Congratulations to all who participated in this annual April blogging challenge! This was my third year of participating in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge for this blog, The View from the Top of the Ladder , and the second year for Take 25 to Hollister .   I'm writing this reflection post for both blogs. Because I have a masochistic goal of blogging 365 days in 2015 for both my blogs, I entered the two of them in the challenge. I made it easy for myself by focusing on a theme—food for the Ladder and just  Hollister for Take 25 .  Every now and then, I managed to write posts beforehand and be ahead by two or three days, which meant I could visit more blogs. Wednesday and Thursday were tough days because I also wrote on my themes for ABC Wednesday and Alphabe Thursday .  I said I was masochistic.  At first, I visited blogs in the A to Z April Challenge under either the Ladder or Take 25 , following the suggestion of visiting the blog after me an...

Congratulations to all of us bloggers of the Blogging from A-to-Z April Challenge ! We did it. Zzzzzzzooo-hoooooo! So, for you, today, I'm cooking up a virtual feast as my final entry for my food theme. Enjoy! Appetizers • Lumpia (Filipino eggrolls. Of course! I can't throw a party without lumpia) • Potstickers • Inari Sushi (Deep-fried bean curd skins stuffed with rice, peas, and salmon • Assorted fresh vegetables with onion dip Main and Side Dishes • Kalua pork • Grilled salmon • Pancit   (Filipino noodle dish) • Stir-fry vegetable medley (onions, garlic, mushrooms, green beans, broccoli, zucchini, carrots, tiny corn, and water chestnuts) • Kim chee • Bamboo relish (The Mama's awesome, delicious, pickled spicy bamboo. Double yum!) • Brown rice Desserts • Apple Pie, Ollalieberry Pie, and Cherry Pie • Suman (Coconut glutinous rice wrapped in banana leaves) • Fresh watermelon and pineapple Drinks • Local handcrafted beer • Local wines • Ap...

When the Eldest Niece was a baby sitting in her high chair, eating time was show time. I believe she had me pegged for a softie and could have me perform with a shake of her head  as I brought a spoonful of food to her tightly closed mouth. And, I did. I sang a made-up song with great relish. I don't recall the exact words anymore, or even the tune. It went something like this: Yummy, yummy. Here comes some lovely yummy to your tummy. Open wide. Here comes yummy. That was over 35 years ago. I do remember that she opened her mouth to eat a few bites when I sang it.  Those were great times with the Eldest Niece. Click   here  to find other A to Z challenge participants.

My  ABC Wednesday   theme:  The Mama and Her Authentic Green Thumbs. . .and Fingers For nearly 27 years, the Mama worked in applied seed research. She had a hand in getting the stink out of broccoli and creating an oblong tomato that would be easier for machines to pluck without bruising, among other horticultural feats. This was many years before genetic engineering in agriculture came to be. Back then, seed research involved people cross pollinating generations of cabbage, tomatoes, corn, pumpkins, squash, peppers, broccoli, melons, and other vegetables and fruits. It's not as easy as you think. It takes steady hands and a focused mind. And, if you're working with the Mama, you definitely cannot be a slacker, at least on the job. I ought to know. I worked for her for two summers when I was a teenager. One of the best paying jobs to have back then. The Mama was the supervisor of the crew of seed technicians. Summer being the busy season, she hired two or more teena...

I bake cookies at least once a year. And, that's at Xmas. What's Xmas without the yummy smell of cookies baking in the oven, right? Those first few years of baking Xmas cookies, I'd go through cookbooks, looking for interesting cookie recipes to try. But, always, I'd end up following certain recipes in a Women's Day cookie recipe booklet. That may be how I got hooked reading cookbooks. I used to bake a bunch of different cookies. Not anymore. Now, I bake three kinds of cookies. Persimmon biscotti, the Mama's favorite; Russian tea cakes, the Husband's favorite: and a persimmon, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, or gingersnap cookie. Do you bake Xmas cookies? What cookies do you like to bake? Click   here  to find other A to Z challenge participants.

Once-upon-a-time, a long time ago, when I was still a young thing. . . .   After the Birthday Gal happily blew our her candles on the carrot cake that I baked, the other student assistant and I cut the cake and served the slices to the Birthday Gal and everyone else in the Department of Secondary Education office. The cake looked yummy. Everyone took a bite. Several people looked puzzled as they chewed. The gruff teddy bear of a department chair said, "Sue, did you forget to turn on the oven?" "Huh?" The Teddy Bear Chair examined his cake. "It's flat." "That's the way it's supposed to be." I said. "I love it," said the Birthday Gal. "It's just like the cake from home. All full of nuts and carrots. Thank you, Sue." The Birthday Gal was from Central America. She gave me a hug and took another slice. The Teddy Bear Chair continued eating his cake. "Have you made this cake before?" he a...

