Wedding Photographer

I love everything about weddings - the accessories, the gowns, the jewelry, the flowers and most of all, the photos. I got into the habit of checking out wedding galleries when I was nangangarap about my own wedding (haha!) years ago and now, 20 months married, I'm still at it.

Anyway, I was just browsing through a photographer-friend's website and thought I'd make a post about him. So if you are looking for an east-coast based wedding photographer or know of somebody looking for one, check out Sachi Villareal. There is, after all, an advantage to having a pinoy photographer cover your wedding - mas makulit, mas aliw, and mas pinoy.

Love namin si Sachi :P

psst. sachi, adobo naman at crabs ;)

and btw, Sachi just started blogging too!

Recap: New Year Supersitions 2008

This might have been better off being posted before the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve but things have a tendency of being filed away in the back of one's head and being postponed. *smile*

Anyway, I thought I'd post a list of the superstitions that our household observed this year as well as the ones that I heard of from friends and plan to add to our list next year. This is really a combination of Chinese and Filipino superstitions, I don't even know which one goes with which culture.

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you have any more :)

Things to prepare:

• 12 kinds of round fruits and place them on your dining table. 12 kinds of fruit = 12 months of the year. This symbolizes having plenty of food for the incoming year.
• 3 cups and place on your dining table. One should be filled with rice, another with salt and the last one with water. The containers should be filled to the brim. Another version of this superstition calls for filling the last cup with cooking oil instead of water.
• Before midnight on New Year's eve, a coin should be placed on each drawer and cabinet in the house. A coin should also be placed on each step of the stairs and on the windowsills and doorsteps.
• Pay off your debts and collect anything that you're owed.
• Just before midnight, all doors and windows should be open. Of course, keep in mind that care should be taken if you choose to do this as this might be viewed as an open invitation to burglers.
• Turn on all the lights in your house - I do this 10 minutes or so before midnight so I don't use up too much electricity.
• Coins (money) should be placed on the floor in the main hallway of the house - the one the main doors open to. Keep a broom handy nearby, you'll need this on the strike of 12.
• Keep money in your pockets, your pockets shouldn't be empty when the new year arrives.
• Prepare a comb and keep it handy.
• Throw away all your trash, if possible. It's considered bad luck to throw anything out on New Year's day so if you have anything that can possibly go bad (or go rotten), get rid of it before the new year.

Upon the stroke of midnight:

• Hold and jingle the money in your pockets.
• Comb through your hair, this is supposed to comb away all the bad luck - you don't have to fix your entire hair, a few strokes will do.
• In your entrance hallway where you scattered the coins, get the broom and sweep the coins INTO your house. This will invite fortune into your household for the new year.

On new year's day:

• It is considered bad luck to throw anything out.
• We try to refrain from spending any money on the first day of the year.

Needless to say, fireworks are illegal where we live so we only got to watch them on TV.

How about you ? Did you observe any of these on new year's eve ?

New Year 2007

Christmas Noche Buena was a bit of a letdown for me because ... well... we had none. It was really no big deal at first because it seemed like too much of an effort to have to prepare food for 2 people for midnight when we had enjoyed ourselves in NY (and gorged on yummy goodies in Chinatown) the whole afternoon.

The letdown sunk in afterwards when the in-laws (hubby's brother, to be exact) started asking about how we celebrated our Christmas. When asked what our noche buena meal was, I said "Popcorn". The line suddenly went quiet, I swear, you could hear a pin drop! Eh totoo naman eh. I think bro-in-law couldn't decide whether I was telling the truth or teasing him. Eventually (it must have only been a few seconds later but it felt like minutes to me), he laughingly said that his brother (my hubby) should have just cooked and prepared a feast for me.

I made a decision that come New Year's Eve, I wasn't gonna disappoint. Hmpft :)

Hubby and I prepared the following for our New Year's Eve meal (pics to follow later):

Appetizer: Calamari, Pan fried (fish & veggie) dumplings

Entree: Shrimp fried rice w/ Chinese sausages, Chinese Fried Chicken (take out), baked scallops w/ bacon

Dessert: Cheesecake Factory's Tiramisu cheesecake

Needless to say, we were stuffed.

