Yuletide eats

What added to your waistline during the holidays? With all the Christmas parties and New Year revelry we attended and did, I'm pretty sure everyone was stuffed and gluttonous. My family spent Christmas in our hometown in Quezon so I was fortunate to just lay back and wait for Mom to finish cooking before I get to taste what she prepared. Haha! My mother, who is now 84 years old, makes really mean morcon, I tell you. She does this special beef dish only once a year, served as "queen" of our Media Noche spread, which makes it much anticipated. For this year, however, Mom made morcon in time for Christmas because we wouldn't be welcoming the New Year with them in Quezon but in Manila. As always, it was very delicious, even better that those I've tasted in some restaurants. I have yet to learn making morcon from mother, though, and I hope to do that this year. Anyway, aside from morcon, Mom also fried some chicken marinated in soy sauce and calamansi, while my brother-in-law cooked kare-kare and pancit bijon. My two daughters, on the other hand, prepared carbonara which was perfect! I'm so proud of my kids. Their carbonara was heavenly even though it was their first time preparing this pasta dish! As for me, I did the eating. Haha!  

Mom's mouthwatering morcon.

Fried soy chicken somewhat burned on the surface. Haha! Still good, though.

Delicious kare-kare by bro-in-law.

Mom's yellow rice (rice mixed with corn).

My kids' carbonara. T'was the first time they cooked this but it was perfect!

My bro-in-law makes really mean pancit bijon.

To welcome the New Year back in Manila, I prepared spaghetti and tacos while my daughters made the desserts - refrigerator cake using broas (ladyfinger), and coffee jelly. We had barbecue too but I just bought it from Andok's. I was a little bit sad because I wanted to prepare a special Media Noche spread but failed to do so because I still had to report to work on December 31 and also January 1 and thus had little time to cook. And to top this, my househelp went on vacation to her boyfriend's place in Rizal on December 30th and returned only in the afternoon of January 1. Needless to say, she was of no use at the time I needed her most. Sigh...Oh well, better luck next New Year. Hehe!

My spaghetti.

Pork barbecue from Andok's.

Tacos.

My taco. Notice the large-cut cabbage strips. Hubby cut them. Hehe..

Garlic toast by my eldest daughter.

Refrigerator cake also by my eldest daughter.

My second child's coffee jelly.

For dinner on New Year's Day, my family plus two nephews ate at Mang Inasal. It wasn't a very good idea, though, because at a little past 8 p.m., they had no more soup, no chili (very important to me and my nephew JC) and no more dessert! Aaargh! But since I came from work and we had no more time to go the mall after hearing the 7-8 p.m. mass, we settled for Mang Inasal which is the only restaurant apart from Jollibee that is near our place. Still, it was a happy occasion for the family, especially since my two nephews, the sons of my sister who passed away on this date (January 2) 11 years ago, only get to stay with us for a few days during summer and Christmas.

At Mang Inasal, Pork Sisig.

Chicken Pecho.

Dinuguan at Puto.

Fresh start, new beginnings

New year, fresh start! As 2012 was a challenging year for me, I welcome 2013 with a big smile and arms wide open. To me, it offers hope for a better life ahead career-wise and on the personal front. Oh well, 2012 was not so bad. A lot of beautiful things happened inside the home and family and while it was quite difficult in the third quarter at work, things turned brighter toward the last quarter. 

On the home front, three of the kids graduated in March - our eldest from college, the second from high school, and the youngest from kindergarten. Those were joyous occasions for me and my husband, never mind that these incurred huge expenses. Haha! Around March also, I started this blog, inspired by the numerous food blogs that I read. Doing photography (though amateurishly. Hehe!) and writing each post excite me and give me a sense of fulfillment both as an artist and a writer. Come summertime, my two sisters based in the US and Canada came home and all of us in the family save for our dad went on a weekend vacation in Legazpi, Albay. Seeing Mayon Volcano up close and personal was indeed an overwhelming and exhilarating experience, what with its majestic beauty and magnificence. We also spent two weeks in our father's hometown of San Francisco in Quezon Province, where we spent almost every single day swimming in the beach or simply walking along the seashore. I thoroughly enjoyed burying my feet on the sand, breathing in the fresh, cool air and taking pictures of the sunset by the sea. Meanwhile, December offered a different high for me as the office Christmas party presented me with an opportunity to go back to my first love and showcase a talent long buried in the hills of my personal life - dancing. When I was young, it was my dream to become a member of OctoArts or Wea Dancers so I could dance on TV. No kidding! Haha! Dancing was my life at school and elsewhere until college at UST but when when I entered the College of the Holy Spirit, went into a serious relationship and eventually finished college and got married, dancing (and choreographing) took a backseat. Until our Christmas party in the office came. Were my co-workers surprised that I could actually dance and even choreograph a dance number! Haha! I was thrilled to be dancing again. These were the highlights of my 2012.

