Barangay LA

Two years ago a couple of my friends introduced me to Barangay LA, a community organization that has made a huge impact in representing the Filipino LGBTQ community. Working closely with the organization and its members, I've gained experiences which I don't think I would have encountered on my own. In addition, I was also able to meet some pretty amazing people.

Here are those amazing people I speak of. Barangay LA's Board of Directors.

For more information about Barangay LA, you can visit their website or their facebook page.
They have plenty of events lined up this year thats definitely worth checking out. One of those events is the KAPWA Awards which will be on May 5th. You can learn more about this event here.

Pomona College

It was my first time taking the MetroLink over the weekend. I made my way from Downtown LA to Claremont and met with Greg at Pomona College to prepare for this week's event. Q&A and AARC of the Pomona College invited Malaya Project to their campus and put an event together. Some images from the series will be displayed at the student gallery from March 11-15. There will also be a panel discussion lead by Barangay LA on March 14th with a few of the series participants. Check out Barangay LA's event invite for more information.

The train ride itself wasn't so bad. Seats for comfortable and the cars were spacious. A friend told me that they also have a small cafeteria that serves alcohol but I was worried of getting too sloshed and missing my stop. The view gets better once the train is out of the city. I will definitely have to take the coastal one next time with Amado.

ELEV8 Shoot BTS

Some behind the scenes from an ELEV8 shoot I did a few weeks back. Had a great time with the group. I can't wait to see the new site.

Behind-The-Scenes Videos

Greg and I collaborate for Malaya Project. Besides the photo essays, we try to shoot short videos to accompany the posts. It pushed me to want to learn more about shooting videos. There's obviously more to it than just picking up a camera and hitting record. A couple of weeks ago, we worked on a behind-the-scenes video for a designer's Spring 2013 line shoot. This was the longest shoot I've been in video wise and I definitely learned a lot that day.

Here are two edits that Greg worked on.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

This season hasn't been good to me. I've been sick twice already and it's always when things need to get done. For Valentines Day, Amado wanted to stay in and just have dinner at home. He really liked the eggplant parmesan that I made so he asked me to make that again. But for dessert, it had to be something chocolate. Flourless Chocolate Cake, thanks to Martha Stewart.

Ingredients

6 eggs, separate the yolks and whites

1/2 cup sugar

6 tablespoons unsalted butter and some to coat the pan

1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate

Confectioners' sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Recipe will fit a 9 inch springform pan nicely. Butter the pan generously and set aside.

Combine butter and chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and melt it in 30 second increments. Stirring in between, took about 3 times. Stir throughly and let it cool for a bit before whisking in the egg yolks. Add one egg yolk at a time.

Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Whisk 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then gently fold the remaining egg whites.

Pour the batter in the pan and spread it gently with a spatula. Don't tap the pan, it'll flatten the batter to much. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Let it sit and cool on a wire rack. The cake will shrink and pull away from the sides of the pan. The longer you let is sit (room temperature), the thicker and more dense it will get. When you're ready to serve it, dust it with confectioners' sugar.

Thanks for the flowers! Amado wanted me to use a certain caption but I think I'll keep that one on the low.

Juku and Kami's Birthday

When we wake up in the morning, Juku and Kami can be found curled up next to us. One would be on our pillow pressed against our faces and the other is somewhere at the foot of the bed under the covers. It's very uncomfortable but we've gotten used to it. I would try to annoy and smother one of them and whisper, "You're not a baby anymore, stop acting like a baby!" But who am I kidding. They'll aways be our babies even though they're both a year older this week.

Juku turned 6 last Sunday and Kami turns 5 this Friday. We've had a busy week so we wanted to have a small celebration for them celebrated yesterday.

We usually buy them a few pre-made birthday treats from a local pet store but I wanted to make them something this year. Looked online for recipe and found a Banana Peanut Butter dog cake.

I know it doesn't look appetizing but the girls really liked it. Kami started licking the cake before we had a chance to blow out the candles. Juku finished her slice in a couple of bites. 

After that it was time to open their presents. We took them to the pet store a couple of days ago and let them pick out whatever toy they liked. They obviously don't remember that as they were jolted with joy upon opening their gifts as if seeing the toys for the very first time.

Kami and Juku weren't the only ones who had treats. I also made something for Amado and I. Chocolate covered short bread cookies. The recipe needs some tweaking but Amado was happy with it.

Eggplant Parmesan

I started way too early preparing tonight's dinner. Since I had more than a few minutes to spare, I decided to document the steps which involved a lot of hand washing before picking up my camera.

Recipe calls for:

2 large eggplants, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
1 bottle marinara sauce
1 can tomato sauce
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 cup grated parmesan (I prefer wedges, freshly grated at home)
1 cup fontina cheese or mozzarella
2 eggs
salt and pepper

Peel and slice the eggplants.

Combine 1 cup of breadcrumbs, 3/4 cups of the grated parmesan, salt and pepper. In a separate bowl, combine the marinara sauce and tomato sauce.

Beat the 2 eggs and add a couple teaspoons of water. Dip the eggplant slices in the egg mixture. Let the excess drip off and then coat with the breadcrumbs mixture. Bake the slices on a lined pan for 20 minutes each side.

Start with spreading the marinara sauce at the bottom of the pan. Layer the eggplant slices followed with a layer of marinara sauce then some sprinkle the parmesan and fontina/mozzarella cheese. 

Repeat until done.

Bake for another 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Let it sit for about 5 minutes. Then dig in.