Moroccan & Filipino

I think we've started a new tradition. We are good friends with the parents of two of our daughter's classmates. Last year we did a holiday dinner rotation. This year, we were the first to host, and so we did...I didn't want to serve the same thing I did last year which was a Korean food theme. This year, I decided to make my friends and family my trusty guineau pigs for my Moroccan experiment. I also made two Filipino dishes, one which is my tried and true Adobong Manok (Chicken Adobo) recipe and the other, a brand new one that I lifted from the new issue of Saveur (thanks to Marvin from Burnt Lumpia for his post on that), which was "Ulang sa Gata" (Shrimp in Coconut Milk). Here's my cheese less salad. Just open up a bag of Spring Greens as well as dried cranberries and candied walnuts and you're good to go. Oh yeah, plus a bottle of Balsamic Vinagrette which I put in our nice wedding china gravy server. Looks classier that way. Ha. I normally serve this with bleu cheese crumbles for my cheese loving friends. I hate bleu cheese.

You can't go wrong with Cous Cous if you are making Moroccan (or Moroccan like, in my case) food. Basically, boil your liquid - chicken broth, water & a tiny bit of olive oil, pour over your dry ingredients (cous cous, raisins - because I couldn't find dried currants, damn you Henry's!), and cover it for five minutes. Fluff (ha ha, fluffer!) with a fork. Add in chopped cilantro leaves and season with additional salt and/or pepper.Here's the premier of my "Ulang sa Gata". This recipe is so fkn easy. It's on p.84 of the December 2008 issue of Saveur. Yeah, I was surprised but also happy that the food of the Philippines got some exposure in a mainstream foodie mag, especially one so chi-chi as Saveur.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup canola oil
10 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 small white onion, thinly sliced
2 tbsp patis (fish sauce), plus more to taste
1 tbsp plam, coconut, or white wine vinegar ( I used nipa palm vinegar)
1 tbsp sugar
2 lbs of head-on shell-on shrimp (medium to large)
*Important to have the head on - they add mega flavor dudes
**Trim the shrimp antennas off ahead of time
1 1/2 cups canned coconut milk. Hell I used the whole can
6 whole green Thai chilis

• Heat canola oil in a wok, add garlic s for 2-3 minutes until golden brown.
• Add onion and cook until lightly browned - about 5 - 6 minutes.
• Stir in patis, vinegar, and sugar and season with black pepper.
• Add de-antenna'd shrimp (those are my words, not Saveur's) to the wok along with the coconut milk and chilis; stir briefly to combine, cover wok tightly and reduce heat to medium-low.
• Simmer until shrimp are cooked through - about 6 minutes
• The rest of the recipe says to uncover the wok and baste the shrimp, blah blah. But I didn't. Just leave the shrimp in there for a few more minutes. Remove from heat. Taste it and season it more if you want. Transfer to a nicer container and serve with white rice. Not that Uncle Ben's shit though.

Oh, look at their beady little eyes...Yummy. This is a dish you need to touch with your fingers. Rip that shrimp's head off and suck out the brainy juices. Oh yeah...I must say this came out pretty good considering that was the first time I've made it. I'll make this again really soon. Thank goodness for Seafood City having head-on shrimp for $2.99!!! Most places carry headless shrimp. The heads and the shells are the key to this dish's flavor! Watch out for those peppers! They are hot! Next time I make this, I'm going to make a slit in each pepper so the dish can be hotter. Here's my standard "make ahead of time and warm it up the next day" "Adobong Manok" (Chicken Adobo). Recipe is here from one of my previous posts in my now defunct old recipe blog. Wait, here is a better link with pictures here. Technically, this dish doesn't even have to be refrigerated, if you want to be old school. The vinegar acts as a preservative. Anyhow, I made this the night before the party and just threw it in a crockpot to warm for the next day. I also garnished it with sliced green onion tops. Okay, scallions!

Here is one of the Moroccan dishes I made, "Ras Al-Hanout Spiced Chicken". I'm not sure how authentic it is, but it sure used up a lot of spices which I had to hunt for at North Park Produce (it's so cheap there! yay!). Here is the recipe here, courtesy of Recipezaar. I simmered it for more than one hour; the meat was falling off the bone. This dish was a hit. Well, either that or my husband and guests were being polite to my face while surreptitiously spitting out the offending food in a napkin and hiding it from me.

