don't we all look gorgeous?! :-) .. this was taken at our x'mas luncheon last sunday at the beautiful home of hostess and host extraordinaire susan and kit aguado. also attending were mariange (bethV's eldest), harish (claudia's hubby), george (beckie's), mark (malu's) .. and dennis! (bing's), to whom we owe thanx for taking such a lovely photo. [there are more pix, which i'll send to medy for our website]

a fun and delicious time was had by all!! cocktails and sushi for starters .. pancit palabok, rellenong bangus, chicken galantina, crispy pata, kare-kare .. "malú's bagoong" and a real-deal green mango (not just an unripe mexican one) .. fruit and cakes for dessert .. plus Mary Grace ensaimadas and tuna skin chicharon from bonnie (thank you, bonnie and courier-ing daughter anda)!

we girls enjoyed our meal at the dining room table, while kit 'held court' with the boys at the kitchen table ..
do you know, it was a toss-up which group was laughing louder!?! (it's always good when the guys get along) .. below are (L-R) harish, dennis, kit and mark .. george came much later as he was showing a house to potential clients. [sayang we have no pix of george or beautiful mariange]

we M&Ms did our gift exchange by picking numbers .. everyone was so tickled! .. it turned out, we exchanged gifts by pairs!: bechay got l'occitane products (which she loves) from bing, and bing got bechay's magenta fringe-y/sparkly bag of scented candles, notepad, address book .. beckie got a jade bracelet made by betty lopez (guess from whom?), and i got from beckie the sweetest girlie-girl set of notepad, photo album, photo holder, photo box, and mirror .. susan got a 'caserola' (bing's word) from claudes, and claudes got a crystal candle-holder/vase from susan. it was as if Someone guided the picking of the numbers because everyone got the perfect gift!

(KJ's! :-) claudia and harish excused themselves early to go home and feed their cats! (kasi they'd stayed in The City the nite before for harish's office x'mas party) .. the remaining M&Ms 'retired' to the smaller fireplace room, admiring the beautiful hung stockings and all the lovely details of susan's x'mas decorating (all over the house) .. nibbler that i am, i made quick trips to/fro the kitchen to put out tuna chicharon and suka't bawang, and manga't bagoong .. needless to say, we talked non-stop about everything : family, health, real estate, retirement, business, recipes, etc!

speaking of business and recipes, bing (i spoke to her just now) insists i tell you all that i've been test-marketing "Malú's Bagoong" (and that she is the person to contact for customer service daw :-) .. as many of you already know (from tasting/ordering or just my excited e-mail), i decided this holiday season to make batches of my sautéed bagoong to see if indeed it would sell. my family and some of the girls (elen, evita, jo, fay, chit, au) have been encouraging me to try. well, it's been selling faster than i can make it!! .. i brought a jar to enjoy with our feast last sunday, and a few to sell (they did) .. many of the east coasters, who had it at the southport mini, have bought up a bunch! .. just this past weekend, while stirring a batch of it on the stove, i came up with my jingle : "BAG-whoa-whoa-NG, you've got the best of my love" (The Emotions) .. that's MY christmas story!

alas, all .. or rather some .. good things come to an end. we had such an abundance of food that susan packed us all a generous assortment of everything to take home. there was much enthusiasm and many ideas for when we would get together again. i feel more hopeful now that all the boys have met and seem to really want to hang out also (mark has never been so happy at a mini!; he loves kit, cońo :-). i think it would be so much fun to have a cooking fest, where we bring our ingredients and cook our dishes on-site .. chat while chopping .. learn new recipes .. the boys just better take out the garbage! :-)

so, happy holidays from us Northern California M&Ms .. the East Coasters are getting together next sunday; hope to see your pix and kuwentos soon after! .. everyone, all over the world, God's blessings!!
~YMalú

chit (santos), susan (jacinto), bing (coloma), and malu (engalla) were graced by the company of josefa andres (you learn something new every day!) aka jo-ann maglipon -- fresh from an intensive publishing workshop at stanford university, where she exchanged ideas and learning with over 100 industry professionals from all over the world!

naturalmente (that's jo-ann-speak! :-), she was spilling over with tales of her hectic-but-stimulating two weeks of, in this writer's view, intellectual orgasming .. and her plans for the launch of a new magazine she hopes to call "PIPOL" (there's a small legal hitch as there's a TV show of the same name) .. which will focus on 'ordinary people (pipol) doing extraordinary things' (i hope i got that right, josefa).

the here-and-forward aside, over the course(s!) of their most delicious lunch at the vietnamese-california Slanted Door (more on that later), the locals interrogated the visitor about the past ..

malu was most curious to hear at last directly from jo-ann, the details of her political imprisonment during the marcos regime! .. none were disappointed by the text and re-enactment .. by-standers, passers-by, and seagulls included. wow!!

after their fried and fresh rolls, green papaya salad, "shaking beef" (filet mignon stir-fried with onions, etc), crab and garlic noodles, etc, the group strolled down the SF ferry plaza's center aisle for gelato and latte .. and on outside, snagging just enuf chairs at water's edge to spend a couple more hours bridging the years between 1968 and 2004.

they all talked about their health (high-blood ka rin? what's your systolic/diastolic? anong meds mo?) .. their husbands/partners .. their children (and grandchildren) .. how we in america can help efforts in manila.

there was little time left over to get chismis .. the coastal breeze as the sun began to set reminded all it was time to go pipi, gather up belongings, and begin that familiarly-lengthy filipino farewell ritual .. kisses and hugs, thank-yous, exchange of new numbers, and promises to come to 'the next one' .. the latter especially from bing coloma, who for the very first time attended a bay area gathering of m&ms. (she's still cute as a button, funny to boot, and has a devoted hubby only too glad to please).

a good time was had by all, as these photos show -