Friday Five -- 5 Autumn dishes I like to make

Milton Votee park in Teaneck. Taken 10/31/2004.


Five dishes I like to make in the Fall. Notice how they're all Thanksgiving dishes (except for the last one). That's because Thanksgiving is one of the rare times I cook anything all year.

1. Roast turkey. For the first 45 minutes of roasting I place slabs of bacon all over the turkey, holding them in place with toothpicks, and I let the bacon fat (er, I mean, taste) drip onto the turkey. Big thanks to Mrs. Scarpulla for this tip. For the rest of the roasting time I baste the turkey with butter mixed with a combo of ground spices. Bottom of the roasting pan has 4-6 cups of chicken stock along with thyme, rosemary, sage, garlic, and onions.

This year I cut up the bacon and, instead of shovelling them all down my greedy little mouth, I refried them with string beans and garlic. Who says I never serve vegetables?

2. Homemade stuffing -- I usually use the James Beard recipe. Dee-lish. (Though the recipe I use is from the book How to Cook Everything and is slightly different from the link I provided. I add porcini and white mushrooms in my stuffing.)

3. Candied yams. Score! Here's one way to do it, though I use 1 cup of brown sugar, not 3/4 cup.

4. Mac and cheese. Not from the box, people. And please don't use the word "Velveeta" around me.

5. Broccoli baked with cheese and bread crumbs. Fattening, but quite comfy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! This year I am spending it cooking for the family. Fourth year in a row, but who's counting?

Above photo taken on Nov. 28, 2003. No, it's not from a magazine. Yes, it was I who made the turkey. No, I didn't photoshop the picture -- it really did come out golden brown like that. Yes, it was quite delicious. No, it didn't take 6 hours; it took more like 9 hours. Yes, Lorin did help do some chopping and lifting and mashing while I made the rest of the meal.

The little dishes of baked squash alongside the turkey were made by my friend Ken.

Foliage - 1993

Part of the Nature Preserve at SUNY Binghamton. Photo taken Fall 1993 (when Teaneck T was a junior in college).

Would you freakin believe that THIS was the view outside my bedroom window? Das right. Everyday for a whole year I would wake up, look out my dorm, and **this** wondrous delight was what greeted me. The state of the leaves varied through the course of the year, but the sky was almost always an incredible shade of blue like this one.

I loved loved LOVED living in those Hillside dorms. It wasn't a standard dorm -- it was more like a cottage townhouse situated on the outer hills of campus (hence the name). Oftentimes I would see a family of deer grazing right outside my window.

Those Binghamton years made a nature-loving freak out of me. Ever since then I've always preferred hiking over shopping, mountains over cities, and quiet landscapes over bustling crowds. This New York City kid was never the same after Binghamton.

Foliage - circa 1991

Cookie, me, Mom, Ate. Photo taken on October 1991 in Binghamton, NY by my dad.

Background story: It was my first year away from home. There I was on a college campus 3 hours north of New York City. Boo hoo hoo to homesick me! More like double boo hoo hoo for my family, who missed me. So on a nice crisp autumn day in 1991, they drove up to visit the lonely runaway child. A lucky bonus for all of us was that it happened to be peak foliage that weekend in upstate NY.

Sorry this wasn't a close-up, folks. How we all looked back then will be shrouded in history.

This week: Foliage

Hey, what's the deal? I come back from the Philippines and -- bang! -- foliage peak season is over. No leaf peeping for me, which this photo junkie is quite sad about.

So in honor of what I missed this year, I'm making this week's photo theme on Fall foliage. I love Fall! I love the colors, the weather, the clothes! I love everything about it! Heck, I got married on the first day of Fall -- that's how much I love it! To have missed this year's season is a sheer crime.

Well anyway. Above picture was taken on October 30, 2004 in one of 'em Teaneck, NJ parks. Cheers to you, Teaneck. You are as lovely as my blog name.

Friday Five -- 5 Things About My Trip to the Philippines

Mayon Volcano as seen in Cagsawa, Bicol. Photo taken 11/3/05.


Yes, I know this is supposed to be a photoblog, but when did I ever follow self-imposed rules? All it takes is one new brilliant idea by self to throw the whole previously-constructed brilliant idea, also by self, for a major loop.

So here goes. I'm starting this new thang which I can only call "Friday Five." Simply put, every Friday I will post 5 answers to a self-given survey. Or at least I will try to post 5 answers to a self-given survey. The answers will not be in any order, but thrown out willy-nilly, off the top of my head, off the cuff, etcetera etcetra...

Anyway. To launch this new fandangled idea I hereby start with:

5 Things I Liked About My Trip to the Philippines:

1. Having a wonderful time with my uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, and grandnephews whom I had not seen in 24 years or had never met before.

2. Eating good barbecue and garlic rice at Inasal sa Bacolod or whatever that chain is called which they have in malls. And eating ube ice cream.

3. Seeing my childhood places in Bicol, in particular my grandparents' home which we used to visit every Holy Week.

4. Finding lots of unique scenes or vistas to photograph.

5. Seeing the Mayon Volcano in various weather and shade over the course of four days.

Uncle Ning (my mom's brother) posing in front of a bakery in Tagaytay. He is one of the kindest, humblest, most patient, no-frills human beings I've ever known. Photo taken 10/31/05.

Parked tricycles in Tagaytay. Didn't get to ride in one. Photo taken 10/31/05.

Our Lady of Managwa

Our Lady of Managwa in Tagaytay. Statue rises 3 stories high. This place is a meditation and healing center, with some **bizarro** stories that happened to yours truly while inside. If you don't believe in miracles then consider what happened to me a figment of my imagination. Photo taken 10/31/05.

In foreground, standing in profile, is my Auntie Vil (my Mom's older sister). Mom is the dame with the red shirt whose back is to the camera.

Take 2 -- the photoblog phoenix rises

Turns out I was just kidding re the previous entry. I'm back from the Philippines. Up until this month I hadn't visited since I left the country at age nine. It was an important trip -- I seem to have come full circle. Which means it's time to create a new one. So now that I'm on "take 2" mode let me resuscitate this site, at the very least so that relatives from across the vast ocean can see ongoing pics of life among NY Montoyas -- or at least life according to me and my photosnapping fingers.

This is Taal Volcano in Tagaytay. Photo taken 10/31/05, which was my second day in the Philippines. Taal is the smallest volcano in the world. Didn't know that until I saw the fact emblazoned in souvenir shirts at a gift shop. It was overcast that day, which was great for recently sun-poisoned me.