Pepper Pin Playground

Amidst today's plans and activities, I was craving for this certain Filipino delicacy that I can't seem to buy just from anywhere. Googling it, I found myself time to try making something new - "Palitaw". Hence, I decided to make an appreciation post it and share to the world how good it is (and what you're missing out if you haven't tried it!).

This is a famous Filipino flat sweet rice cake dessert that's quite easy to do, considering it's no bake as I couldn't resist myself from doing it myself. Notice from the photo above, Palitaw is usually served with coconut gratings and mascuvado (raw sugar), topped with white sugar and sesame seeds.

How to make Palitaw:

The dough that was actually made during the process is the same dough we use in mochi, a Japanese rice cake, and in the black sesame rice ball, a traditional Chinese dessert. See photos below.

Note that the outer filling is the rice dough. You mix it with different food colorings as well.

You can read more about the Chinese rice ball dessert in detail here: 

http://ladyandpups.com/2014/02/21/inside-out-black-sesame-sticky-rice-balls-eng/

Personally, Filipino desserts have this standing-out flavor compared to others. I find it sweet yet bland (I don't understand it myself either), but it makes me crave for it sometimes. Aside from Palitaw, I really recommend trying out puto bumbong, a very distinct purple dessert, usually eaten during Christmas season.  

This Filipino delicacy is cooked in a very unique steamer. It is usually a metal kettle, shaped with protruding tubes on top of the base to hold the "bumbong".

Check out the recipe here : http://www.pinoyhapagkainan.com/puto-bumbong/

These two top my must-try Filipino desserts. And if you took notice, both are best eaten with muscavado (raw sugar). Yes, I love the muscavado taste! It has this different texture and leaves off a different flavor compared to white and brown sugar. Now that I think of it, maybe I crave for Palitaw and Puto Bumbong just so I can have a taste of muscovado, but, nah, the desserts themselves are really good! It's just that the muscovado enhaces the flavor. *wink wink* 

Of course, there's still lots of Filipino good food out there but this ends my first food post. Good day! :)

When thinking of usernames or passwords, we always try to use numbers that have some sort of meaning to use like birthdays and anniversaries. And believe it or not, numbers play a very important role to Chinese culture. Studying the dates when is the best time to get married, when is the appropriate time to have a child, picking which combination/s will bring luck or fortune, even sometimes as simple as cellphone numbers and house numbers is quite common. I don't know if this can be considered as superstitions but as far as I'm concerned, Chinese are very well-involved in this kind of practice.

Source from Google Images

Okay, so starting off with the lucky numbers! Zero (O) or 零 (líng) in Chinese is considered lucky because it is an even number and often associated with money (cha-ching!). Well, how really, I don't know it came to this. Maybe because of the number of zeros in money denominators (10s, 100s, 1000s, and so on). 

The number two (2) or 二 (èr), 两(liang) in Chinese is a lucky number as there is a Chinese saying that goes "good things will come in pairs". It's very common to encounter this symbol 喜which stands for happiness though in Chinese weddings, it's more often written like this 囍 which actually still means and pronounced the same way, but if you notice, it's written as pairs to symbolize the happiness of the marriage.

Source from Google Images

Three (3) or 三 (sān) , on the other hand, is considered lucky as it represents the "three" stages in life - child, adult and elderly or birth, marriage and death (it goes the same way). 

Now, more so often before, the number six (6) always appear in three's in Western horror/scary films that brings misfortune and symbolizes the devil or hell; however, in Chinese culture, it's an extremely lucky number - the more, the better, even - because this number or 六 ( liù ) has the same sound which also means flow or smooth. Chinese think the number six (6) is a great number to represent businesses, with a mindset that fortune would flow in and business would operate smoothly.

The luckiest of the lucky numbers is the number eight (8). This number is greatly valued that there's a mall in Binondo, Manila (considered as the Chinatown of the city) called 888 Meisic Hall. It's so special because eight (8) or  八 (bā) has a very similar pronunciation to 發 (fā) which means to be wealthy. Moreover, if you turn 8 to the side, it becomes an infinity symbol; hence, infinite wealth!

Source from Google Images