Welcome to my kitchen! My name is Siena. I'm a number cruncher by profession, an entrepreneur by vocation and an excellent cook by heart. I love coffee, fresh spices and anything with coconut! I'm a passionate participant of life so I try to live and eat healthy each day. I follow the Japanese practice called "hara hachi bu" which means, "eat until you are 80% full". This will be an interesting topic, which deserves a separate a post for detailed discussion.

I’ve been cooking since I was seven years old, but my passion for cooking started in my junior year in college while watching, The Naked Chef, a BBC TV cooking show by Jamie Oliver. I was fascinated by his “strip it bare then make it to work principle to all his dishes, which created a perfect selection of simple, hearty, and delicious recipes using fresh ingredients.

Everything about cooking makes me feel relaxed and happy. Cooking is such a big part of who I am that I can't imagine what life would be like if I couldn't do it. I enjoy creating meals, trying new recipes and tweaking old ones.

This blog idea started because of my struggle for finding good Filipino food anywhere. I find Filipino food in the US to be inferior not because of the flavor but because it’s hard to classify the food. If you ask friends about Filipino food, most of them never had a glimpse of what they look or taste like. . I started cooking more and more Filipino food –first to introduce my husband to what I grew up eating. Then I invited friends for dinner parties so they can try my “kaldereta” or “sinigang”

The Philippines has thousands of islands and each region puts its own twist on a dish. Adobo dish in Manila might be different from the adobo in Southern part of the Philippines. One has to understand that Filipino food has Spanish, Malay, Chinese and Japanese influences.

At Siena’s Kitchen, you will find flavors and food combinations I’ve acquired from my travels and years I have spent in the kitchen. You will also be introduced to the multi-culti combination of traditional Filipino cuisine mainly because Filipino food wave hasn’t really happened yet compared to Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai food. This blog is my way of introducing Filipino food to the world and to get the attention it deserves.