Pinoy Food For The Soul: Genevieve Villamora, Bad Saint, Washington DC
Genevieve Villamora is co-owner of Bad Saint, Washington DC's soon-to-be newest restaurant, alongside co-owner Nick Pimentel and chef Tom Cunanan.
Bad Saint's Kickstarter campaign aims to raise $38,500 for critical capital improvements to the brick and mortar space that, Genevieve says, they will open for business this spring in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. Genevieve and her team are looking for some more believers to join the 190 backers who have already pledged in the name of Bad Saint.
Four days to go, $4,954 left to raise. It's all or nothing, you see, so if you wanna drop a few bills into the collection basket towards the emerging DC Filipino restaurant scene, as reported this week by The Washington Post, please do so... right now.
UPDATE, April 28, 2015, 10:59 AM CST: Bad Saint's Kickstarter has reached their goal of $38,500! New funders can still contribute and get a lot of really cool swag rewards until tomorrow, April 29, at 11 AM CST!
In this edition of Pinoy Food for the Soul, Genevieve, entrepreneur and mother to a three-year old son, shares a formative childhood moment.
I remember being a kid, being one of five Filipino kids in my grade, inviting some white friends of mine to come over to my house.
It was my first time inviting them over, and I was so nervous that they were gonna think our house smelled funny or that my mom’s food was weird and I had all this anxiety about it. And I was like, Mom can you make something not too out of the ordinary, like spaghetti? Which of course to me meant ground beef and hot dogs, obviously.
So then my friend came over, and I was so excited that she was coming over to our house. My mom made spaghetti, and the spaghetti comes to the table and my friend burst out laughing.
“What are hot dogs doing in here?”
And I’m mortified, because, A, I did not know that hot dogs were not supposed to be in spaghetti, and I’m like, But I love hot dogs in spaghetti, why does she not like it? To me, I thought it was the normal thing.
AND I’M HAPPY THAT MY SON IS NOT GONNA GROW UP LIKE THAT.
I’m sure there will be other stuff that will cause him anxiety that he’ll be talking about twenty years from now, but it’s not gonna be because he didn’t grow up being excited about Filipino food.