Filams | The Adobo Chronicles

LOS ANGELES, California (The Adobo Chronicles) – Walmart, the popular consumer goods warehouse, will close 269 stores worldwide, including 154 in the United States, as part of what the company is calling “portfolio management,” it was announced Friday.

The global retail giant, known for being a one-stop-shop for buying just about anything at discounted prices, said financial performance and “strategic alignment with long-term plans” went into consideration in the decision which shocked many Filipino Americans.

Walmart is the go-to source for thousands of Filipinos in America for items to put in their balikbayan boxes to send back home to their families.

Balikbayan boxes are used by FilAms when sending gifts to their families back home. Contents of the boxes are tax-free.

Among the popular items packed into the boxes include cases of canned goods like SPAM, Vienna sausage and corned beef; multiple packs of athletic socks, 24-packs of toilet tissue, bath soap, toothpaste, instant coffee; and designer t-shirts and running shoes — all available for deep discounts at Walmart.

It is therefore quite understandable that Filipino Americans are extremely upset at today’s Walmart announcement.

It could potentially put an end to the balikbayan box business in America and will certainly cause irreparable frustration for millions of Filipinos who regularly receive gifts from their relatives in America.

Fortunately, there is the COSTCO alternative for FilAms wishing to purchase discounted bulk items to send via the balikbayan box.

MORGAN HILL, California (The Adobo Chronicles®) – When ranchers in Morgan Hill, California shot and cut open a wild hog, they realized what they had in front of them was much more than your average swine. The pig’s insides were cotton-candy blue color.

The ranchers said that the animal is healthy and normal in every way—except for its blue-colored fat, which runs throughout its entire body.

Scientists at Stanford University who examined the pig weren’t sure whether the blue color was a result of some bacterial or environmental contamination, or the result of a genetic defect. So they asked a Filipino American family in Palo Alto to cook the pig the Filipino way — lechon (roasted pig).

Lo and behold, while the lechon looked as normal as a pig roasted in an open-fire pit, blue hues seemed to permeate through the pig’s skin, making for a first in the history of lechon-making: a blue lechon!

Other than the patches of blue, those who did partake of the lechon dinner attest to the fact that it tasted much like the regular Pinoy delicacy: crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside.

The scientists then determined that the pig’s blue fat was genetic and the pig was fit for human consumption.