To my memory, I've never had a Chinese spring roll. I am, however a big fan of its descendant, lumpia. The word lumpia is taken from the Fukien lunpia. I just found out that in Dutch, spring rolls are termed loempia. It's a small world after all...

It's not hard to imagine why lumpia would have an international dining-ship. The concept - minced food rolled in an egg or flour-based wrapper - leaves much room for gastronomic experimentation.

The most common lumpia in the Philippines would be fresh, fried, or Shanghai, the last one being the only one meat-filled. Fresh lumpia is usually made from julienned ubod (heart of palm) lightly sauteed. This is then placed into very thin egg wrapper, rolled and then served with a sweet sauce containing garlic and peanuts. The fried version uses a wrapper that is made from flour rather than egg (though this wrapper will do for the fresh lumpia). After the vegetables are wrapped, the roll is deep fried and then served with a garlic-y, spicy vinegar.

On my list of "best lumpia ever" can be found on UP campus. The lumpia is filled with bean sprouts and some potatoes. Rather than being rolled thin and elongated, these lumpia are plumper packages and are served in a small plastic bag into which is poured a quantity of vinegar (wonderfully spiced with garlic and pepper) enough to infuse the entire lumpia without having to dip it. Beautiful. It's hard for me think of a better way to spend P10.

when it's plentiful and costs P90.

The merienda buffet at Barrio Fiesta, Megamall.

It's not a heaven of fine delicate flavors, sure. But everything is pretty good. When for P90 you can get your fill of pancit, lomi, dinuguan and puto, goto, tokwa't baboy, menudo, ginataan, palitaw, puto bumbong, and a few other items i can't remember, you know you're in for a good thing. 

Ate there recently and had a blast filling and refilling my bowl with the rice porridge from the goto, topping it off with cubes of tokwa and seasoning the whole thing with drops of soy sauce and vinegar which was quite red with the swimming sili.

A place to tank up. Go, pig out. 

today was the funeral of my sister-in-law's father. she just texted now to say that they buried him with some cigarettes and a bottle of beer. baon. unfortunately they forgot playing cards.

my uncle made a similar request years before he died and so when he did he was also buried with cigarettes, beer, and storck candy.

i see on discovery channel that archeologists rely heavily on the items buried with a person to determine their status in life. given this, i have decided to be buried with the following items just to mess them up (if anybody should happen to dig me up hundreds of years from now):

*first, make sure i'm buried far away from other people so archeologists can't associate me with my graveyard mates.

ok, here are the items -

1. a saxophone

2. an assortmenet of batteries from penlights to the big fat ones

3. a ballet shoe (yes, just one)

4. a drill

5. a make up kit

and, last but not the least

6. shabu.

i have selected an object for my affectations: wine.

i figured that at my age, i should pick up some sort of worldly expertise hahaha! but wine is not all affectations really - i do like the stuff. and not for any reasons that have to do with it improving my general state of health. i just like how it wine tastes.

but admittedly i don't know much about it. and so on an impulse i bought myself a copy of "Wine for Dummies" (currently en route from the US).  i read the reviews, checked the table of contents and saw that the book is an absolute beginner's guide discussing such basic topics as acidity, bouquet, that sort of thing. just right for me. it wouldn't hurt if i knew the terms and sounded smarter than i actually am haha.

i'm really psyched to start reading that book. probably the only "textbook" that has ever aroused my interest. trust it to have something to do with food... and even more psyched to get to a bottle of wine and test my soon to be newfound knowledge.

if only i could get those bottles open.

(if you know of any idiot-proof corkscrews, let me know hehe)