This next one is "Slow Cooker Moroccan Brisket (I used Chuck Roast) with Red Onions and Apricots". See the recipe here (courtesy of Food Network). Let me tell you that this was the second time I've ever cooked parsnips. I added carrots to add color in here as well. I couldn't find brisket so I just used Chuck Roast. The meat was so so soft! It made the house smell good too!

I figured this dish would be a "can't fail" recipe. Just stick it in the crock pot and leave it alone. Done in 3-4 hours (if you use the high setting). Everyone seemed to like this dish. Note to self - make it again for a future dinner party. It's made out of WIN.

The desserts: Chocolate Chip Cookies (thank you fundraising cookie dough tub), my Lemon Cheesecake Bars (recipe here) and some baklava I bought at a bakery. Unfortunately, the baklava sucked.

The other desserts: Holiday Oreos (hello red dye no. 5), Ube flavored Polvorone (from Seafood City - it's not by Goldilocks though), and Dark Chocolate Shortbread Stars (Trader Joe's!).

One of the husbands made a Rum Bundt Cake. Kind of strong! But good!

My friend brought some Pan de Coco (Coconut filled bread) for us. Goes well with Bert's coffee...

This tree is supposed to look purple but it looks bluish purple with the flash. I got it last year at Borders for 75% off, plus the black disco ball ornaments. The other ornaments are Star Wars. Can you see Darth Vader at the top? And his ship in the middle? There's R2 and C3P0 in there, as well as Boba Fett.

And yes, the Yoda musical snow globe. "Oh the weather outside is frightful...". This cracked me up plus it was on sale last year the day after Christmas.

I'll be hosting my side of the family's get together next week. I'm going to make it really easy - Chicken Adobo, my deluxe Spam fried rice (because my nephews really like that), and that shrimp dish you saw earlier in this post. My mom will be making Pancit Bihon (noodles) and my bro and sis will be bringing some sort of dessert.

And so it begins...Holiday Food Assault

Our first holiday party to attend was this past Friday at our friend's place. They hosted their annual ornament exchange party. This was the first year we went and it was so much fun. There was a lot of goodass food too, like these pecan tarts made by my friend's friend. They were the ones I watched "Twilight" with (the 2nd time)...I've only made these once and let me tell you...they are a pain in the ass to make! I made my own dough and used this tart pan with a wooden tart "tamper" (a Pampered Chef gift). I ate about three or four of these!

There were also chicken skewers - or maybe it was pork. I didn't partake because I had my eye on another entree...

Not this...These were croissant sandwiches (ham and cheese I believe, maybe roast beef too)...No, I was eyeballing...

my friend's Paella. Damn! This was awesome! She had mussels, crab legs, giant clams and scallops and everyone's friend, BACON. She had some large and small plates out. I chose a small plate hoping that it would deter me from overloading my plate. Well, I didn't overload my tiny plate but I did go back about three times! Paella is a dish that I want to attempt one of these days. She executed this very well! It was so mouthwatering...

There was also shrimp cocktail:

and a cheese and cracker tray:

and of course, what Filipino partay isn't complete without lumpia?! And this isn't just any old lumpia. She MADE these! She used ground pork for the filling and a certain type of lumpia wrapper (I forgot the brand), which fries up very nice and crackley.
The ornament exchange was pretty fun and became quite cutthroat towards the end. It's like this - every adult who brought an ornament worth at least $10 got to play the game. In this case, there were twenty eight players. Numbers are drawn and you take turns in numerical order. . However, if someone likes your ornament or if you like someone else's, you can "steal" it. An ornament can only change hands twice and then it's considered dead. It actually works in your favor if you end up with a higher number. That way, you can check out the other ornaments and decide which one you end up with. Bert was number one and I was twenty one. My ornament was snatched several times. I ended up doing a back alley barter with one of the guests - it was an ornament set of two wine glasses and a wine bottle.

So, I ended up with his ornament that displays digital photos. Bert got a glass toy wagon. The ornaments we brought were: 1) a cow with angel wings and dangly legs (my choice) and 2) a set of numbered pool ball ornaments. I was surprised that the cow ornament was "stolen" several times. I thought it was cute and funny when I bought it but when I compared it to the other ornaments there, I thought, "Oh my gosh, it looks so shitty next to all of the nice and fancy glass ornaments!". Several ornaments that were hits were Charger themed, like a gnome ornament with a Charger's outfit on, a glass Lakehouse, a Hello Kitty ornament, and a set of water filled snow globes. One ornament that no one really wanted was a hand knit elephant ornament (made in Kenya) that looked like a deformed sock mouse.

Ugh - my arm looks fat! I still have to figure out to how use my ornament!

