Dinner Date

Can I tell you about...Anne Watanabe,supermodel, fellow blogger and artist. Last Labor day weekend, I called up Anne to have dinner with me. She had just arrived from Tokyo in time for go-sees and fittings for New York fashion week. She was craving for Filipino food of all things and I wasn't one to refuse her. I have the same craving...weekly. I was happy to indulge her and ... me.
I took her to Cendrillon in Soho, my favorite Filipino restaurant. Romy Dorotan is an accomplished and published chef, well respected by critics and other chefs. Along with his wife Amy Besa, they recently published a book called "Memories of Philippine Kitchens" and it's selling like bibingkas(Filipino hotcakes) and he is about to go on tour in London to promote the book. It was quite a treat to have him there and Anne was thrilled to meet him. She took her share of photos of the food and took notes of their names because she has her own blog and wanted to post this dinner on it. Who doesn't blog these days?!
Anne has developed a taste for Filipno food after several trips to the Philippines for photo shoots. She's been to more places than I have been. You can bet I'm jealous, and she has beautiful pictures to prove it.
We gorged on inasal, lechon kawali, Amy's Spring roll and Ukoy. Yeah, we pigged out! Despite what people might think, some models actually really eat.
Let me tell you, this girl can eat but she can also draw! She showed me a sketch she just made in her little notebook of a model from a magazine. She did it with an ink pen and without erasing or any preliminary pencil rendering. I was so impressed. We're kindred spirits. She said she does this when she's waiting at airports or waiting for the shows to start. I also have a sketchbook that keeps me from going insane. I doodle all over it and write down ideas for the next season. I have a ton of these notebooks and they're interesting to look into every now and then. Reminds me of where I was at and what I was inspired by. A visual diary of sorts. When you log on to www.rafe.com you see an opened page to my sketchbook as the landing page.
We walked a bit after dinner and she took the subway back to her hotel. No limousine service required for this supermodel. She's down to earth, real and talented. My kind of girl!