Yam

Purple, violet, or lavender has been really my favourite colour since being a toddler in jungle-surrounded Ferry, Batangas, Philippines, in the 1960s, as my aunties wore lipstick and nails in that colour, and we ate "ube," a purple yam, which had that colour. Now, I associate it with the language Lojban, because of its creative energy.

In the early morning of the 27th of March of 2022, I was not the usual pizza junkie. I drank iced black tea and ate barbecued potato chips at the Lulu Island cafe. Two noisy Cantonese men were present. Outside, near the park, I saw a large orange thermos in a shopping cart. Some were promoting the Orange Dream, the fantasy of an Oriental conlang. Walking on, I encountered the French-Canadian Alex with his friendly Chocolate Labrador, Ellie. I reminded myself that there was also the Chocolate Dream of a fantasy conlang. In the late morning, I went to the pizzeria to eat two slices and drink a cold diet cola. I found out that Rose, the Filipina vendor, was about 9 or 10 years younger than me, so she alerted me that I should not use the Tagalog "po" reverential grammatical particle to her. My third walk took me to the pizzeria in the evening. I was drinking just cold diet cola, as I was watching the 94th Oscars on the big screen with sound off. Three young Filipinas came in to order. Later, I peeked into the new Japanesque SunTea Bakery, and the Purple Yam Mochi Soft Bread, selling at "9.5" Canadian dollars each, intrigued me. I might try it someday. The vendors spoke Mandarin.

On the 28th of March of 2022, as a suggestion by some folks, in tandem with my Lojban study, I would take up Klingon again. They are like two purple yam cheesecake brownies.

We are going to increase the percentage of yam in these animals' diet.

The West African yam is receiving some long over-due attention in what has been termed one of the most ambitious efforts ever to improve the lives of farmers in the region.

"I use wheat alongside oats and yam flour to produce that particular one," Orizu said.

It's a yam.

In a way, in the Philippines, people already speak Spanish and English, as these languages, or really their words, are integrated or imbedded in native languages, not just Tagalog. Spanish is chocolate or coffee, whilst English is a fizzy pink lemonade soda. The Philippine society is mostly an amalgam of Malay, Chinese, and Spanish elements, with unmentioned various more minor ones. There is Philippine Creole Spanish, Chabacano or Chavacano, spoken scatteringly in the magical archipelago. The feature of the Philippines is more like the Caribbean, the crossroads of different peoples. I can categorize the people of the Philippines in several desserts: Many are like "ube halaya" or the dark mash of sweet purple yam. Some are more like "halo-halo" or ice dessert with leche flan, ube yam, kaong, nata de coco, young coconut strips, agar-agar jelly, sago, beans, fruits like jackfruit, et cetera. Some are more like "maíz con hielo" or ice dessert with corn kernels, sugar, and milk. A striking difference of Filipinos from Mainland Asia is their love of the creative purple colour, maybe because of the ube yam delicacy. In Okinawa in Japan, people call it "beniimo." They use it also in Okinawan desserts and other cooking.

The yam fries actually aren't that bad.

Inwardly Okonkwo knew that the boys were still too young to understand fully the difficult art of preparing seed-yams. But he thought that one could not begin too early. Yam stood for manliness, and he who could feed his family on yams from one harvest to another was a very great man indeed.