Our International Cooking group is celebrating the Philippines tonight with a fiesta in East Hawaii, it was a beautiful event held last night. Most of the diners from our cooking group love to experience new cuisines, enjoy the food and spend the time to catch up and talk about the various ingredients and dishes made throughout the Philippine Islands.
The event started with a vinegar tasting and demonstration. Filipinos use many differents types of vinegar to first extend the shelf life of their dishes and to add an accent sour flavoring. Vinegar is used in many of their dishes, including marinades, sauces, soups and a variety of meats, fishes, vegetables, stir fries and all manners of uses. We tasted palm, coconut and a sugar cane vinegar and learned about the different uses for each vinegar.
Afterwards, we had a cooking demonstration making a local lumpia dish where you have to separate the lumpia wrappers and then fill them with a shrimp, pork and vegetable mix topped with a glazed sweet sauce, raw minced garlic and peanuts, quite an interesting mixture of sweet and sour and pungent garlic.
This followed with another dish called ukoy made of shrimp, onions and juilienned potatoes finished with our sour vinegar and pepper sauce that we made in the demonstration.
As you can see all the centerpieces, the bar and serving areas were filled with our exotic orchids and tropical plants which added to the visual and tropical experience of the fiesta.
The flowers are inserted into large bamboo poles like a horizontal vase that covered the entire table below
Aaaah, its time to start with the appetizers and the main course...see how quickly our group heads to the star attraction... which is the eating!
Seating around and eating...everyone is quiet and concentrating on the different dishes, sauces and food sensations that many are not accustomed to eating with Filipino dishes.
The last event was a talk about the native plants that are grown and prepared for the typical meal, then an amazing slide show presentation, highlighting the various cultures and history of this nation of over 7,000 islands, quite a mixture of many culture and influences.
A few more shots of friends that showed up for the event and even dressed in local tribal outfits and other Filipino attire.
Thank you for coming and visiting our event, I hope you enjoyed our Sunday Fiesta from the Philippines...come and take any of the orchid displays home if you wish they should last you awhile since the flowers were just picked this morning.
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