An evening in Antipolo

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Before we were picked up

Our dinner party at Mike's on Sunday evening in Antipolo was splendid.  Mike's driver picked us up at 3:00 and drove us thirty minutes away from Manila, winding up the mountains that we see in the distance from our apartment. We're realizing, as we show you these posts, that we're not necessarily giving the most accurate portrayal of what we see most days. These are, by far, just the highlights. There's also a lot of what you might expect in a tropical, urban setting with lots of poverty. We just don't normally photograph these scenes.

The home of Mike's grandfather was originally located next to Manila Bay, but to avoid flood damage was recently rebuilt up on the ridge in Antipolo.  The reassembled house is almost identical to the original with only a few updates.  The home was originally build in 1917 and is a museum in and of itself. There’s even a big coffee-table book about the house, complete with family recipes. 

Mike and his friend, Peter, a current PhD candidate back at UW welcomed us with homemade fermented mango juice and immediately began explaining the history behind the furniture and paintings that fill the home.  

In the sala (living room) was a Zeiter & Winkelmann piano purchased in 1923 from Jose Oliver's, an old music store in Manila. Note how there are candle holders that come out to make it possible to read when it's dark. Below is an ad from the store printed in The Philippines Free Press in 1921.

gallery interior

After an hour or so we hopped in Mike's truck for a visit to the Pinto Art Gallery. The museum's open, white spaces built into the mountain side have a Spanish feel to them.  Mike introduced us to the owner of the gallery who was around that evening as it happened to be a gallery opening to welcome new Antipolo artwork.  Some of the refreshments served included bread sculpture from a bakery in Antipolo.

part of gallery patio

gallery opening with artists from Antipolo

Bread served at gallery opening was shaped like animals

We returned to Mike's home to meet his three sisters, two nephews, and niece.  Mike's siblings share the home and try to spend weekends together in it as often as possible.  As we were chatting with family members and enjoying some camote straw appetizers (fresh sweet potato fries) some other friends from the housing development joined us.  The wife of one of the couples is from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin and we had fun sharing Madison connections.  Dinner consisted of several family recipes including a turkey-red pepper loaf, red rice with vinegar, and a baked fish and tomato dish.  The 20-foot long dinner table was decorated with rambutan, atis, and guyabano centerpieces and as people finished their meals they just started eating the fruits on the table.  Fritz and I shared our first atis. We quickly moved on to dessert, which included a freshly churned carabao milk and macapuno ice cream (made using another family recipe referenced in the book) and homemade pizelle cookies using the lengua de gato recipe popular in the Philippines.  Fritz wrapped up the evening showing off his piano skills while everyone listened.

Blurry photo of Fritz entertaining on the piano

Even though we were exhausted yesterday, we couldn't stop chatting about all of the different elements of our lovely evening in Antipolo.  We had a "routine" Ateneo day yesterday/Monday before heading up to the UP campus in the evening for a farewell get together for another of Fritz's new research friends.  Neal is working on his PhD here from UC-Riverside and plans to return in early November.  We had a refreshing pineapple-cucumber shake at the UP hotel before meeting up with several new people last night and expanding our growing Manila network.  Today is sunny and we're just about to eat our lunch at the IPC office and share an extra bottle of fermented mango juice from Mike with our IPC peers.

We hope you're all doing well.  

Love,

Fritz and Grace