubai to be with the madlang people in the Dubai Airport Expo. Vhong Navarro, Anne Curtis, Billy Crawford, Vice Ganda, Kuya Kim Atienza, Jugs, Teddy and I were joined by hurados Jon Avila and Mr. Danny Buenafe, News Bureau Chief of ABS-CBN Middle East and Europe.

Four teams including Artistic Revolutionaries and the Filipino Dance Sport & Social Club bested several others through online auditions while the hosts performed for Pinoys in Dubai. Watawat Dance Crew and KSA Knight Movers went home with AED10,000 each and the title of being winners of "Kabayan…It's Showtime."

Beyond work, the "Showtime" family went to Dubai to bond with the madlang people and with each other. Here are some of the pics from that super fun trip that coincided

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Island Creamery
Serene Centre, #01-03 10 Jalan Serene
Singapore
Telephone No: 64688859
Opening hours: 11am - 10pm
Website: http://www.islandcreamery.com/

After eating at La Petite Cuisine, we had enough space in our tummies and enough budget for some dessert. And so my Sunday food trip continued with my "Kitchen Musical" cast-mate Ikey Canoy who plays Pastry Chef Winston and Pohlian Chong from our show's casting department.

As you may very well know from the Digestive Sisters series (watch out for new episodes shot in Australia), I am the "resident ulam girl" as my sister Nicolo/Coco calls me which means I favor savory food over desserts. This is the reason why, it is always a treat for me to find dessert that I love.

I love Island Creamery so much that I finished a tub of Teh Tarik in my apartment in Singapore.

And there was an entire day, when I bugged everyone on the set to buy me some Island Creamery ice cream!!!

What i love about island creamery:

Cute interiors

Nice place to

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La Petite Cuisine
10 Jalan Serene, Singapore
+656314 3173

I was tucked away in Singapore for four months to shoot a TV series called the Kitchen Musical.  I play Maddie, a sous chef in a French restaurant called the Avilon. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can catch the show every Saturday, 7:30 PM on Studio 23 in the Philippines and on AXN Asia).

I spent an entire month preparing for my role: dance classes with Australian choreographer Jason Coleman, script reading sessions with our director cheeK and kitchen boot camp with Chef Horst to familiarize ourselves in a restaurant's kitchen.  It was during that period of time when I discovered that I wasn't exactly mad about French cuisine. And that was...

Problem # 1

I love food! That much you may already know from watching the "Digestive Sisters" blogs with Nicole but French food in particular never was my favorite.  French food and the fancy ambience associated with it has always intimidated me. Save for this scenario:

A

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Karylle (Jerome Ascano, NPPA Images)

I worked on the Roadtrip album for almost three years (written in trips to Boracay, Vigan, Baguio, Tagaytay, etc.) and when it was finally time to release it, I wasn't even able to promote it because I was headed to the biggest "roadtrip" of my life... The Kitchen Musical. Today, I happily share with you snippets of my life in Singapore, the setting of our little TV show. It was a little lonely sometimes because it was my first time to be away from home... four months at that. The upside was that I really felt loved because my family and friends would visit me almost every weekend, I kid you not. Now, it's time to share the love...

Here's one of the songs I co-wrote with Sponge Cola lead vocalist Yael Yuzon.

Think of this as my postcard to you from Singapore...that arrived very very late =) haha!

A special thank you to Nelson from The Kitchen Musical- @juwanda_TFBB for letting me bake with you in your Fabulous Baker Boy Kitchen as well as being a part of this music video. Please

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Sponge Cola (Contributed photo)

I remember the first time I hated a Sponge Cola song.  It was one of their biggest hits Gemini. I think it's the slow-dance worthy waltz time measure that annoyed me since it didn't match the typical style that I would associate with a band.

What I remember even more is the second Sponge Cola song I hated. I know my exact location when I heard their take on Tito Gino Padilla's "Closer You and I" on my car radio.

Maybe your jaw dropped a bit, maybe you laughed, maybe you are reaching for your mouse to click on the THUMBS DOWN ICON at the bottom of the blog. But before you do, here's my afterthought.  I think I was jealous of the band scene at the time which was booming…while the new solo artists like me were struggling.

Enter "Araw, Oras. Tagpuan." I can never take back how I felt about those first two experiences but it's always funnier to hear about a hater-fan story.

SPONGE FACTS

1)       Sponges are poriferans. #KuyaKimAnimalKingdomTrivia

2)        Why Sponge Cola? "Sponge" was

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FEATURED ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Rachelle Ann Go

Rachelle Ann or Shin was my seat mate in the "ASAP" dressing room when I first transferred to ABS-CBN.   She is one of the strongest performers you'll ever catch on stage. Off stage, she is a real sweetheart which is why a lot of people love her.

One of the things a few people know about Shin is that she is actually quite good at doing hair and make-up, a trait that she shares with Asia's Songbird Regine Velasquez-Alcasid.  I saw this similarity when Shin excitedly reported on her wall that she was excited when Camille Prats asked her to do her make-up.

As Ariel of the Little Mermaid, her latest and most exciting role to date, she not only captures everyone's hearts with her mesmerizing voice, she also draws the eyebrows of the female cast.  Ate Reg or Regine V. in turn also does the make-up of those in need of expertise. I myself am a customer of Regine, the make-up artist when we did a concert in Cebu awhile back.  It's funny how the

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Courtesy of @divinemlee divinemlee.com. Photo taken by Victor Basa

Our SIMPLE GIRL Zia is the BIRTHDAY GIRL. Her birthday month will forever be a memorable time for Zia as she releases her debut album, shoots her first music video, and celebrates her birthday with a Teatrino concert and an ASAP rockin' birthday. Phew! Talk about leaving your teens with a bang!

And yes, her new album is #4 OPM (#7 overall) in the Astrovision/Astroplus Top-Selling albums list from September 19-25, 2011.

Who's that girl, you ask?

She is...

TWIN GIRL. Let's start from the very beginning, the cutest place to start. No she doesn't have a twin but when she was younger, our mama Zsa Zsa Padilla would dress her and our other sister Nicole in similar clothes which made onlookers think they were twins.

Here's a magazine photo of my sisters Nicole and Zia. Aren't they the cutest? I hope they don't kill me for putting this photo here.

BOOKWORM GIRL. Zia loves to travel with a set of her favorite books ever since she was young. Mama likes to call them "comfort books" because

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