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Umami Days

Umami Days

Meaty with a dash of veggies

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  • Recipes
    • By meal
      • Breakfast
      • Lunch / dinner
      • Snacks
    • By main ingredient
      • Poultry
      • Meat
      • Seafood
      • Eggs
      • Mushrooms
      • Tofu
      • Vegetables
    • By carb
      • Rice
      • Noodles
      • Bread
  • Kitchen
    • Kitchen how-tos
    • Cooking ingredients
    • Kitchen tools
  • Food Tales
    • Edible Garden
    • Dining
  • Newsletter

Hello and welcome to Umami Days!

Connie Veneracion, 2020My name is Connie Veneracion, home cooking since the fourth grade, now a retired lawyer and journalist, mother to two grown daughters and wife to a man with a curious nickname. If you’re a long time reader and you reached this page because you were redirected from one of my older food blogs, yes, it’s really me. No copycat here using my name. I still live in a house on a hill in a suburb of Metro Manila.

6 things about the blog

  1. The recipes here are for dishes cooked in our own kitchen — dishes we found satisfying enough to want to share with the world. (My daughters and I do the cooking, take the photos and do the occasional video. My husband loads all the soiled pots, pans, cooking utensils and dinnerware into the dishwasher then turns it on. Oh, he also unloads and puts everything in its proper place the next day.)
  2. The recipes are an eclectic mix of Asian and non-Asian — (a) food we share in common with Asian neighbors, (b) food and cooking techniques acquired from our centuries-long interaction with Chinese traders and Indian migrants, and (c) dishes adapted from the cuisines of Spain and the United States, our former colonizers.
  3. Except for Asian noodles, the recipes are not categorized into “cuisines” because authenticity is difficult to define. Read “Is there such a thing as pure cuisine?” if you’re curious. However, in the individual recipe boxes, cuisines are specified. That’s just to comply with current Google standards.
  4. I do all the writing for the blog. That said, you won’t find recipe titles here such as “crustless quiche” (call it what it is, a frittata or a torta, because a quiche either comes with a crust or it is not a quiche at all), “noodleless pho” (just say it’s a soup because that’s what it is) or “chocolate lasagna” (a layered dessert with a name embraced by people who apparently do not know that lasagna is a noodle).
  5. Guest posts and sponsored posts are NOT welcome here.
  6. Commenting is OFF because I have a long-standing and extremely infuriating experience with trolls.

13 things about me

  1. I’m 58 years old as I write this page (March 18, 2022); the photo above was taken at a cooking class in Chiang Mai in February 2020 on the last trip I took before international borders were closed. So, that’s not my kitchen — this is.
  2. Connie Veneracion and Chicken JoyAnd this is me in August 2023. I stopped dyeing my hair when the first COVID lockdown was imposed. I’ve been wearing my hair Targaryen style since. That’s my daughter’s dog, by the way, and his name is Chicken Joy.
  3. My day always begins with strong brewed coffee with sugar and milk.
  4. I love fatty red meat, skin-on chicken (except the breast) and runny egg yolks.
  5. I revere offal (organ meats).
  6. I favor butter, full-fat milk, cream and cheese over low-fat and / or low-sodium alternatives.
  7. I cannot survive a day without bread, rice or noodles.
  8. I adore wine.
  9. I worship coconut and extol its virtues.
  10. I detest avocado toast but love guacamole.
  11. I am not a fan of over-styled food plating and over-saturated food photos.
  12. I despise Facebook and Twitter, and I don’t do Tiktok (but I do shop for dinnerware on Instagram).
  13. I will never ever be a vegetarian.

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On the blog

Vegetable and seafood recipes

Lent. Abstention. Easter. Feast.

Sweet chili chicken karaage rice bowl

Japanese donburi and the rice bowls of Asia

Sam Veneracion's chocolate crepe cake

Are you an intuitive cook or did you acquire cooking skills over time?

Sichuan-style bang-bang chicken

The curious name of bang bang chicken

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