Monday, July 27, 2009

Cora Cooks Pancit

Totally off the subject of papercrafting...

I just so happened to be browsing Elizabeth Dulemba's blog and saw this article on a children's book called, "Cora Cooks Pancit." Me being a Filipino (or Filipina I should say), the word "pancit" in the title totally caught my eye. It is illustrated by Kristi Valiant, written by Dorina K. Laazo Gilmore. She featured an interview with Kristi on her blog, you can read here. It looks like a pretty interesting book to read to my son and daughter.

If you are not familiar with "pancit" (pronounced pahn-sit)...it is a traditional Filipino dish with many versions. The most popular version is made with noodles, veggies and meat (chicken or beef). Yum! Now, I've never made pancit myself since I always had my Mom, one of my Mom's friends, or the Filipino store to run to if I had any pancit cravings (I was spoiled!). But now that I live so far away, the only time I get to eat it is during the holidays when we visit my family. I do know how to cook a lot of my fave Filipino foods and my own family has learned to love eating the food I cook - well, they have no choice. We do eat lots of rice with many of our meals but pancit has been a long time tradition especially made for family gatherings. I really miss all of the Filipino/Oriental stores I could go to for ingredients you can't find in a regular store. I know there is one somewhere near me, but we haven't ventured in that area yet.

Anywho, I was just excited to see this multi-cultural book featured on Elizabeth's blog so I wanted to take some time to talk about it here. It's nice to see when people expand their writing about different cultures. And this is definitely something you don't see very often in bookstores.

Thanks Elizabeth for a wonderful post about the book and Kristi's illustrations!

For those of you who love to eat - here is a recipe I found: How to Make Pancit. Now I've got to try to make it myself one of these days.

1 comments:

Michelle said...

Mmmm I love me some pancit - - and lumpia too. My BFF in college was a little Philippino girl....she's the best...and she used to make it for me all the time....she's in CA and I'm in ID :( - - so I send her cards and hope to see her again and have some of her wonderful cooking - - mmm....