"That my cackle!"

My 3-year old niece Leilani loves castles. It's mostly my mom's and my fault. For the first 2 1/2 years of her life, we took her to Disneyland because she was free. Even if it was just the 3 of us, we'd go for a couple of days. Eventually, Sleeping Beauty's castle became her "cackle." It didn't help that before every Disney movie - which she's being raised on, like my brothers and I were - they show the Disney castle. Now that she's 3 and we have to pay for her, she asks to go to Disneyland to see her "cackle" and "Mickey Mou." We're not going to be taking her to Disneyland any time soon because we're cheap and Asian, so we'll bring the castle to her.

I wasn't able to make it to Leilani's 1st birthday and she didn't have a 2nd birthday party, so I wanted to totally make it up to her for 3rd birthday. I offered my mom that I'd take care of the cake, which we decided would be cupcakes. I knew instantly I wanted to make it castle-themed. I had seen the big castle cake molds and the giant cupcake that can be decorated into a castle, but I wanted it to be more unique and special for her. After looking around online, I saw an Instructables page for a castle cupcake stand out of recycled materials. I knew that I could do that, but bigger and better.

I grabbed my sketchbook and found the best picture of the Disneyland castle I could find. Luckily, I had taken a really nice one during my 28th birthday trip to Disneland with my girlfriend. I took measurements and silhouettes and made a rough blueprint of the castle. I even had my brother - Leilani's daddy - take a look at the sketch. At my job, every night they have a box for the CNAs to get supplies. Instead of taking the box to the recycle bin, I took it home every night for about a week. I collected empty toilet paper tubes from work, along with my own. I eat Progresso soup anyways, so I didn't have to spend extra money for big cans to use for the support. And I went to Michael's for decorations. Since it's the holidays, there were a lot of sales.

For some reason, I always take a break from my building. Maybe it's to regroup my thoughts and evaluate my decision. I had made the tiers (3 layers of cardboard), stacked on the cans, and bordered the tier edges with scrapbook ribbon. I made a few towers and just placed them on the cupcake stand. Then my project sat for a while, maintaining a mess on my "craft table." Finally, I got my stuff together, and scrambled everything complete. Sadly, I didn't do as good of a job because I lost my tacky glue, and I forgot about using a hot glue gun until my dad pointed it out to me at the party. It was mostly ghetto rigged with Elmer's glue, scotch tape and bamboo skewers. I need to work on my stability issues...

What I was most proud of was my working drawbridge! I spent about an hour or so on it, mostly because I decided to do it last minute, then I had to figure out the logistics. But it worked! It could go down, then pull up with a string. Of course, it's the first thing my niece broke when she got to the castle. Note to self: working parts are NOT a good idea around 3-year olds.

The castle was a big hit. Especially because it was so big! The base was 21" x 21", and about 2 1/2 feet tall. But it looked so clean (from afar). Maybe because I was the artist, all I could see were the flaws. My mom bragged to all her friends that I was the one who made it; most people thought we bought it! Sadly, my 9-year old cousin ran into the table and the tiers came toppling over (remember: I forgot hot glue). She cried, of course, but most of it was salvagable. Plus, I got my picture before the accident.

The cupcakes were nummy! I made pink velvet (from scratch) with blue cream cheese frosting, and Pilsbury Funfetti with two frostings: strawberry Mickey Mouse heads and chocolate Mickey Mouse heads. My 11-year old niece and 9-year old cousin found my stash of plain Funfetti cupcakes and wiped me out. My mom was disappointed in me because I got lazy and used store-bought frosting instead of making my usual homemade cream cheese frosting. But my mom is hard to please. Everyone else enjoyed the cupcakes. I made about 80 cupcakes. I had 2 dozen left to bring to work for leftovers, and I even had to hide some for myself.

All in all, it was a success. I'm going to make some business cards. On one side, I'll have "RN, BSN". The other side will say "cardboard artist."

Old Enough for Pulutan

Pulutan is Filipino for "drunk people food." Well, that's not the translation but that's the meaning. Especially in my family. I can remember lots of Filipino parties where I'd run around playing with my cousins until late at night, when I would accidentally run into the garage where the uncles are all drinking and eating food not at he rest of the party. One time, one of my uncles tried to get me to eat his version of sisig: pig intestines in vinegar with onions and calamansi. I was disgusted, especially when my dad laughed, reach his hand in to take a bite and say, "See? It's good!" I never thought I'd eat sisig again in my life.
However, people grow up and tastes change. And I finally had GOOD sisig with edible parts of the pig and other seasonings. To add to that, with the whole food truck craze, one of the most popular Filipino dishes found is sisig. (I love you, Senor Sisig truck!)
I love experimenting with new recipes, so I thought I could try to make my own sisig. I searched and searched until I found a decent recipe. You can read the 'I Love Sisig' blog where I found the recipe for the history (and recipe) of sisig.
The reason I chose now to make sisig was because Whole Foods had pork shoulder for $2.99! Whole Foods! Cheap meat! I KNOW!!! And I'm turning into my mom, because I basically got the butcher to give me the already cut pork shoulder (which was more expensive) for the $2.99 price. I'm becoming more and more Filipino with age!

I invited my friend Ronna, who's like a little sister, to come and help me experiment with my new recipe. I was trying to show her how to cook, but that really wasn't happening what with the World Series on and all.... And, since alcohol is pretty much a requirement, I enjoyed some vodka in my calamansi juice.

My sisig was AMAZING!!! Not as good as the sisig my friend gets in Santa Clara, but better than my local food trucks. (Blasphemous, I know!) Ronna was also impressed with my cooking abilities, and we both hella chowed down. We ate it with rice since I didn't buy any tortillas, and I figured we should eat it the pinoy way. What I love about cooking something new is that I don't know what to expect. I know what sisig is supposed to taste like, but, like in any culture, there are a thousand recipes for the same dish that each version can taste different. Like many Filipino dishes, the base was soy sauce and vinegar, with garlic and onions. But I think the biggest difference in this dish is the technique of cooking. I got to bust out my indoor grill, practice my dicing skills, and use my mom's old seasoned wok with the love and resin of 25 years of Asian cooking. Plus, there was a 4.0 earthquake while I was cooking. I stopped, looked at my friend, called to my gf in our bedroom and said, "Honey, are you ok?" Then, I went on with my business while Ronna and I laughed at the earthjiggle. I didn't even feel the earthquake earlier today, but I felt this one. But it didn't phase me. I truly am a Cali girl.

It was only hampered by the fact that I had a crazy case of the hiccups after. And, for $6, I still have enough for leftovers. We'll see if my Filipino coworkers think my cooking is as good as I think.