After church the Fil Am group was once again asking for donations for their assorted pastries, donuts and homemade goodies. I chose to get the purple rice cake. Purple rice is also known as '
pirurutong'. I'm not sure if this was some sort of
bibingka or not. The lola serving it knows my mother in law, so she gave me an extra piece ($1 donation)...It pays to know people in the right places! Ha ha.
This dessert was so good. You could taste the butter and the coconut milk in this! It was nice and chewy - I liked that she gave me a side piece! Yes! Crust!
Later that morning, we went to Balboa Park to catch the
House of Pacific Relations event for today - the
House of Turkey lawn program. We had several hours to kill so we took a walk in
Palm Canyon, just a few steps away from the Organ Pavilion. There were a lot of squirrels out that day, climbing up the palm trees and scampering in the hillside.
One of the trees in the canyon. This wasn't a palm though. I think it was a type of
Monstera.
Base of a tree near the exit of Palm Canyon(or the entrance).
The Botanical Garden...the largest wooden lath structure in the world.
Purple flowers in front of the Botanical Gardens...
Orchids...(sorry, I don't know what type these are):
This is the berry spike of the
anthurium hookeri. Looks like a plant with some sort of venereal disease.
Another spray of beautiful orchids, I believe these are a type of dendrobium:
Here's a type of
Coleus - these were quite striking. The inner part of the leaf was a deep eggplant color, almost black while the edges were bright green.
Here's another type. These were more reddish orange with lime green outlines on the leaves.
View from inside...
After having a few snacks and icy cold water, we headed back to the International Cottage area to seek real food at the House of Turkey booth. More on Turkish cuisine
here:
Their menu - you could see that the pita with
hummus was crossed out. They ran out, so they subsituted baklava for the pita/hummus in the combo plate.
We bought one combo plate ($6) which had one piece of
borek (not Borat), two pieces of
dolmas and one piece of pistachio
baklava, and a couple of pieces of
pita (sans hummus).
We had a choice of either the spinach and cheese borek or the beef. The guy serving us preferred the spinach so we went with his choice. We've had it before at past food festivals at the park. I've got to ask my Turkish students to make some for me! The crust was nice and flaky with a tasty filling of spinach and feta cheese. I normally wouldn't eat feta cheese, but in borek, yes!
Look at the buttery goodness...
I also bought "
Evil Eye " bracelets for myself and TC ($5 and $3 each):
Here's a cross section of the dolma. I didn't really like this because it was too oily.
Now these pistachio baklava were really superb. They kicked ass on the Greek baklava that Bert brought home from Astoria a couple of weeks ago. I mean, those were good, but these were so much better. I also like the shape of these, preferring to eat each corner at a time.
Check out the honeyed pistachio nuts nestled between the buttery phyllo layers:
The combo plate was polished off in no time between the three of us, so Bert went back to get another piece of
borek - this time, we got the beef.
The first part of the lawn program had two guys singing Turkish songs with a guitar (or some other small stringed instrument). The first song was all right, but the next 5 sounded just like it - kind of slow and boring. No offense, I'm sure the songs were great but there was no variety in the rhythm or pace. As always, I joked to Bert, "Could you play 'Super Freak' by Rick James? Metallica anyone?" But seriously, those guys were good but I was okay with just two songs, not six of the same sounding songs. After that was a belly dancer (who danced with scarves and also a sword!)... What was cool was her first dance was the tune, "
Misirlou", think the first song you hear when you watch 'Pulp Fiction'. Yes, that really cool surf tune by Dick Dale, but this was sung in Turkish and had those rad swirly guitars in it. Very very rad!
Sorry, it's kind of dark here. Lots of people were out that day...Lots of senior citizens and families were out there having a good time.
Before we left, we looked at the different cottages (Scotland, China, Norway, Sweden - we skipped the USA, and lastly Finland).
Each cottage was selling (or actually, asking for "donations") samples of their food. I don't know how "Finnish" this was. It was a cracker with a cream cheese artichoke spread garnished with parsley and served with a thin slice of banana nut bread. It also came with either coffee or pink lemonade. This was TC's snack before we made the drive home.
