By Rhobie A. Ruaya
FOOD MAGAZINE ASSOCIATE Editor Ginny Mata gave a talk on food and food writing titled “Tasting Words” last Feb. 11 at KRI Restaurant, Silliman Avenue.
Participated by 12 selected people, the event included a tasting menu courtesy of KRI’s Chef Ritchie Armogenia.
Mata said: “Food writing leverages the seduction of the senses, yielding to a transcendent hunger that spurs one to culinary action – to taste, cook, look at, or at the very least think about food – in a clever, controlled and highly conscious way.”
Mata graduated from the University of the Philippines-Diliman where she is a former teacher of English and Creative Writing specializing in food writing as a form of non-fiction. She is the writer and researcher of A for Adobo, a children’s book on Filipino food.
Mata is also the founding baker and owner of La Gordita Cakes and Pastries. She has also written for Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, and Sunday Inquirer Magazine and gives regular workshops on food writing for the Ayala Museum.
“I learned a lot, since I’m a food blogger and a [Nutrition and Dietetics] student; it was really an eye opener. It taught me so much, more than what I learned from school. It was really new for me, a different experience,” said Christian Denzel Sagun, a blogger of Foodtrip Dumaguete.
Sagun joined the lecture together with his sister and co-writer of Foodtrip Dumaguete, Trisha Angelique Sagun.
The talk is a part of the ongoing lecture series sponsored by Silliman University (SU) Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center (CWC).
Ian Rosales Casocot, coordinator of SU CWC and organizer of the talk, said, “I always try to make my writer friends who visit to at least give a lecture; it’s a resource for the Dumaguete community to learn more about all kinds of writing.”
**With some facts from MetroPost Dumaguete.~
