Food

Dinner with the Stapleton's

The Move
Today is my move out of Antadao, into a house at the Poblacion. With my 60-liter mountaineering backpack and my 15-liter daypack, I thought I'd make the move in 2 trips....wrong. Always, there's more stuff to move than I initially thought. Worse, public transport from Antadao is erratic. Sometimes I had to wait for 1.5 hours until a bus would come along. That ate up my time.

The Invite
With such aggravation, the last thing on my mind was dinner. I probably would have gone on forgetting to have one. As if on cue, I get a phone call from Helen inviting me to join her family for dinner. Whoa! There must be a god somewhere.

The Usual Suspects
The rest of the gang was likewise there - Steve, Joey, Jenny, Cez and Brian. The girls (Jenny, Anne and Margaret) were bonding and into their own as usual.

Dinner
Helen dished out some Cajun creole cooking, Louisianna style! For starters, she prepared roasted eggplant/bell pepper with lemon on top of Aklay-baked bread....belissima! Her pan-roasted potatoes with fresh-harvest herbs were a killer. Tossed garden salad was as fresh as it gets. Steve whipped up in-season pears in rich creamy sauce for dessert. Need I say more?

Archie's Tale
Given the small-talk after dinner, Archie mentioned a coastal place fronting the Pacific, rich with virgin forest on the mountain side and waves on the coast as high as 10 feet. It's so remote there's no one there. However, with the plan to build a road up there, the place won't remain that way too long. Fascinated, I penciled in the itinery for the trip. Maybe, given some cash inflow, I might make the solo trip this August....maybe.

Thank you, Archie and Helen for that great dinner!

--- TheLoneRider

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