Finnish flag...
Charger game is on in a few hours. Bert plans to watch while I plan to either read or organize my sock drawer.
This dessert was so good. You could taste the butter and the coconut milk in this! It was nice and chewy - I liked that she gave me a side piece! Yes! Crust!
Later that morning, we went to Balboa Park to catch the House of Pacific Relations event for today - the House of Turkey lawn program. We had several hours to kill so we took a walk in Palm Canyon, just a few steps away from the Organ Pavilion. There were a lot of squirrels out that day, climbing up the palm trees and scampering in the hillside. 
One of the trees in the canyon. This wasn't a palm though. I think it was a type of Monstera.
Base of a tree near the exit of Palm Canyon(or the entrance).
The Botanical Garden...the largest wooden lath structure in the world.
Purple flowers in front of the Botanical Gardens... 
Orchids...(sorry, I don't know what type these are):
This is the berry spike of the anthurium hookeri. Looks like a plant with some sort of venereal disease. 
Another spray of beautiful orchids, I believe these are a type of dendrobium:
Here's a type of Coleus - these were quite striking. The inner part of the leaf was a deep eggplant color, almost black while the edges were bright green.
Here's another type. These were more reddish orange with lime green outlines on the leaves.
View from inside...
After having a few snacks and icy cold water, we headed back to the International Cottage area to seek real food at the House of Turkey booth. More on Turkish cuisine here:
Their menu - you could see that the pita with hummus was crossed out. They ran out, so they subsituted baklava for the pita/hummus in the combo plate.
We bought one combo plate ($6) which had one piece of borek (not Borat), two pieces of dolmas and one piece of pistachio baklava, and a couple of pieces of pita (sans hummus).
We had a choice of either the spinach and cheese borek or the beef. The guy serving us preferred the spinach so we went with his choice. We've had it before at past food festivals at the park. I've got to ask my Turkish students to make some for me! The crust was nice and flaky with a tasty filling of spinach and feta cheese. I normally wouldn't eat feta cheese, but in borek, yes!
Look at the buttery goodness...
I also bought "Evil Eye " bracelets for myself and TC ($5 and $3 each):
Here's a cross section of the dolma. I didn't really like this because it was too oily.
Now these pistachio baklava were really superb. They kicked ass on the Greek baklava that Bert brought home from Astoria a couple of weeks ago. I mean, those were good, but these were so much better. I also like the shape of these, preferring to eat each corner at a time. 
Check out the honeyed pistachio nuts nestled between the buttery phyllo layers:
The combo plate was polished off in no time between the three of us, so Bert went back to get another piece of borek - this time, we got the beef.
The first part of the lawn program had two guys singing Turkish songs with a guitar (or some other small stringed instrument). The first song was all right, but the next 5 sounded just like it - kind of slow and boring. No offense, I'm sure the songs were great but there was no variety in the rhythm or pace. As always, I joked to Bert, "Could you play 'Super Freak' by Rick James? Metallica anyone?" But seriously, those guys were good but I was okay with just two songs, not six of the same sounding songs. After that was a belly dancer (who danced with scarves and also a sword!)... What was cool was her first dance was the tune, "Misirlou", think the first song you hear when you watch 'Pulp Fiction'. Yes, that really cool surf tune by Dick Dale, but this was sung in Turkish and had those rad swirly guitars in it. Very very rad!
Sorry, it's kind of dark here. Lots of people were out that day...Lots of senior citizens and families were out there having a good time.
Before we left, we looked at the different cottages (Scotland, China, Norway, Sweden - we skipped the USA, and lastly Finland).
Each cottage was selling (or actually, asking for "donations") samples of their food. I don't know how "Finnish" this was. It was a cracker with a cream cheese artichoke spread garnished with parsley and served with a thin slice of banana nut bread. It also came with either coffee or pink lemonade. This was TC's snack before we made the drive home.
Finnish flag...
Charger game is on in a few hours. Bert plans to watch while I plan to either read or organize my sock drawer.
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