by LOUIE TACKER

GREETINGS ONCE AGAIN FROM THIS PART OF THE GLOBE - AMERICA.

First off I would like to thank all of you who commented on my previous guest blog. Now i know I stated that I was eager to learn more of the Filipino ways, but I think my PC took me too literally, the comments section was all in your language. I was all eager to read all your comments and you can imagine how frustrated I was that I could not understand a word! So I had to bother poor Rhodora, pry her away from her studies.. lol!.. for her to translate for me. But sincerely, I thank you for all your welcomes and kind words…

Wanting to share with you more of my insights, I thought of letting you read one of my old contributions in this blog. And as the whole Christian world is about to commemorate the Holy Week, which I learned Filipinos are very religious about, I would like to lead you to this old post on one of my finest memories of the celebration of Easter.

Baking up Easter memories

Being raised Roman Catholic I realize that Easter is the most holy of all the Catholic Holy days. After all it is the culmination of Jesus’ life, the whole point of His being on this earth. But sadly, we have also found a way to turn this time into a capitalistic adventure as we have with Christmas.

That being said, let’s go back, all of us to our hopefully happy childhood memories of Easter.

Oh, I close my eyes and can smell the one thing that always comes back - ‘EASTER BREAD’ baking all week in the oven. It was one of my mother’s legacies. The entire family - aunts, uncles and so on expected to have their loaves of Easter bread delivered. The recipe going back to four generations or more, my mother was the one who perfected it.

For many years, even as a young child, I would watch her with curious eyes and mind as she worked that dough by hand, kneading it over and over till just the right consistency then letting it rise overnight till that dough ‘magically’ doubled or even tripled in size! Boy that always amazed me! It was like magic - go to sleep, wake up and boom! That ball of dough would double. Only later on did I realize that it was the yeast that performed the magic.. lol.. You see this was a double rise bread so on that same morning, she would again ‘beat’ it down and then form the rings in pie pans and let it rise again to double in size before baking it.

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