Mothers Who Brunch: Holiday Potluck

Christmas is just around the corner. Our family's schedule is slowing being filled with parties and get together with relatives and friends. To avoid putting the burden of food preparation solely on one person, the more popular thing to do among my circle of friends is to have potluck.  That is usually a great idea...if you know how to cook!  For non-kitchen savvy people like me, I usually default to my list of food to order. It's not as exciting as bringing your own dish but sometimes it will have to do. So for Christmas this year, I am determined to learn.
 

A few weeks ago, I attended my first Christmas party for 2015. The invite says "potluck" but I did not need to bring anything.  Instead, we were to learn how to prepare a couple of easy potluck dishes in time for the holiday season.  Oh, the joy.  Aside from the fact that Michelle (of MommaInManila) is one of the most gracious hosts I know, I was also excited to jumpstart this year's personal kitchen challenge. And so that was how I found myself driving along SkyWay towards the south of Manila one early Saturday morning.

The event started with a beautiful ham and cheese spread, the highlight of which was the truffle honey. It was just amazing. I wanted to pour the truffle honey over everything on my plate. I am not exaggerating. I really wanted to. I will schedule that visit to Santi's very soon to get my own jar.

While waiting for the program to start, the servers went around serving champagne and this fantastic Jalapeno Beef Fingers by NawwTy's Kitchen . I do not fancy spicy food but this one was too good to miss. The hint of spice was just enough for me. The pesto spread made it even more spectacular. Just talking about it now made me crave for it again. I will need to order this soon. 

Our awesome server. I forgot to get his name but it's worth mentioning that he was very cheerful all throughout the event. He happily asked us if we needed our drinks refilled and came back again and again to serve more food. I love people who love their jobs! Kudos to NawwTy's Kitchen for your very professional staff.

We spent a lot of time eating, drinking and being merry. The Viking Showroom in Alabang is such a beautiful place.  It is built to look like a two-story house with a living room, kitchen and small dining area. It felt like a holiday party at a friend's house.

Then Michelle and Sabrina (of Sinfully Sabrina) began their cooking demonstration in the beautiful Viking Kitchen.

 And true to a all blogger events, there were a lot of photo coverage.

This is a sneak peak of Tin (of ManilaFashionObserver) doing her thing. The magic that happens behind the lenses. 

Then Mish talked about the beauty of the Viking Kitchen. Apparently, Viking, a US brand, is already known to a lot of commercial establishments for years. It first introduced their kitchen range for personal use in 1987, making housewives and foodies feel like professional chefs in their own homes.

Check out this double-door refrigeration system. Freezer on the left and refrigerator on the right. I particularly like how the freezer shelves do not go too deep so that all your food items are visible when you open the door. Nothing gets hidden at the back. Check out more of their product line in www.vikingrange.com.ph

Many oohs and aahs later from our Viking Kitchen tour, brunch was served.  The food was nothing short of amazing.  We had Apple and Sausage stuffed Turkey, Crab Fat Paella, Prawn Salad and so much more. Our brunch was courtesy of NawwTy's Kitchen.  They can do full-service catering or food delivery for your events. Last year they had to make 16 turkeys in one day to fulfill the orders for Thanksgiving. So make sure you order early so that they can still accomodate you.  

This is the part where I will let the photos do the talking.

 

Now the eye-candy does not end there. Let's move on to the dessert spread prepared by The Flour Girl .  The dessert table doubled as the living room centerpiece. They were that pretty! They were almost too beautiful to eat!  

 

Now here are more photos courtesy of our event photographer that day, Jay Santos ,who also did portrait shots of each guest. That was a such a classy and wonderful alternative to the usual photo booths.  Made us feel like models for a day.

 

Here is Michelle of MommaInManila, Trish of NawwTy's Kitchen, Dara of  Collab Contessa, and Sabrina of Sinfully Sabrina

They raffled off some prizes at the end of the event and I won this beautiful handcrafted bracelet made by Rica of Rich Earth Jewelry. Check out her Instagram account @richearthjewelry

Nobody left empty-handed. I had to ask the manong to help me carry all the things we got to bring home to my car.

Thank you once again, Mish and Sabrina, for inviting me. It was one of the best holiday parties I have ever attended.  Surely felt like Christmas in November.

The Viking Showroom is located at Unit 205,

Westgate Commercial Center, Filinvest City,

Muntinlupa, Metro Manila.

