where i get it

this is my mama + i.

my mama is filipina and my papa is caucasian (filipino woman marries white guy. classic love story). mama likes to cook. food is how she shows her love to her family and friends, and that often includes lumpia, pancit, fried rice and chicken adobo. all traditional filipino foods. my love of cooking comes from the woman that gave me life and i find myself using cooking as a way to show my family and friends how much i love them.

i stumbled across the blog, happy jack eats, when i was just starting to think it was time for me to carve out a spot for my love of food, cooking and eating in its own little corner of the blogworld. i was thinking up possible blog names and then googling them to see if they were already taken. my friend mary had just commented on my personal blog that i've always been happy jack in her eyes. hmmm... hungry happy jack? happy jack cooks? ahhh...happy jack eats!

i googled it (such a funny term that did not exist 10 years ago) and saw that someone already had a food blog with that name. argh. at first, i was irritated and disappointed since it felt right to me and just rolllled off the tongue, but then my curiosity got the better of me and i clicked on the blog and began reading it.

oh my.

first off, let me say that its a great blog with tasty and real recipes and that i already like her voice. i may or may not have just spent last night and most of today reading her blog and bookmarking recipes to try out.

next, let me say that her name is jacqui, she's filipino and she has a food blog (with a name that i thought of as well!). she also appears to love eggs benedict, ramen soup with an egg cracked in and a fried egg on top of most things, as much as i do. mmm....eggs.

the co-incidents are kinda crazy, right?

anyhoo, many of her posts are about traditional filipino food and that made me realize that i have no posts about filipino food. zero. zilch. my poor ancestors are probably deeply ashamed of me for this.

it also made me realize that i don't even make any of these dishes. please don't misunderstand me, daniel and i love all of these dishes. and yet,  i've never (for shame) made chicken adobo. i only make lumpia on special occasions, like to take to a potluck (its always the first thing gone, get it while its hot!) and i've never made pancit. i have been in the kitchen umpteen times with mom and my sis in our own mini assembly line- chopping scallions, turning carrots into matchsticks and snapping the ends off of snow peas in prep for the pancit, but i've yet to make it on my own.

i find all of this highly ridiculous and totally unacceptable.

so, thank you, jacqui, writer and voice of  happy jack eats, for inspiring me to start paying more attention to the food of my culture and to get in my kitchen and cook. salamat po! (this means many thanks in tagalog)

first up? next week,  my mama's pancit recipe!

check out jacqui's family recipes for chicken adobo, pancit and lumpia.

and who knows? maybe next time you invite me to your potluck i will fry up some mouth watering, crispy, salty, savory delicious lumpia.