Birthdays

“Do you remember the first birthdays you had here Mum?”

“Oh we had parties together in the Nurses home… lots of food!”

You can see the can of tinned fruit cocktail in the second photo!

My earliest memories of eating different food was at Filipino parties.

There was always Pancit – fried noodles with chicken, pork and veg

Adobo – chicken/pork marinated in soy sauce and garlic

Leche Flan – kind of a Filipino creme caramel soooo delicious

and Filipino Fruit Salad – basically tinned fruit cocktail with condensed milk and sometimes there was young coconut, mango and jackfruit thrown in (which blew my tiny mind)…sometimes there was cheese in it ! and sometimes there were raisins which I picked out one by one!

The parties were loud, full of laughter and all about the buffet.

The women were so glamorous, beautifully manicured hands, fancy shoes.

“Maganda!” they would say – pinching our cheeks! I was way too shy at parties but I loved getting dressed up and hearing Tagalog and piling the food onto paper plates… my sister and me would sit with it balanced on our knees and wash it all down with coke.