Silay, The Home Of The Dulce Gatas

I grew up in Silay surrounded by food, from simple fares to not so very simple ones.  Every Sunday, our breakfast in my paternal grandparents' house would consist of tsokolate (made from cacao tablea and fresh carabao's milk), fried rice, scrambled eggs, vienna sausage, homemade chorizo recado and bas-oy ( an Ilonggo soup made of minced beef, tomatoes, onions...etc).  Meanwhile, next door was my grand-aunt's home where there was always some kind of food cooking in her kitchen, from pinangat, lumpia sariwa, homemade ice cream made of coconut, vanilla or cheese, but best of all was the Dulce Gatas (literally means milk candy). This Silay specialty was something "to die for" so to speak.

Ann Legaspi-Co, In Her Mother's Footsteps

When I was a little girl, there was only one person from whom we would order our birthday cakes - Tita Maguit Jalandoni-Legaspi.  She made the best mocha and chiffon cakes I have ever tasted and of course, her unrivaled Mocha Sans Rival par excellence. From the time Tita Maguit passed on, the cake making business in Silay was reduced to commercial ones and there was no one who made cakes that tasted as good.  Our birthday cakes were never the same again. 

1st Familia Ledesma Grand Reunion - Now A Reality

Over a year ago Ramon Severino Conlu, Jr., the researcher behind The Ledesma Genealogy Book, created a Facebook Group, the Familia Ledesma of Jaro, Iloilo. The group’s on-line membership grew from an initial few hundreds to more than a thousand in a few month's time.  That was when Ramon and other members like Ekoy Golez, Mardi Mapa Suplido, Ging Palanca and Marie Silva Vallejo began entertaining the idea that a grand reunion could very well happen.  A series of monthly meetings were started and the adhoc committee proposed for a three-day affair.  Several dates were mentioned but the most feasible was May 24 to 26, 2013.   The people in the organizing team knew that it was going to be an ambitious project considering that the Ledesmas are generally not the social type.  But then, if not now...when?