Shirts & Six Degrees (or less) of Separation

While I was working my vendor booth at the Parol Festival, I killed the time chatting with my friend (another PASACAT mom and former dancer) who also sold jewelry. We also did our nails. Well, I actually painted a thin layer of purple over my already deep eggplant varnished nails. The other booth next to us was a table of two guys selling Filipino logo'd shirts. Turns out that one of the guys knew and dated my godsister. They both went to a local Catholic school and graduated in the early 90's (young 'uns!). Hence, the "Six degrees of separation" comment. I threw that in there because with Filipinos, even though you may not have gone to the same schools, you can still be connected in some shape or form with the "Six degrees" game.

More than a decade ago (seems like a longass time), my friends and I were at a coffee shop in Hillcrest, the one next to the deli on University and 5th. It was early summer 1997 and Andrew Cunanan was still on the lam for killing a bunch of people. The Hillcrest area was in a mini panic because the Gay Pride parade was coming up and community folks were scared that he might return and kill people in San Diego. Anyways, there was an FBI Wanted poster of Cunanan in the coffee place and I totally wanted to take, nay, STEAL it for the sake of knowing that it would be a notorious collector's item. Alas, I did not take the poster but regretted it since. Yeah, I'm wierd like that, but you know it would be an item of curiosity!

Where was I? Oh yeah, six degrees. Me and my friends were talking about how newscasters would mispronounce "Cunanan" as "Koo-nah-nun" (emphasis on first syllable), or "Koo-nan-nan" (as in "naan", short vowel sound 'a'). And how our friends with the same last name would get pissed at hearing if they were related to this guy. They hated it! Andrew Cunanan, in case you don't know, was a serial killer whose most famous victim was Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace. Cunanan also happened to be gay and Filipino American (white mom, Filipino dad). We were joking that Cunanan looked like one of our friends in the FBI poster. Well, one of the photos since he had so many looks. Since he was our age (class of '87), we were bound to be connected somehow. Here's my connection, my sister's sister in law went to junior high with him at Bonita Vista Junior. He ended up going to Bishop's in La Jolla (a rich private school). OMG! Also, my daughter's dance director's dad was the dude's godfather!!! Aaagh! Turns out the night we were at the coffee shop was also the night that Cunanan offed himself by shotgun on a houseboat in Florida. What a gruesome end!

Back to the shirts...Here are a few designs. I really liked the Tabasco parody. "Tabachoy" is like a term of endearment for a fat person. Kinda fkd up huh, but I remember my mom would describe little fat babies as "tabachoy".

Here's the red version of the Tabachoy shirt. My friend's husband has the shirt next to it.
The shirt on the left means "Who's your Daddy?". They also had a "Got Goat?" t-shirt. I can totally picture a lot of Filipino dads and uncles wearing the "Got Gout?" shirt!
I thought this was fkn funny, although I'd never wear it. "SUSU" is a slang word for TITS. It's also a parody of San Diego State University's logo (my alma mater).

"Manong" is a term of respect for older men. It actually means "older brother" and is derived from the Spanish word "hermano" which means brother.
How about this shirt?

I overheard some guys joking about that shirt and how it should say "Free SHANGHAI Lumpia" because Shanghai-style lumpia is smaller and skinnier than regular lumpia. Yeah, gross, huh! Ha ha. I can totally picture jokester pervs wearing this shirt and pointing to their crotch! Face palm time!

Parol Festival

The PASACAT Parol Festival at St. Rita's was this weekend and it was TC's 4th festival as a junior dancer. This was also the first time I wasn't a "stage mom" (relegated to the dressing room and fixing hair and makeup). Instead, I sold my handmade earrings at a vendor table with one of the other moms who sells jewelry. Next to me was a t-shirt vendor (featured in a separate post). Luckily TC only had two dances, the Spanish influenced Aray and the Philippine country dance Sayaw ng Bankgo (Bench dance). The Parol refers to the star shaped lanterns. Below is one of the fancier parols made of capiz. These run about $200 or more. Here is the pabitin, which is a lattice strung up with candy and toys (but in the photo it's just toys, cheap ones that is). It is supposed to be raised and lowered like a pinata while the kids grab for the toys. This year, the kids were impatient. They didn't even wait for the pabitin to begin properly. SOme kids (the older ones) started grabbing stuff and the rest followed suit. Turns out my daughter didn't even participate this year because she didn't want to be in the madness of the crowd. Man, scavs!

There were tables with samples of Philippine dance costumes representing the different suites: Spanish, Muslim, and Countryside. THese costumes and textiles are from the Muslim suite.

