Celebrating My Late Father's Birthday and Remembering His Love for Baking

Last Saturday marked my late father's birthday. Though he is no longer with us, my siblings and I make it a point to honor these special dates, no matter where we are. Baking something from scratch would have been the most fitting tribute, considering my father’s love for baking after retirement. But at that moment, I wasn't quite up to the task. Instead, I ordered a lovely carrot cake from a local bakeshop for delivery. It arrived slightly smooshed on one side - perhaps from the box tilting during transport. I didn't mind. A slightly missha…

Celebrating special occasions in absentia

Eating out with a friend in a shabu-shabu restaurant to celebrate my late father's birthday. It would have been my father's 83rd birthday last Friday had he been still with us. To celebrate, I have decided to whip up our very traditional (in our family at least) birthday fare of Filipino-style spaghetti and orange butter cake (which my father was so fond of baking in his later years) for lunch and invited a friend to eat out in a nearby shabu-shabu hotpot restaurant for dinner. The Sunday after that was coincidentally also Mother's Day …