It's a Beautiful World

My sister, Ene , who lives in Los Angeles, sent me a pic of the cake she's been wanting to bake for their Thanksgiving dinner, the Blitz Torte . Today, she spent the afternoon baking the cake. I could not make the picture any bigger. I believe the pic was taken from a camera phone and was texted to my cell phone, which in turn, I sent to my email, so I could post it online. Anyway, here's the picture of the cake (above). Happy Thanksgiving in advance my dear sis, in case I get so busy on thanksgiving day and I forget to greet you (like I always do). Regards to Scott (my bro-in-law), Sunshine and Alan Malapitan with their two sons, AJ (a talented musician) and John (the whiz kid), to Millette (how's the doctor?), and to Den-Den (sassy lady) and hubby Sal , and her beautiful daughter, Misha . Happy thanksgiving to brothers Eddie Enriquez (from Manila) and JJ Enriquez (From Sydney), who are currently in L. A. visiting their bother, Scott and his family.

Ann Lodolini Whenever I get a chance, I try to teach myself new things. Today, I tinkered with photoshop. The photo (at the bottom) above was taken two weeks ago when Bernard and Ann were dressing up for the wedding of Nick Peruzzaro's (Bernard's best friend) brother, Dominic Peruzzaro and his fiancee, Paola. The two top photos were taken at Laguna Beach, California at the beautiful residence of Drs. Freddie and Bien Cruz.

Not everyone likes to eat broccoli. The only way I can make my children eat this highly nutritious veggie is by making it palatable to their taste. Steamed broccoli bathe in Hollandaise Sauce is a favorite, but the braised broccoli with thinly sliced sirloin beef is a winner. Today's lunch was a healthy dish that everyone enjoyed. If you like to see the recipe, go to my other site:www.cookingenthusiast.blogspot.com.

School's over. A lot of kids will be joining some camps, swimming lessons, dance lessons, self-defense classes, arts and crafts, softball, baseball, and many activities the community offers its residents to enroll their children this summer. As for my granddaughter, I offered to teach her how to bake this summer. We started our baking last week by making Chocolate cupcakes. Samantha was so interested to participate in this one on one lessons in what it takes to make a cake from setting the temperature of the oven , familliaring her with the different kinds of cake pans, different measuring cups, spoons, how flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and other ingredients look like. She can read. And that helped a great deal in teaching her. She is also a fast learner and remembers everything you tell her. Today she made her first cake, a Pound Cake , with her grandma's supervision, of course. The whole process didn't take long, about 20 to 30 minutes. The

We have to pause here to let the dough rise for two hours. I will post some pics again for the finished products. Hope you like the pics of the finished products above. I cannot find the words how excited and motivated Sam was while we were making these breads. At first, she was going all over the place without direction and when I taught her how to knead the dough, she easily got it. She had so much energy and she really proved me her talent. The pan de sal turned out to be so good. You don't even have to put anything on them. They're filling and they taste really good.