These were boxes of notecards based on paintings of Philippine dances.

These textiles were on sale. These were malongs, the tube skirts used by the people of Mindanao, which is the southernmost island group of the Philippines. They were never conquered by the Spaniards.

These were handpainted sheer blouses from the Philippines. I'm sure you wear something underneath like a camisole or a spaghetti strap tank top (well at least I would). They were beautiful but the colors were not my thing. I gave up on wearing orange in the 80's.

Stage props - the Bahay Kubo and Carabaos.

The stage...Maligayang Pasko at Masaganang Bagong Taon means "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" in Tagalog.

Muslim dance costume detail:

A so-called "Filipino" Barbie. Don't get me started on my anti-Barbie rant. To make it short, I FKG hate how some Filipinos are into colonial mentality and equate light skin and European features with being beautiful. I want to see a dark skinned Barbie with a flat nose and a tribal outfit. Aaaagh!!!!!

All of the parents brought food for the dancers. For the regular people, they were served one pan de sal, pancit and one turon (banana lumpia). These were for the kids - pancit bihon and lumpia.

I'm not sure what this was called but I think it's fried rice dough sesame seeds. The filling is sweet bean. They had another version of this that were small balls (heh heh, she said balls). I didn't sample this because I wanted the balls instead!!!

Puto Bumbong - These are steamed purple rice cakes rolled in coconut. You eat it with brown sugar. It's traditionally served during Christmas time. Check out the real coconut shell serving as a vessel for the brown sugar. The tubes of rice are supposed to be steamed in bamboo. Not sure if my friend did this herself or ordered it. It's pretty time consuming.

A crappy picture of the turon (banana fritters/banana lumpia, however you want to call it):

I don't think this is Filipino food, but yes, the fried shit was here in great numbers. This was just one of the many fried items in the back. Yeah, healthy ain't it? These are fried squid strips.

More pancit - you can see the kalamansi (Philippine citrus fruit) along the perimeter of the pan. You squeeze the juice on the pancit to give it more flavor.

One of my favorites - Pinakbet! I don't know who brought this but I know it wasn't one of my friends who normally puts lechon kawali in hers. The meat here was pork, but it wasn't as tasty (i.e. fatty) as lechon kawali. It was kind of dry and hard. I love pinakbet but I hardly make it because Bert doesn't like bittermelon, okra, and eggplant. Or bagoong (fermented shrimp paste) either.

Here's a blurry photo of TC (she's in green) with the other dancers performing "Aray", a dance of Spanish influence because of the waltz steps, hand movements with the tambourine, and the stamping of the shoes on the floor. "Aray" is a Filipino word which means "Ouch".

Four Parol Festivals down! Next up, the Junior Concert in May. My husband and I will need to gear up for longer practices in the Spring.

59th & Lex

Earlier this week I accompanied one of my friends to Fashion Valley Mall. She had to get a few things for Christmas shopping and wanted to know if I wanted to come along. I was only too glad to get out of my house! So off we went on a "Morrissey type day":
I'm pretty much done with all of my Christmas shopping. Let's put it this way...GIFTCARDS BABY. Yeah. Makes life a whole lot easier. And also, shopping for less people. That really helps too. We browsed around a few stores like Nordstrom's and Neiman-Marcus (OMFG - so expensive there!) and because she had a giftcard or something, went also went to Bloomingdales. We were originally going to have lunch at the cafe in Nordstrom's but since we were in Bloomingdale's, didn't want to walk all the way back to Nordie's. Instead, we ate here - 59th & Lex, the Cafe in Bloomie's. These photos are courtesy of her camera since I forgot to bring mine that day. A rarity.
It's actually rather small. The decor is black and white and there are large framed poster prints of cartoons (mostly about shopping). We had our choice of seats since it wasn't really crowded. Ha, when we left, it was full. Of LADIES WHO LUNCH. Literally. I didn't see one man in there. Not even a server. Anyways...
More of the stark decor:
I couldn't work her camera that well, hence the blurry photo. Yes. I. Take. Crappy. Pictures.

Our server was fairly attentive. She wasn't "hovery". After placing our orders, she served us a roll of sliced bread with butter. Nothing spectacular.

My friend ordered the Tuna Melt which is the house tuna salad served on marble rye bread and cheddar cheese. It comes with either a side of fries or salad. Unfortunately this entree was a "miss". The fries were cold and she wasn't thrilled with the sandwich either.