Dusk. I took this sunset photo in our hometown in Quezon Province.

My sister's snapshot of Mayon Volcano. The file of my own shots was destroyed by virus, sadly and unfortunately.

 

And now, it's 2013. I hope to be able to dance in more occasions. Haha! Also, there are other things I hope to be able to do. I want to be able to finish and hang a painting, to do fashion design again as I did in my teenage years, to relearn playing the piano and try new recipes. As a new year resolution, I hope and will try my best to manage my time and wake up early in the mornings. More importantly, I want to have a closer relationship with God and to be able to spread His word in my own little way. 

Have a blessed, bountiful and beautiful 2013 everyone! Cheers!

Cicada song: The enthralling sound of the night

The Pycos tree in our small garden, where I suspect the cicada rests and "sings" at night.

I love nature. I am such a sucker for the sea, sun, trees and animals. This is one-third of the reason I so love my hometown of San Francisco in Quezon Province. My parents who live there comprise the other third, and food, glorious food, make up the remaining third part. Whenever I end a vacation in our small, sleepy town (the townsfolk go to bed early at night) and head back to Manila, I always bring with me part of what I had enjoyed in San Francisco - food, of course, usually consisting of locally dried fish (daing), my mom's tocino and longganisa, and fruits, usually indian mangoes and lakatan bananas from my folks' backyard, plus seashells that I always gather at the beach, and once, a rooster which I'd kept as pet. These things keep me happy until my next visit to San Francisco (the food till supply lasts, of course) . In our home here in the big city, I love looking at these things because they invoke the happy feeling of rural life, which I always dream of living for good. And then, last Saturday, there was this occurrence that unexpectedly added to that feeling - the "singing" of a cicada or kuliglig right in our small garden. What a pleasant surprise! I'd lived in this house for over four decades and this was the first time a cicada visited our yard. I just love hearing this insect's "song", which other people might find annoying. It sort of transports me to another world where the night is at its blackest and cloaked by mystery. Moreso, it makes me relive moments of vacationing in my hometown, where this is the sound of the night, along with the croak of the frogs, and the vocalization of the geckos. I knew it was fate that made me get up and go out of the bedroom at 1 a.m. to hear the cicada. Haha! Of course, I did not pass up the chance to record that "song" in my cellphone. 

The cicada is such an interesting insect. According to the Animal Planet website,

"The cicada's claim to fame is its singing. The high-pitched song is actually a mating call belted out by males. Each species has its own distinctive song that only attracts females of its own kind. This allows several different species to coexist.

Cicadas are the only insects capable of producing such a unique and loud sound. Some larger species can produce a call in excess of 120 decibels at close range. This is approaching the pain threshold of the human ear! Smaller species sing in such a high pitch that it cannot be heard by humans, but may cause dogsand other animals to howl in pain.

The apparatus used by cicadas for singing is complex. The organs that produce sound are called tymbals. Tymbals are a pair of ribbed membranes at the base of the abdomen. The cicada sings by contracting the internal tymbal muscles. This causes the membranes to buckle inward, producing a distinct sound. When these muscles relax, the tymbals pop back to their original position. Scientists still don't fully understand how this apparatus produces such extreme volume."

After that night (early morning, actually), it took five days before I and the rest of the family heard the cicada again. The first time, it was just me and my teenage son who heard it because the rest of the people in the household were already asleep. Last night, everyone did because it started its "singing" early into the night. My hubby, upon coming home from work and hearing the cicada, went straight to the backdoor, thinking the door alarm was activated. Haha! He too, expressed surprise and delight that there was a "kuliglig" in our garden. I guess it will now be a nightly habit for us to wait for the mesmerizing cicada "song".