My earliest memory of the Daddy's vegetable garden was floating a pea pod in the water rushing down one of the narrow vegetable ditches. I was about four years old. I remember the garden being tall, green, and wild-like. Every year, the Daddy put up a vegetable garden for the family, growing many Filipino vegetables that we couldn't buy in the grocery store. We ate a lot of long beans, bitter melon, Japanese eggplants, tabongaw (a type of gourd), Kabocha squash, saloyat (okra leaves), parda (a hairy, bigger, and thicker pea), and kabatiti (a kind of squash with ridges) during the summers. Also into the winters, after the parents bought a big freezer. When the Daddy came home from a long day of irrigating vegetable fields, he went straight to the garden to see what needed tending. The Mama went into the garden to harvest vegetables for the evening's meal.  The Daddy was always getting after the Mama for picking the bitter melon leaves from the top rather than the bott...

Earlier this month, the Husband and I entertained ourselves while he washed dishes and I dried them. The result was a rundown of the utensil choir. This is the make up of the choir, according to the Husband, a musician at heart. The soup spoon sings bass.   The special spoon, which is a Korean soup spoon, sings baritone.   Teaspoons sing soprano, while tablespoons sing alto or tenor.   Forks sing four-part harmony, of course. Salad forks? Three-part harmony! Knives are tone deaf. When they sing, the sound cuts to the heart. I didn't want the knives to feel left out, so I let them hold the music sheet for everyone. Click   here  to find other A to Z challenge participants.

"How come you have so much tripe?" I asked the Mama, as I stared at a large clear plastic bag full of white, honey-combed cow stomach lining. "Your godfather gave it to me," she said. "That's a lot of tripe. How many pounds is that? "Twenty." "What are you going to do with all that tripe?" "Put it in the freezer." I lugged the heavy bag to the big freezer in the garage. What the heck? On top of other more frozen items was another large clear plastic bag of tripe. Just as I closed the freezer, Frances, one of the Mama's friends walked up the driveway. The garage door was open. "Hello. Is your mom home?" "She's in the house. Come inside," I said. "I need to get something out of the car first," Frances said. "I have something for your mom." She ran out of the garage. I opened the door and yelled into the house, "Mama! You have a visitor." Then I went to see if...

This is the Mama's spoon, the one with which she cooked for as long as I can remember. And, for those who are new to the blog, I'm in my early 60s and the Mama is 30-some years older than me. I like cooking with the Mama's spoon. It's smooth, fits in my hand, and has the perfect heft to it. I also like the way the metal spoon sounds against a pot or pan. Most of all, I like cooking with it because it's the Mama's spoon. When I pick up the Mama's spoon, I think of her using it to stir her bittermelon chicken soup, eggplant-bittermelon stew, tabongow chicken soup, pork adobo, ginger beef, fried rice, scrambled eggs, pancit, and diningding (a soup of all the Filipino vegetables in her garden). In my mind, I see her making Thanksgiving dinner with that spoon. She sauteed the ingredients for the dressing. She basted the turkey. She mashed the potatoes with the back of the spoon. And, she stirred and stirred the gravy. She cooked a lot of meals with that...

We usually have cooked rice in the refrigerator, ready to be heated as is or made into a fast and easy fried rice dish. Rice is the one dish that the Mama usually makes. I'd rather cook it because hers comes out too dry. But, I let her prepare the rice because I think it makes her feel that she's contributing to cooking the meals. When I warm up the rice in the microwave, I just add a bit of water. So no big deal. Twice a year, the Mama sees her eye doctor who always asks,"What's your secret for long life?" "I eat rice," she tells him. "Eat rice for a long life. You don't get so many wrinkles." I don't know about that.  But, hey, she is 93 years old. Click   here  to find other A to Z challenge participants.

Yesterday the Husband and I got together with friends and hiked in the Pinnacles National Park, one of the newest parks in the National Park Service system. It had been planned for awhile, but as usual, I didn't think about what to bring for trail snacks until Saturday. We had no idea how far or how long we would hike. "What do you think about getting energy bars for the hike?" I asked the Husband. "Great idea," he said. "We can bring apples." "Okay. How about some nuts?" "Yeah." "We have carrots." "That'll be good, too." Done. Quick and easy meal planning. I always like that. Click   here  to find other A to Z challenge participants.

Going to the beach was always an all-of-a-sudden decision that the Mama and the Daddy made at some point between the moment they woke up and finished breakfast on a Sunday morning. Then, they would wake up the Older Brother and me. The Mama and Daddy got everything together. The Mama cooked a pot of rice and gathered plates, napkins, utensils, cups, cutting board, knives, blankets, towels, and so forth. The Daddy collected firewood (and later charcoal), grills, and buckets. The older I got, the more tasks I did, from gathering my own change of clothes to getting the picnic basket together and helping haul everything out to the car. We usually made two stops before we got to our favorite picnic spot on the rocky shoreline in Monterey. The first was at a mom-and-pop store on the way out of town to buy the Daddy's bottle of whiskey, Seven-Up, soda, and hot dogs. The second was at the Fisherman's Wharf where the parents bought American mackerel, squid, and other fish for lun...

