All Saints' Day

“Oh how the candles will be lit and the wood of worm burn in a fiery dust. For on all Hallow's Eve will the spirits come to play, and only the fruit of thy womb will satisfy their endless roaming.”  ~ Solange Nicole

All Saints' Day or Todos los Santos is celebrated in the Philippines today, November 1st.  Filipinos observe this day solemnly by visiting graves of dead relatives, offering prayers and flowers, lighting candles, cleaning and repairing graves.

Horny dog - Ruby Tuesday

Tired from trick or treatin' on Halloween, Fritzie, my horny dog, was resting by the candlelight---we had no power, courtesy of typhoon Santi.

Posted for Ruby Tuesday

Lasang Pinoy-Sundays: Halloween

These are the Halloween food I grew up with---palitaw and suman or biko. Palitaw, muase in Ilonggo, is a small flat rice cake topped with grated coconut mixed with sugar (or muscovado) and toasted sesame seeds. Suman, popularly known as biko, is another sticky rice recipe cooked in coconut milk and muscovado. I mastered making palitaw one summer vacation when I was about 12 and there was nothing else to do. That summer, aside from palitaw, I also learned how to make lanson (from cassava) and linupak (from boiled banana). Palitaw is actually very easy to prepare---just drop scoops of galapong (batter of sticky rice) into boiling water. Flat disks would float when they are done.

The palitaw on top was my dessert at Via Mare last weekend, and my mother cooked the yummy biko this afternoon.

More Lasang Pinoy treats at SpiCes.