The daily prompt is: Simply Irresistible. What dish can you never turn down?
I don’t know how much of this is because of the emotional associations I have with the dish, and how much of it is just because it is the most amazing food in the universe. Entirely unhealthy, entirely delicious – I can never turn lumpia down.
The first time I had lumpia, it was at my friend Lina’s house. Lina, who I’d met through my friend Rosemarie, is a beautiful Filipina woman who can cook the heck out of lumpia. I remember there was a group of us gathered at Lina’s house, some holiday or other was fast approaching, and we were there to cook lumpia so that it could be frozen and given as gifts to whomever wanted some. We all sat around the table. Rosemarie and Lina showed me how to roll the lumpia, how much of the filling to place in the wrapper, how the thinner rolls tasted different than the thick ones, what the optimal level of filling versus wrapper was. Lina had prepared the filling in advance, and she stood at the stove frying the rolls we wrapped as quickly as we were done wrapping them. The apartment was filled with amazing scents, the laughter of all of us as we worked, the amount of lumpia we ate versus what we ended up rolling – I have few memories more dear to me than this one. And I was hooked on lumpia from that day forward.
There was a funny, short lady who ran a food truck that would come to my work every day at EMWD. She would sell three rolls of lumpia for one dollar. I went every day on my break to get some of her fabulous lumpia. Then I started to get really heavy, so I stopped. 😀
When I moved away from California, and split up with my ex, my roomate Mary was Filipina as well. She didn’t make her own lumpia, but whenever she would go to Florida to visit her family, she would bring back a batch of frozen lumpia just for me. And then when I met my husband and we moved to Ohio, the fabulous Jungle Jims International Market sold frozen lumpia. I would make it a treat to buy a package – only for a holiday, or my birthday. But it was still my favorite dish. And one of my favorite memories.
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