A Christmas Feast

With the growing popularity of Philippine regional cuisine, Ilocano dishes are taking center stage as foodies praise its health benefits (heavy on fresh vegetables), cooking methods (mostly boiled) and also its taste. Of course, there's the other side to the healthy aspect -- a lot of salty fermented fish and lard (think bagnet)  -- which makes the dishes good enough to crave for. Positively Filipino Correspondent and food expert Elizabeth Ann Quirino writes about her recent feast in Vigan and the Ilocano treats she enjoyed, which included the poqui poqui, the traditional Ilocano Christmas dish, which is featured in our Happy Home Cook section this week.

Lotis Key-Kabigting won the Plaridel Award for First Person Essay three years in a row and she's back this week with her latest piece, "A Traveling Fool." If you're a chess enthusiast and/or a Lotis fan, you'll enjoy knowing what she's been up to all year.

And more about traveling, Filipino business executive Jose Eduardo Delgado, better known as Jed, talked to Positively Filipino contributor Serina Aidasani, about what drives him to travel the world and take great risks to satisfy his passion for adventure. Read "Wandering Jed" if you're up for some vicarious thrills.

For our Partner post this week, Positively Filipino Correspondent Myles A. Garcia writes about the annual Philippine International Aid (PIA) fundraiser, the biggest social event in the Filipino community of the San Francisco Bay Area. Now 29 years old, PIA has enabled over 43,000 poor Filipino children to go to school with scholarships and grants.

For our Video of the Week, Broadway superstar Lea Salonga introduces her daughter Nicole Chien at a concert at the PICC Plenary Hall in Manila.

A Stress-Free Christmas

Some friends are opting for a stress-free Christmas this year. They're not going shopping, they just ordered gift cards online; they're not going into a cooking frenzy, they're just ordering food or eating out; and they're staying home to do what the spirit of the season should be about -- enjoying each other's company. What a liberating concept, don't you think?

But if you're like me who gets energized by the crowds and the frenzy, you'll want to partake of the recipes we're sharing from innovative chef Rolando Laudico, from our food writer Elizabeth Ann Quirino and from Goldilocks USA to make your Noche Buena table groan with enough dishes to feed a battalion. 

Shifting to the Holy Land where it all began, a Filipino priest, Fr. Angelo Beda Ison, OFM, officiates joyously among Filipino immigrant workers as well as Christians and Muslims of all nationalities. First-time contributor Noni Mendoza tells us his story in "Happy in the Holy Land."

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Filipino heritage is celebrated and documented with The Field Museum's 10,000 Kwentos Project -- storytelling sessions about various regions in the Philippines in conjunction with the museum's extensive collection of Philippine artifacts. Rey E. de la Cruz elaborates in "Ten Thousand Stories in Chicago's The Field Museum."

For those who are seeking avenues for sharing this holiday season, how about sponsoring the education of an underprivileged child in the Philippines for 40 cents a day or $150 a year? Check out our Partner post this week on the Philippine International Aid. PIA recently held its annual fundraiser with a fashion show featuring the creations of Criselda Lontok. Beyond the glamour and the festivity, however, is the very real (and well-documented) charity work of PIA which TV journalist Lloyd LaCuesta fittingly captures in our Video of the Week, "The Special Children"

A technical glitch last week cut short my blog so we have reposted the complete version of "The Gravity of Vanity."