JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Ilokos loot, originally uploaded by 160507.

Things to get in Ilocos Norte: The Chichacorn of Pure Evil. Tear open a bag and you’ll be exercising your jaws for the next couple of hours because you cannot stop eating it! This can only be part of an Ilocano plot for world domination: Control the supply of chichacorn and the world is yours. Once the world finds out about it. It’s addictive, but unlike cocaine, does not cause you to grow a third nostril.

The Pasuquin Bakery (in Pasuquin, near Laoag) has been producing delicious biscocho since the pre-WWII era. Unlike the typical biscocho, which is made of day-old bread, the Pasuquin Bakery uses freshly-baked bread. Recently, due to popular demand, the bakery started selling its “soft” biscocho, which is flavored with anise. I asked Rene, whose grandparents started the business, what the secret of their brilliant biscocho is. He said, “Lard.”

Ilokos loot, originally uploaded by 160507.

Abel iloko totebag in a holographic pattern. Express that design as a mathematical equation.

Ilokos loot, originally uploaded by 160507.

Must-have for reverse snootiness.

Ilokos loot, originally uploaded by 160507.

Handwoven abel iloko blanket. You can’t really see the pattern because it’s white on white and I’m a lousy photographer, but it is exquisite and virtually indestructible, and how often do those adjectives appear together? If minimalism is not your thing, you can bring your own design, and the weavers will execute it for you.

A gruesome little item from Popbitch: “We heard an amazing story from an aging playboy this week. Some years ago, this upper-crust chap was chatting up a buff black man in a bar and the conversation turned to their occupations. The American said he was an undertaker. And that it was to his funeral home that Marilyn Monroe was brought on her death. He went on to confess that all the local undertakers then took turns to have sex with her corpse. (FYI: The undertaker claimed the practice was rife in funeral parlours.)”

Poor Marilyn. Screwed over in life, screwed over in death. My friend pointed out that it took a while before the body was discovered, so try not to imagine the state it was in. One hears all sorts of stories about mortuaries, and I don’t mean the Six Feet Under (I never watched it) variety. They’re mostly untrue and defame an honorable profession, but here in the P.I. we guard our dead through every stage of the process.