Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Out for blood

This marketing campaign is pure genius. In line with the publication of the official Dracula sequel, Dracula: The Un-Dead. by Penguin, the publisher is organizing Dracula-themed blood drives in select Canadian cities. We finally get something good from all the vampire trend going on. (Why didn't the publishers and fans of Twilight think of this first? Oh right, Edward and his family are "vegetarians.")

Have you read Dracula, dear reader? The first time I read it when I was 15, I was scared out of my pants. Even though it came out in 1897, it's still scary even to this day. Dracula is one of the best epistolary novels I've read. The letters the characters wrote to one another and their journal entries give them a unique voice.


This dish, which we locals call dinuguan, is one of my favorite.
For non-Filipino readers, it's a stew made of pig's blood, pork, and other variety meats.
Image from Ramen Days

14 comments:

serendipity_viv said...

That dish looked lovely until you mentioned the pig's blood!

I haven't read Dracula - another classic I need to read. Good to hear about the blood drives though. Maybe they need to do that over here in England.

Nikola said...

Ooh, this looks really good! (And from what I can see,the cover is beautiful!)

I love Dracula, but not for the same reasons you do. I remember interpreting the book as a story of how lonely man can get and how desperately they could seek companionship. I also found it rather romantic, lol. :)

Peter S. said...

@Viviene: That dish is actually very savory. But I must admit that it's an acquired taste.

@Nikola: I do hope that the book lives up to its hype.

Mel u said...

The Biography Channel recently ran a very good one hour biography of Bram Stoker that explains a lot about the life of the creator of Dracula

Helen said...

Ohmigod. I remembered reading bram Stoker's Dracula when I was 16, and I,too, was so scared. I actually started to read it in class during breaks. I'm such a chicken. But it is such a good book! Twilight is minuscule compared to Dracula.

For your comment about Edward and his family...hehehe.

As for the dinuguan, you're right...it is an acquired taste. Dang, it looks good in that pic. We don't serve that when we have parties because our non-Pinoy guests might think we're vampires. Haha.

Peter S. said...

@Mel: I have yet to catch that.

@Helen: Dinuguan is so tasty I can have it every day.

sumthinblue said...

I love Dinuguan!

Am actually reading Dracula right now. I read it when I was ten but I dont think I understood it then so Im rereading it now.

Peter S. said...

Hi Blooey! I'm looking forward to your review of Dracula!

Unknown said...

I have yet to read Dracula even though I love the movie. Must have watched it a gazillion times by now.

I'm not sure about that dish with the pig's blood and all.

Peter S. said...

Hello, Lilly! Dracula is actually very readable. I'm sure you'll like it.

LoF said...

Ampalaya is an acquired taste. Dinuguan is not -- that is, if you feed it to a puti with him/her not knowing its blood, they'd likely enjoy it. That is not the case for ampalaya.

Peter S. said...

@line of flight: You've got a point there! Sabagay, dinuguan in itself is yummy.

Anonymous said...

Oh goodness, thanks for reminding me of Dracula! Have never gotten around to reading it nor purchasing it for my TBR pile. Although I mentioned my book diet for this year in Honey's blog, Coffeespoons (I vowed I wouldn't purchase another book 'til I make a serious dent in my unread stacks), I'm making this an exception. This is a must have!

Caleb said...

Hi, I run the site RamenDays.com...you borrowed the dinaguan pic from my site. Glad I could be of some help. I'm a fellow Filipino blogger too and I was wondering if you would like to exchange links or our sites. You can steal some of my readers and I can steal some of yours :) Lemme know.