Just like my mom's house, her parents' backyard has all kinds of homegrown Filipino fruits and vegetables. They have a humongous calamansi tree with hundreds of fruit on it. My auntie also has a "dirty kitchen" so she can fry all the shit in the backyard without stinking up the house.
Even though my cousin is five years younger than me, she's always been mature for her age. Now that we're adults, the age gap isn't as pronounced. She's brilliant - she finished UCLA in three years then went straight to Yale Law School where she met her future husband (a very cool guy). I wished I was blogging back in 2005 when they got married. Their reception was at the Don room in the El Cortez hotel. The had a cake that looked like an octagonal Tiffany's box and their flowers were these striking blood red calla lillies and blackish red roses. Despite her high falutin' degree, she is still the same down to earth girl with humble roots. I couldn't pass up the chance to see her again since it's only once a year.
Since we went about an hour late, some stuff was kind of gone or getting there, like the shanghai lumpia (foreground). Next to that is the embutido (pork meatloaf) which is next to the thicker vegetable lumpia.
My cousin's mom is my bro's godmother from his baptism. Our parents are good friends. Her maternal grandfather is the cousin of my maternal grandfather. I think that makes us 2nd or 3rd cousins or something like that.
From the back, fried rice. In the middle are two tins of fried gyozas. In the front is a salmon dish - it wasn't Filipino but it was good! The sauce was mayo based with tomatoes, green onions and some other stuff I can't remember. The bottom line was that it tasted good!
From left: Pancit bihon and Pinakbet (one of my favorite Filipino dishes).
Since it was a special occasion, a lechon was there.
Look at the other side of the lechon - the skin's been picked off. I had a few pieces myself...Nice, crispy, crunchy and fatty! The box in front of it had some shredded pork as well.
The accoutrements for Pancit Luglug: crushed pork rinds, sliced boiled eggs, sliced green onions, and calamansi. Not shown were the pancit luglug noodles and the accompanying lug lug sauce. The meat is bbq'd flap meat.
Another view of the luglug ingredients (with the shrimp based sauce shown).
There was a table filled with Filpino desserts. This is one of your standard trays you can get at the Filipino store - fresh grated coconut with a corn based rice dessert, purple rice, ube puto, orange colored (not flavored) puto and more of the corn dessert (which I don't really like).
Some of the desserts were on the regular table as well. In the Corninware dish (next to the vegetabl lumpia) was Filipino fruit salad. By fruit, I mean canned fruit. My aunt had just put extra maraschino cherries on top. As kids, me and my siblings would argue over who would get the cherry because the canned version only had one or two in them. Now, everyone can have a cherry.
The purple pan had ube mochi and next to that was cassava cake with macapuno coconut strings. Yes, I got a corner.
My plate - starting from 11 o'clock: salt and pepper fried chicken wing, salmon, fried rice, fried gyoza with sweet and sour sauce, pancit, embutido and pinakbet. In the middle is a shanghai lumpia.
Bert's plate. From 11 o clock: lumpias, embutido, fried rice, pinakbet (I'm shocked here), pancit, pork with and Mang Tomas sarsa. In the background is the birthday cake box from Red Ribbon bakery.
Here's a sampler of the different desserts. From 12 o'clock: The red wrapped thing is a cassava tart (made by my aunt), espasol (also homemade), ube mochi, pecan tart (my aunt is known for these!), bibingka, a maraschino cherry, purple rice with toasted coconut, and purple puto with fresh grated coconut. Bert helped me out with this! My favorites were the pecan tart and the purple rice.
Close up of the tart - waaaay better than Goldilocks!
Here's another dessert which had coconut milk, cubes of nata de coco, nata de pina, lychee fruits, and another kind of cubed gelatin (agar agar). Very sweet but refreshing!
The birthday boy's cake from Red Ribbon bakery...as you can see, Batman themed. The Batman figurine on top of the building adhered magnetically!
The cake flavor was mocha crunch. Kind of a wierd choice to have for a 3 year old but I'm betting he didn't get to choose the flavor. The cake had a very light mocha flavor and inside were chunks of honeycomb! Do you see it? Picture the candy bar Violet Crumble but without chocolate smashed up in the cake. I liked the texture and the crunch! The turnoff was the gray frosting. That stuff stains too by the way.
My aunt gave us a bag of her pecan tarts and jumbo versions of her pecan tart and a cassava tart before we left. Of course I couldn't refuse that! Next to my mom, her cooking is a close 2nd.
Until next year for the kid's next bday party!
2 comments:
It all looks good! Except for maybe the pinakbet -- I'm with Bert on that one.
I didn't know that frying the in backyard was called a "dirty kitchen."
hi darlene - i was surprised to see pinakbet on his plate. he normally doesn't eat that.
to clarify the 'dirty kitchen' - it's not the act of frying, itself. it's when filipinos put an extra gas burning stove in the backyard/patio. not a grill but an actual portable stove hooked up to electricity and shit. the stove doesn't necessarily have to be for 'frying'. my mom has cooked all kinds of food in the backyard. but when she does want to fry fish she'll do it back there and not in the house.
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