I must face it. I've gotten my body out of sorts. Again. I've gained back nearly all the weight I lost last year.  It took one year for me to lose 13 pounds and four months to gain 11 pounds. Sigh and Grrr. I'm not going to cry about it. Nor whine. Nor make excuses for myself. I know what I did. Since Christmas, I've been eating desserts nearly every day, drinking beer about once a week, and not pedaling Tilda-Hilda up a hill six days a week. Pure and simple. I admit it. I overindulged and got lazy. I did it to myself. Again. This morning, I started paying attention to the wise woman inside me when we dropped the Husband's computer at the repair shop. The first thing I saw when I got out of the car was the doughnut shop two doors away. Just like Homer Simpson, my first reaction was to drool and say "Doughnuts, me want." I did not go over to the doughnut shop. As we were leaving the computer repair shop, about 20 minutes later, I thought, "Dou...

"Let's have a snack," said the Daddy. He sat in his Lazy-boy recliner, while my teenage self stretched out on the couch beside him. It was a summer night, with the doors and windows still wide open for the breeze. A rerun show played on the TV, at which I looked up now and then from the book I read. Without doubt, that scene took place around nine o'clock, the usual time the Daddy called for a snack when he was in the mood. The Daddy's favorite nighttime snack were the doughnuts without the hole that I made from canned biscuits. They were quick and easy to make, about 10 minutes, if I recall correctly. As the oil heated in the iron skillet, I opened the cardboard can of biscuits, the best part of making the doughnuts. Pow! A satisfying blow against the edge of the corner. Pop! The eight (or was it 10) small, soft, slices of dough smiled between the cardboard. Carefully, I dropped the round slices into the heated oil in the skillet. Sizzle. Sizzle. Sizzl...

Clang, clang, clang with my right hand. Clang, clang, clang with my left hand. Repeat and repeat. Then repeat again. And, again.   It always amazes me how I can get soft peaks of meringue just by beating egg whites. I'm sure there's a simple, straightforward explanation for the transformation, and maybe one day I will really want to know. Until then, I'm perfectly happy, making clang, clang noises with the egg beater against the stainless steel pan as the clear egg whites change to foam, to thicker, clingy foam, and finally to meringue. It's magic. Olé! Click   here  to find other A to Z challenge participants.

Whenever I visited the parents, and then later only the Mama, I was sent home with a care package. Lots of fresh vegetables and fruit from the garden, as well as freezer bags full of cooked rice, lumpia, pork adobo, fried chicken, and bibingka. Whether I was single or married, living alone or with roommates, food always came home with me. Much of the vegetables and fruits were given away to neighbors and friends. The cooked food went into the freezer and eventually most were eaten by friends, spouse, and myself. In my 20s, I said to the Mama, "No, no, that's too much."  In my 30s, I sighed and just accepted the food. In my 40s, I appreciated everything that she picked in her garden and cooked in her kitchen. In my 50s, the Husband and I were living with the Mama. If we had not, I'm very sure that when we visited the Mama, she would've given us lots of food to take home. And, now that I'm in my 60s, I realize that the Mama was sending her love ho...

"Maybe Molly needs a table," said the Mama, eying the barely touched breakfast plate of food on the floor. "She wouldn't be able to reach her food," I said, envisioning Molly the Cat sitting at a little kid's table. "She has too bend so low to eat," Mama said. Molly the Cat circled her plate, sniffed it, and walked away. Molly had to have been hungry. She tried to climb on my calves (yeah, I have big calves) while I was spooning her food onto her plate, which was her sign of saying "Hurry up, Human!" I set the plate down. She took a few bites and walked away. She'd been doing that for a couple of days. Maybe the Mama was onto something. I went into the hallway where a whole bunch of nothing rested and found a cardboard carton to hold take-out coffee. It was the perfect size for the plate to rest on. So, I tried it. "Come here, Molly." Molly approached her breakfast. She sniffed her makeshift table. She sat dow...

Knock, knock. Someone was at the kitchen door, which was the back door at our house on 44 Shore Road.  The Mama opened the door. I was sitting at the kitchen table, keeping her company as she prepared dinner. It was Uncle Frank, the Daddy's younger brother. He carried a tree stump in his arms.  "I cut down a tree in my back yard," said Uncle Frank, putting it down on the floor, next to the kitchen counter. "I thought it was the right size for Susie." I was four. I don't recall much of what happened other than being helped up on the stump and being able to see over the kitchen sink. I don't remember much of those very early years. But, I must've been in the kitchen a lot with the Mama. Enough so that Uncle Frank thought I should have something just for me to stand on when I was there. Click   here  to find other A to Z challenge participants.

Ice cream is one of my comfort foods. I'm tired, I want ice cream. I'm depressed, ice cream. Happy, ice cream! I eat ice cream on a very hot summer day as well as on a freezing cold winter night. I've even eaten ice cream for breakfast. That was after I walked more than five miles pushing Tilda-Hilda (my pink bike cruiser, for those who don't know) with a flat tire home. Well, four miles. The Husband walked up to meet me and pushed Tilda-Hilda the last mile. He's such a sweetheart. Lemon chiffon, chocolate, coffee, French vanilla, and pineapple-coconut are my top five ice creams. What are yours? Click   here  to find other A to Z challenge participants.