Hot off the press: Cake recipes, gay lit anthology among publisher’s new releases

Anvil Publishing's new releases include a book of recipes that aims to satisfy the sweet tooth and an anthology that features the best of Filipino homosexual literature.

'Sweet Tempations: Cakes, Pastries and Other Bakes'

Culinary trainer and columnist Edith Singian doesn't just share recipes and baking techniques in her new book, "Sweet Temptations: Cakes, Pastries and Other Bakes."

The book also traces the history and influences of the Filipino baking tradition.

"Many believe that in the early seventeenth century, the Spanish missionaries introduced baking to the country. Baking was done in an oven made of bricks and tiles, with wood or charcoal as the source of heat. Wheat was often used by the missionaries and introduced into the diet of Filipinos. Most Filipino desserts have a Spanish influence, and Filipinos still use the word 'postre' to refer to desserts," she writes.

Some of the recipes readers will learn from the book are Apple Cobbler, Avocado Pie, Buko-Lychee Cobbler, Coffee Nut Wafers, Dayap Chiffon Cake, Lemon Cheese Cookies, Macadamia Pie, and Panna Cotta.

'The Best of Ladlad'

Two decades since the publication of the first "Ladlad: An Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing," editors Danton Remoto and J. Neil Garcia have compiled the series' most influential pieces in "The Best of Ladlad" to bring classic Filipino homosexual literature to a new generation.

They handpicked "the most accomplished and enduring pieces—poems, stories, essays, and plays—from the spanking three-volume literary harvest " of gay literature.

Readers will find poems such as Garcia's own "Safer sex blues"; short stories such as Jimmy Alcantara's "Blue ang kobrekama ni Jake" and "Red ang luha ni Michael" and Alfredo Moran's "Ang lalaking ipinaglihi kay Marilyn Monroe"; essays including Francis Martinez's "My Sister's Dolls" and Michael Tan's "Sickness and sin: medical and religious stigmatization of homosexuality in the Philippines"; and plays like Auraeus Solito's "Espirit de corps."
— Trisha Macas/BM, GMA News