I ordered the Ham and Brie Cheese Melt on a french baguette roll. The sandwich also had lettuce and tomato inside and came with a side salad (mango dressing on the side) and a pickle, which I didn't eat because I don't like pickles. Actually I like relish but only on hot dogs. I pick my pickles out of hamburgers too. This sandwich, while not a "miss", wasn't entirely a "hit" either. It was all right. The cheese was slightly melted so I liked the contrast of the warm brie with the crusty bread. The salad was my attempt at eating something healthy that day. I was pretty hungry so I ate most of it. But I could've had a better deal at K Sandwiches - $2.75 for the BBQ Beef there!

It was fun window shopping and checking out shit I'll never be able to afford. Well, I could afford it but there my mortgagewould be fkd! I'm not the type to spend $495 on a pair of Jimmy Choos.

In other news...

Movies I want to watch:

Let the Right One In (a Swedish vampire flick, which unfortunately is no longer is limited release...I'll have to wait for the DVD)

Slumdog Millionaire - Bert and I are going to try to catch this next week in Hillcrest's Landmark Theatres.

Books that I want to read:

The rest of the Sookie Stackhouse series (aka "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" by Charlaine Harris), upon which the HBO Series True Blood is based. Sookie Stackhouse is played by Anna Paquin (yes, the little girl in "the Piano"). I haven't seen an episode yet, but I read the first novel, "Dead Until Dark" and now I'm hooked. I need to find out what happens to Sookie and her vampire, Bill Compton!!

Twilight Parodies

The Twilight Puppet Parody - They did a good job with recreating some of the scenes and camera angles used in the movie.

Dimlight - A parody by Juicebox. "Tedward". Ha ha.

Jimmy Kimmel Live Parody featuring Guillermo as a "bampire".

and my favorite is this "Twilight Trailer Spoof" which came out in early August, by Evil Iguana Productions. It's a mix of the first 2 trailers (at end of post). "He's got unparalled senses...except for his sens of fashion"!



Original Twilight Teaser Trailer 1 - features scenes ultimately not used in the actual movie such as when Emmett says "This is wrong Edward, she's not one of us" in a Keanu Reeves'ish voice.



Original Twilight Teaser Trailer 2

Hair!

Hell yeah! My hair's been growing back for the past couple of months. I finally ditched my wigs a couple of weeks ago. I had three of them. One was real human hair and looked almost exactly like my rocker chick hairstyle. The other two were bob variations (one angled and the other I called my tame Robert Smith wig). I didn't like them too much, especially in the summer when it was hot.

Most people who don't know what I've been through just think I got my hair cut (drastically). I just play it off. I'm not going to go into my shit with them. I'm just happy my hair's growing back - and thick too! In May when it first started falling out, I had it shaved. But my hair fell out gradually to almost bald by June, just like Damon Wayan's outrageously gay Antoine Merriweather (not Blaine Edwards, that's David Alan Grier with the Kid 'n Play hair). Being bald? HATED IT!

In fact, I am going to have the sides and back texturized by my hairstylist tomorrow. I've been going to her for quite awhile now. Her kids were my former students. She's been so awesome to me this year. She was the one who shaved my head back in May. She styled my wigs too so they wouldn't look so farty and conservative. She does wonders with her shears/scissors/razors and makes me look pretty damn good. After my treatment ended in July, I was still bald. But after six weeks or so, my hair first came in like peach fuzz in late August. It kind of looked like this (Natalie Portman in "V for Vendetta"):

It's slightly longer than Annie Lennox's Eurythmics era do:

But the top and sides are not as long as Billy Idol's yet (pump your fist in the air here!):
My hair looks like this actually - a bit like Victoria Beckham's new pixie cut. Except I don't have man hands. Or a zombified countenance. Or a stick thin size zero body. Or David Beckham. Girlfriend needs to eat a sandwich. Or two.

The top of her hair and her bangs are a little longer than mine, but this is basically how my hair looks.

I used to have what I call my rocker chick look with razored, shaggy layers and choppy bangs. I had "hip mom" hair. At least I thought it was. Sort of like a rendition of a modern mullet (it's not as bad as it sounds!). I miss it but it'll grow back soon enough. I can't wait for my bangs to grow longer so I can rock that Rihanna look! I would make my bangs razored at an angle, and be much shorter and choppier than hers.

Some of my friends have told me to keep my hair short and "sassy". God, I hate that word! I feel like I have to do a headsnap when I say "sassy"! I have strong facial features so I think I can pull off the pixie cut, but I do want my old look back. In due time...