Summer Party Filipino Style

Summer Party Filipino Style in Green Bay, WI

Two good Filipino friends, mom and daughter, hosted a summer party yesterday in classic Filipino style.  The food was central, plentiful (covering a long counter and a large table) and varied.  As usual I unfortunatley neglected to take down the names of my favorite dishes, but here goes a Taglish attempt.  My perrenial favorite is pancit, and this occasion reminded me why.  Plentiful noodles (vermicelli-like), in this case with lots of veggies and chunks of chicken, and light seasonings.  There are, of course, almost endless variations of Filipino pancit.  My wife's favorite dish of the evening was a soup (mang.......) with a lentil-like base, fish-infused tofu (usually pork rinds), veggies, medium peppers and spices.  Of course, basic to the fun is the take-away at the end, where everyone is loading up on each others dishes.  We made off with plates filled with pancit (naturally) and one of the hostesses's specialties, meat kabobs (today's dinner), two different sweets (one a Wisconsin flan), and a piece of birthday cake (one ot two celebrated).  Oh, yes, and a bowl of the soup.

As always the key ingredients were the friendly people, parents and children (mostly very sophisticated-looking teenagers); the conversation often in slightly different accents and sometimes languages, flavored with jokes, laughter, and exchanges of interesting facts (I did take some notes) for future reference; friendships renewed and affirmed; very likey the most diverse group of partiers in town.