The First Day of 2018

Done with the holiday busyness. Blessed to end the year with food orders overload, that we ended up sleeping on New Year's eve.

After our New Years' eve church service, visited Mama Be

It has been a New Year's Day tradition for our family to have a lunch together with my father's side of the family. To celebrate and start the year with the whole family, as what our Mama Be wants us do. Mama Be was born on New Year's day and on her 50th birthday, the same year she joined our creator, she celebrated her birthday with mini-reunion/planning for the Nolasco clan's first grand reunion.

Aside from having our relatives we also invite GF (Grasel Food) workers to celebrate with us. Mama Be loves them so much that she makes sure that she will have something for her workers and their family. This year, we had our New Year's day lunch at GF factory because last year we had it at home.

Part of living in the province is that, we're used to prepare our own food, even lechon. Yes lechon, our Kuya Totong is the best lechonero trained by Papa. Kuya Totong has been with our family for 15 years, with years of doing lechon for us, now he is being hired and paid for it.

"batwan" leaves

On the first day of 2018, our first task of the day prepare and cook lechon for our family lunch. One of our Ate Nene's secret ingredients is the "batwan" leaves, it is a souring agent used and known to Ilonggos, instead of using tamarind leaves we put batwan inside the lechon. I also bake meringue for my mango pavlova and Tita Ming asked me to make no-bake cheesecake.

I feel so blessed that on the first day of the year, we get to have food orders. Food orders for pick-up that day; cassava cake and sapin-sapin.  This is how my first day of 2018 looks like, its all about family and food.

Date: January 01, 2018