JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

This was the scene at the first KAINdustriya convention organized by Puregold last October 14 and 15 at the World Trade Center.

Hotel and restaurant managers, caterers, operators of cafes, canteens, food stalls, karinderya and jolly jeeps found big discounts on food items and kitchen supplies.

Established in 2012, Puregold’s KAINdustriya is for all food resellers. It aims to offer the most affordable prices on basic commodities and ingredients as well as cooking equipment and appliances through the Tindahan ni Aling Puring program.

Tindahan ni Aling Puring is not just for sari-sari store and neighborhood tindahan owners, but for everyone in the food business.

In addition to the big convention, KAINdustriya has been organizing cook- offs, cooking demonstrations and free seminars for its members on topics ranging from safety and sanitation, inventory keeping, and menu planning to pricing and cost management. The idea is for members to increase their knowledge of the business and hone their skills so they can become competitive in the thriving Pinoy food industry.

For more information on Tindahan ni Aling Puring and updates on KAINdustriya events, go to www.facebook.com/puregold.shopping and www.facebook.com/alingpuring.ph, or follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

Canteen operators, hoteliers, karinderya owners, caterers, amateur and professional cooks are invited to the 1st Tindahan ni Aling Puring KAINdustriya Convention on October 14 and 15 at the World Trade Center Tent Area in Pasay City. Admission is free.

Organized by retail giant Puregold, the convention is a national fiesta where food entrepreneurs can shop for food items at discounted prices, and learn how to improve their earning potential.

“These food resellers provide a big boost to the local economy,” says Puregold Merchandising Director Vincent Co. “They source their supplies from their communities, and generate jobs in those same communities. They also provide nourishment to the country’s workforce, from laborers to executives, who do not have the time to prepare their own meals but need good Filipino home cooking to keep them strong.”

The KAINdustriya Convention aims to give small- and medium-scale food entrepreneurs what the annual Puregold Sari-Sari Store Convention has been providing tindahan owners for the last 11 years. During the two-day event, entrepreneurs may attend free seminars and learn business tips from experts, including RJ Ledesma and Anton Diaz of Mercato Centrale. They can attend cooking demonstrations by renowned chefs, check out the trade showcase, and buy food retail products at discounted prices.

This being a fiesta, celebrities will grace the event.

“It will be two days of kita, kain and kabuhayan for our neighborhood chefs,” said Co. “Through this event, we hope to foster a sense of community among our food entrepreneurs and inspire them to bring their business to another level.”

Puregold will also hold pocket KAINdustriya events at its QI Central, Paranaque, Cainta Junction, Valenzuela, Meycauayan and Dau branches. For updates on the latest Puregold events and offerings, visit their Facebook page or follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

For years there have been rumors that the Swedish retailing giant H&M would open in Manila. Many months ago, construction began on its first store at Megasmall. Signs around the site said it would open “in the fall”. As far as we know, there are only three seasons in the Philippines, and fall isn’t one of them. Yes, you read it right, three seasons. Hot and sunny, hot and raining, or hot, sunny AND raining, like today, when traffic went straight to hell again.

Back in August, our friend the publicist of H&M got fed up with our frequent queries (Is it opening yet? Is it opening yet? Is it opening yet?) and invited us to the showroom of H&M in Makati.

The showroom contains the store’s current collections, but they’re not for sale. It was set up so fashion editors and stylists could borrow outfits for photo shoots. This beats having to go to a branch and signing out for the clothes.

In case you’ve ever wondered what happens to the clothes that get loaned out for fashion shoots and celebrities’ public appearances, they are returned to the racks and sold to the public. Unless they’re dirty, in which case they’re cleaned first. According to the H&M showroom manager, the clothes they lend out are not sold afterwards.

According to the billboard on the highway, H&M finally opens on Friday, 17 October.

We’re curious to know how the entry of Uniqlo, H&M and other foreign brands with competitive prices has affected the sales of local retail brands.

We knew nothing would get done until we finished reading The Bone Clocks so we blew off work for two days to concentrate on it. We could’ve finished sooner, but we needed to recover after each of its five sections.

The Bone Clocks is on the Booker Prize longlist and while we would love if David Mitchell won, it’s probably too damn entertaining for the judges. After the traditional structure of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, Mitchell returns to the connect-the-plots-and-characters arrangement of Cloud Atlas (whose film adaptation by the Wachowskis and Tykwer reviewers hate and we really liked). The Bone Clocks is a science-fiction/fantasy novel, with entities not unlike Time Lords who pop in and out at different periods of history. (How does Mitchell avoid getting consigned to the limbo of the “genre” authors, many of whom could write circles around the critically-acclaimed?)

The Bone Clocks is ambitious, gripping, bizarre, occasionally irritating in a blockbuster action movie way (the fourth chapter, detailing the battle between those entities, is Matrix-y), and wonderful, and when we got to the end we wanted to start reading it all over again. The last section, set in 2043 as a world without oil hurtles towards a Mad Max future, was particularly, viscerally terrifying.

How visceral and terrifying? We went to S&R to stock up on provisions in case the world falls apart. Unfortunately we did not consult our apocalypse-prepping friend so we ended up with plenty of cat food, vitamins, ginger ale, and giant bottles of mouthwash and moisturizer. Then it occurred to us that in case the world does go belly up, the Time Lords, Horologists, Atemporals or whoever is in charge would pick us up and whisk us to a library bunker somewhere. And if they don’t, we’d at least have clean teeth (We could probably share the cat food, if things get really dire).

The Bone Clocks will be reviewed in full.

This drink has our name on it,

and so does this stuffed toy. It’s the Jessica Monster, available at La Pomme on the third floor hallway of Power Plant Mall in Rockwell, Makati.

La Pomme sells stuffed toys outside of the stuffed animal range—they’ve got clouds, ships, mermaids, fruit, cupcakes and so on. They also offer basic sewing lessons so kids can customize their stuffed toys. (Though they cannot be responsible if your kid sews “666” onto their doll.)

“Why are there no monsters?” we asked. “We want a stuffed toy monster.” Voila, Apol made one and named it after us (We’ll add eyeglasses).

Noel’s latest find from the Legazpi Sunday Market: “One-of-a-kind Cleopatra-inspired Gargantilla. Pieces of Spanish brass, turquoise, mosaic sapphire,” a.k.a. a choker. The stones give it a medieval look, but the circlet makes it science-fiction. It’s beautiful. The artist’s name is Uan, and we’re going to drop by the market next weekend to find out more.

The keyhole pendant brings to mind a chastity belt, except that you wear it around your neck. Aha, a chastity belt for the head. To keep people from thinking about sex. Of course, wearing it guarantees that you will think of nothing else.

The Legazpi Sunday Market is open Sundays from 0730 to 1400 at the corner of Rufino and Legazpi Streets in Legazpi Village, Makati near Greenbelt.