yearly gatherings

one of the best things about christmas is you have a reason to get together with good friends.

tonight was the OBB xmas get together.

its always great to see these friends of mine.  brings you back to the good old days when life seemed so simple, and cares and woes were blatantly shallow.

we missed a couple of our friends during the get together *sad*

i was done looking through rose colored glasses years ago but tonight was definitely an eye opener.  its a wonder how people could start out similar lives and lead such different ones 10 years after.

if only…

without my hubby

its been four days since my hubby left the country for a 2 month business trip…..*frown*

thank goodness for phone calls!

cine europa 11

we were eating italian pork sausage and eggs for breakfast when i opened the newspaper and saw that cine europa had started!

yearly i wait for this amusing film showing for my annual dose of european culture.  it all started in 2005 when i went to watch villa des roses a film contributed by belgium which i fell in love with.

the movie is about Paris in the months leading up to the First World War, beautiful young widow arrives at Villa De Roses to work as a chambermaid. But the “Villa” turns out to be a dilapidated old mansion run by an eccentric British couple. Louise, the main character takes it all in stride until her passionate romance with one of the tenants, a handsome German artist, spirals dangerously out of control

in 2006 i was able to watch “things that make life worth living” with hubby.  he quite enjoyed the comedy romance.  and so in 2007 he willingly accompanied me to see “umbrellas of cherbourg”,

a french/german film which we found out was a musical! hehehe! he was so bored but i really liked it.

we also watched “closely watched trains” that year, a movie from the Czech Republic.

This was an interesting 1966 film which according to reviews won the academy awards in 1967 for best foreign language film.

cine europa comes early this year as it usually shows during the month of november.  thank goodness for the good old newspaper or else i would not have known!

i am interested in in 5 films being shown this year: love songs, after the wedding, paper will be blue, 100 steps and late bloomers.  but i will only be able to watch 4 because i misssed the evening showing of late bloomers yesterday and only 3 with hubby because one is a musical which i will be watching alone (he learned his lesson!  hehehe!).

i am so excited!

a dose of culture

today we were able to get freebies from one of my best friends yene.  she unfortunately had to give up her tickets to mulan as she had to be at work saving lives as a surgeon.  hubby was not entirely thrilled because he is really not into the theater scene but he had no choice (hehehe!).

because we dont really get to go to greenbelt often, we wanted to eat somewhere new and so Solihiya seemed the restaurant for us.  we were drawned to the “eat all you can prawns” but changed our minds when we saw sizzling bulalo in the menu.

we have been looking for so long for a replacement to tagaytay’s rojonets which closed down without a trace.  solihiya’s sizzling bulalo was good but does not replace our long lost restaurant.

we also got one of my favorite dish, fried tofu

what i liked about solihiya was that they gave quail eggs and spicy dilis as free appetizers
solihiya gave heaping servings of their dishes and had waiters who knew what they were talking about.  they also said that the eat all you can order for prawns could be per table if the customers ordered other dishes (the price is normally P480 per person).  however the food was not extra ordinary.  if you want good old home cooking then solihiya is a decent place to eat.

i of course will not end a good dinner without dessert so we headed a floor down to classic confections.

we ordered good coffee and lemon cake note the cute little designs in the coffee foam…. and the crunchy inside of our cake i did wish it was a little more lemony or zesty than it was.  but it was a good ending to a good meal.

so we headed off to watch mulan jr by repertory philippines.

repertory philippines have always come up with interactive shows.  i still remember enjoying the last play we watched with my sister, emperor’s new clothes.  mulan jr was as enjoyable.  caisa borromeo who played mulan, has such good talent!  such a beautiful voice!  i also loved mushu the dragon.  it was too bad he did not come out for pictures after the show because i would have loved to have my picture with him.  not only is he a dragon but a purply pinkish one! hehehe!

a good dose of culture!

good eats

do you remember a few months ago i was craving for my mom’s pinakbet?  well, she called me today to teach me her recipe.

ingredients:  okra, malunggay vegetable, eggplant, fish paste, hot water, garlic, onions, lots of tomatoes, ground pork, oil for saute

saute the onions, garlic, tomatoes and ground pork in a pan until the pork is cooked.  place your vegetables in a large sauce pan and top with the cooked sauted pork.  soak the fish paste in hot water and strain.  used the strained water and place on top of the mixed saute and veggies and simmer until the veggies are cooked.

weve been served pinakbet in my new home but my mom’s is still much much yummier so ill try to cook this within the month (scared!).  mommy said that her recipe is a kapampangan recipe while what ive been eating lately is the tagalog version.  i never knew this before! mother still knows best!  hehehe!

speaking of  yummy food.  last night i treated hubby to a midnight snack (boy, talk about giving in to temptation!).  i had read on line about the new crispy melt pizza of dominos and the cheese lover in me just had to taste it…..

note the full cheese topping and the salami filled center…..good eats!