That night, our good friends E & K invited us over to their house to greet the new year. We had yummy chicken carbonara, baked ribs, baked fish, leche flan and buco pandan with them. Yummy.

Fortunately, I didn't gain a pound after all the new year indulgence. *whew*

Christmas Party 2007

We held our Christmas party at the Baculio's last weekend, everyone had loads of fun - most especially the kids who got bag loads of presents.

We had a white elephant gift exchange (also called the Yankee swap), we went home with a Joby GorillaPod from Aris. We're looking forward to using this. Hubby and I actually have a small tripod which we bring with us when we travel. The thing is, we've always had to rely on trash cans or tables whenever we want to snap a photograph of us. With this, we won't have to.

Other items that were exchanged included a wet/dry cordless vacuum cleaner, a touchscreen speaker phone, bluetooth headsets, board games, scented oil warmer, Homedics home massager, set of Pyrex bakeware, Rubbermaid containers.

Last but not the least, friends G & A announced that they are infanticipating, just another one of the blessings that we are thankful for this year. Kelan kaya kami ? :)

<-- Hubby & me, pic taken by Jacob (we're friends now, yey!)

Hubby's special day

It's hubby's birthday today and as we did on my birthday last month, we decided to eat in. Dinner was creamy shrimp alfredo flavored with turkey bacon (feeling healthy, heehee) and mushrooms. Hubby requested that we also prepare the bacon-wrapped filet mignon. We've been saving that for a special occasion and it can't get any more special than this - his first birthday that we get to spend together.

Cirque rules!

I got a lucky break last Saturday when a friend who bought a ticket to watch Cirque du Soleil's Wintuk show couldn't make it . There was only 1 ticket so we weren't offered it at first. After asking the single friends, it turns out that everybody else had prior commitments so we finally got offered the chance.

Hubby graciously offered to stay home (we had a couple of appointments for buyers to come see our house) and just let me watch the show with friends. Libre pa! Woohoooo!

Wintuk is about a boy who was looking for snow. Winter na kasi and it wasn't snowing. He then went on a magical journey where he met people & other creatures. It's amazing how Cirque was able to incorporate these amazing feats & acts into the story.

Syempre, towards the end of the show, the boy was bound to get snow, right ? This was the best part... it started snowing... I kid you not. Lots and lots of paper snowflakes started raining down on the entire Madison Square Garden theater. Ang dami! It was so fun! I opened up my jacket and my bag and caught loads and loads of paper snowflakes. I thought I'd bring it home to the hubby and throw it at him and shout "Snow! Snow!" -- this turned out to be a bad idea, mahirap pala maglinis ng paper snowflakes sa bahay.

My idea to fill up my jacket & vest with snowflakes was kinda overkill too. I leaked snowflakes as I walked from 34th street (Madison Sq Garden) all the way to 42nd (bus station). LOL!

Our first thanksgiving

I wanted to make something special for our first thanksgiving. I couldn't decide what to prepare but I knew that:

1) we are not standard thanksgiving fare fans (i.e. turkey, yams, stuffing,...) ; and,
2) given that we'll probably be spending thanksgiving by ourselves, there's no sense in having too much food that we'll be eating as leftovers in the next few days.

Inspiration struck when we were wandered, quite accidentally, into the supermarket's seafood section. There were crabs, shrimp, fish and scallops. It was then that I decided to prepare an all-seafood meal. Given that we're usually red-meat eaters - aside from the occasional chicken - this would be unique. Special, even.

Found a great recipe on the web for Shrimp and Crab stuffed flounder by Linda Reir.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
2 (4.5 ounce) cans small shrimp, drained
1 (4.5 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
1/2 pound cooked crabmeat
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
8 (6 ounce) fillets flounder
2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/3 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons water
2/3 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish and set aside.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and saute onion, shrimp, and mushrooms until onion is tender. Stir in crabmeat, salt, pepper, and paprika; heat through.

Spoon the shrimp and crab mixture onto each flounder filet. Roll the filet up and fasten with toothpicks. Place rolled filets in prepared baking dish.



(Note: Either the flounder filets I got were too small or I was trying to stuff too much of the crab mixture in so instead of rolling the fish, I just folded it over.)

In a small bowl, whisk together soup, chicken broth, and water until smooth. Pour over the filets. Sprinkle cheese over the top.









Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and remove foil. Sprinkle the parsley over the top of the filets. Return the dish to the oven and bake uncovered for an additional 5 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

... and voila! Obviously, this dish is sorely lacking in presentation, but I swear, this is good!









We did make one concession in deference to turkey day, in addition to the stuffed fish, we had baked scallops wrapped in turkey bacon (hubby's idea). These turned out very good too. The scallops were huge - at least an inch and a half in diameter - and very very sweet, I just sprinked them with some seasoned salt and wrapped them in bacon.

My Birthday Dinner

I got another year older today. THIS birthday is special because this is the first one that we get to celebrate together. In the 7 (or 8?) years that we've been a couple, we have never been in the same country during any of our birthdays. So this year,.. this birthday... we wanted it to be all about us.

Friends have been asking us where and how we planned to celebrate my birthday and we couldn't give a definite answer. You see, all these questions put a lot of pressure on me. I felt that we had to go out in order to celebrate. Sammie and I are homebodies. We're perfectly happy just staying at home - curled up with a nice book, trash-talking each other over Guitar Hero 3 or just getting caught up on our recorded shows (Tivo). By now, you should already know where I'm going *smile*...

The thing is, we wanted this celebration to be so special that we couldn't decide where to go. It was almost 8pm and we were still home, wondering where to go. Eventually, it hit us. There isn't a better place to spend a special day than in our own home - our very first home - and besides, if we sell our house soon, this (and sammie's birthday in December) would be the last birthdays we get to spend in this house.

Thankfully, our fridge was fully stocked *grin*. Shabu-shabu beef, baby bok choy, mushrooms, japanese noodles, mini pork buns (xiao long pao) and potstickers cooked in chicken broth made a wonderful meal. Oh and let's not forget the custard bun (on the rack) that we had for dessert (nope, didn't like it).

Mid-Autumn Festival

Our group of friends decided to hold a belated celebration of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. Traditionally, this is celebrated by Chinese people all over the world by eating (and gifting friends / family with) moon cakes.

We also reached a new milestone with Jacob (R's kid) that night. He started talking to me - finally! - and acknowledged that Sammie exists. Heehee. To those who know Jacob, you'll know that this is a big thing. The picture posted here was snapped by Aris when she saw the three of us together in a room.

Anyway, I digress. The best part about this time of the year is the dice game. There are 5 tiers of prices and 6 dice. Each person throws the dice into a bowl and they get a price depending on how many fours they throw. There are also other combinations that they can throw to get a prize (five of a kind, six of a kind, two trios, straight, etc).

This year's big winner (Riza) got a $70 gift certification to Amazon.com. Second prizes were a UPS unit (battery backup) and noise cancelling headphones. There were a whole lot of other prizes up for grabs. By the end of the night, we found ourselves with an odd (but fun) assortment: 1 toothpaste, 1 can of spanish style sardine, 1 bowl, and 1 ResQMe (keychain version of the LifeHammer, the tool which can help save your life by breaking your car windows and slashing your seatbelt). It was really quite interesting.

Lastly, hubby and I decided (at the last minute) to try our hand at preparing Pancit Palabok. It didn't turn out too bad - or so they (our friends) say. Click here for the recipe posted on our food blog. Personally, I think it could still do with a bit more tweaking.

Athenia Street Fair 2007

September 16, 2007
Clifton, NJ
(click photo to view album)

Our city sponsors a street fair every year. I've been looking forward to this year's because this time, I get to go with a date *smile*. There were a lot more stalls selling assorted items and toys, food & drink stalls, rides, and definitely a lot more attendees compared to last year. There was also a live band courtesy of our neighborhood bar, Dingo's Den.

Sammie and I had a lot of fun walking up and down the street and checking out the wares. We also walked through an exhibition of classic American cars. Before we walked home, we stopped by Wild Bill's Olde Fashioned Soda stall and got a $7 mug of rootbeer (we get to keep the mug). We also got ourselves some funnel cake - standard carnival fare - of course and sat down to enjoy the live music.

Among the day's loot were 2 canvas bags distributed by the city to promote recycling (I like using these instead of plastic bags), a frisbee & a refrigerator magnet / clip from a local bank and the stainless steel mug that we got from Wild Bill's.