Beef Brisket

I have been craving for beef brisket. It's been quite long already that I have not eaten at Mandarin tea garden and I have been longing for my favorite beef brisket rice, siomai and durian shake. I have a lunch date with hubby today and I just indulge with what I have been long craving for. I have a full lunch. Thanks hubby:). Oh, my period is already delayed and I kept on craving different foods. Am I inf-anticipating? Hmmm..let's wait and see:)

Happy birthday Mama Alice:)

(This is a scheduled post, me and hubby are scheduled for an advent recollection today)

Today is Mama Alice's birthday. She's celebrating her birthday in the province where she is based together with my three unmarried siblings. She invited me and she told me that she's having a lechon (roasted pig) but I can't make it due to my scheduled recollection and besides, it's too far away. I love my mother very much. She married at the young age of 23 to my father who was turning 40. They have a wonderful marriage. But Papa died at age 69, few years after his forced retirement at 65. Since then, she doubled her efforts in order to meet the needs of her family, sending my two siblings to college and the youngest, high school. She works from Monday to Friday as a clerk, checked on the rice farm on Saturdays and sell groceries and ready to wear (RTW) goodies on Sundays. I admire her courage and strength and I'm really proud of her. Happy birthday Mom. I hope and pray for more birthdays to come, good health always and more blessings!

My childhood memories on All Saints Day and All Souls Day

When I was young, I have lots of memories on All Saints Day which happens every 1st of November. This is a time of the year, that we, as young children would have lots of fun because our cousins and relatives from other places would go home. There would be lots of foods cooked, usually native delicacies- suman(made of rice wrapped in banana leaf), bebingka (rice cake), biko, boiled native chicken. In the evening, my Pappa and Momma would prepare food and put it in the altar. These traditions are influences from my grandma during that time. Being a young child and curious that I was, I would ask questions to my father...

Me: Pappa, why would we place foods in the altar?

Pappa:(looking hard up in answering my question) The souls of our departed loved ones will eat food during this time...

Me: Oh, how would they eat foods when they are already dead?

Pappa: My child, they have souls, they will not eat the food, like we do, but they will smell the aroma of the food that we are offering in the altar.

These are traditions the we have lost as time goes by. When my grandma died when I was 14 years old, traditional practices that we got from her gradually died a natural death.

When the All Souls Day come, lots of people visit to our place because our house in the province is just a stone's throw away from the cemetery. This is the day when people would flock and visit their dead loved ones, light a candle on their tombs and offer prayer.