For information, call 828-1363.



Read more...

How to Prepare for Your Photo Shoot

I love taking pictures of my family!  The thing is, since i am the designated photographer, i noticed that we seldom get good family pictures. Most of the good shots are of the kids, or Dens and the kids, but seldom one that includes me.  So when The Picture Company offered the SoMoms a photo session with our respective families, i did not hesitate. 

As soon as i booked our session with them, i was contacted by our would-be photographer, Crystal Whang, from their Rockwell branch. She asked me questions about our family - from our hobbies to our personalities. It was a fun preparation for the shoot. Crystal also sent me some pictures and color schemes to choose from so that we can prepare well and ensure that our outfits do not clash with each other.

I did my own preparation and laid out our outfits on the bed the night before. This is to see how well they will turn out in the photos.

I also made sure that our photo shoot is scheduled at a time when the kids are neither sleepy nor hungry. This will help them be more cooperative during the shoot. 

We got there 15 minutes before our scheduled time. This helps get the kids more acquainted with the place and the photographer.

We bumped into Conci (blairbitchbunny.com) and her entire closet!!! (talbog ako sa outfit preparations mo, Conci!)

Mac desktops where you can view your pictures immediately after your shoot

The shoot was fun. My son was very cooperative but my daughter was not smiling naturally during our family portraits! Crystal would make her laugh then she'd revert to her awkward smile once again.  Sometimes we'd have good pictures of her laughing but Troy would be looking somewhere else.  It's a bit of a challenge taking pictures of multiple kids.  Amidst all that, we were not stressed at all.  It was a conscious decision to just have fun and roll with it!  We were all laughing at various silly poses that the kids wanted to do. I love that Crystal was also laughing and having fun with us. There was a time when Crystal couldn't take the shot anymore because she kept on laughing at Troy who wanted to pose like an old man!

After selecting your pictures, you can order Christmas cards like the one below. It's a great way to capture multiple photos on one page. You can send these to friends and relatives abroad who do not see your children so often.

The Christmas package also comes with a gift card that you can use as gift tags! See ours below.

The good news is that you can also have you family pictures taken for FREE! Just print or take a screen shot of the coupon below and schedule an appointment with any Picture Company branch (contact details below). This promo is valid until December 15, 2013 only.

Power Plant Mall - 898 2657, Greenbelt 5 - 756 0020,  Bonifacio High Street - 856 1232, 

The Podium - 634 2632, Alabang Town Center - 809 7370, SM Mall of Asia - 556 0165, 

SM North 351 6184, Ayala Center Cebu (032) 268 2241

Read more...

Ayala Triangle Light Show

December has been the usual busy season.  I love Christmas and always get butterflies in my stomach as the season approaches.  I kept on thinking to myself during the start of the month that i have been too busy with a lot of things and have not truly felt that lovely Christmas feeling yet. Christmas was fast approaching and it felt like i was in a race to finish a lot of things.

Last December 20, our family scheduled our first family Christmas activity for 2011.  We parked our car in Greenbelt and trekked to the much talked about light show at the Ayala Triangle.

We got there around 6:30pm and decided to have dinner first. There's a row of nice restaurants in the area but since most people were waiting for the show, the line to get a table anywhere was pretty long. We finally got a table at Amici and had dinner until around 8:30pm. The light show ran every 30 minutes so the next one to catch was at 9pm. That was the last show for the night and was a good one to catch since the lights would stay on after the show. This meant more photo opportunities.

The waiting did not feel so long as we enjoyed the park and cool weather (as cool as it can get in Metro Manila). I have to hand it to Ayala when it comes to developing and maintaining real estate projects. The park at the Ayala Triangle was pretty well maintained considering it is public and free.

The show started at exactly 9pm and ran for about 15 minutes, i think. It was a pretty awesome show of lights and sounds.

The green leaf things turned into bright stars

Dancing LED lights in multiple colors

Touch a falling star...

...and poke your hand inside

View from Ayala Avenue

I don't know if it was the magical musical score, the blinking LED lights, or being surrounded by my family and seeing other families embrace their kids and take pictures endlessly...but i finally felt the Christmas spirit that night. As my daughter, in her favorite baby sling, rested her tiny head on my chest and as i took pictures of the rest of my family, the butterflies came. I had that nice tingling feeling in my stomach once again. Christmas is here.

Awesome.

Read more...