(photo from filipino-cooking.com)

Story telling seems to be the order of the day with this recipe. From the journal of Carolyn’s life. I can hardly write up this recipe without explaining how I came to make this dish, let alone how I knew about it. I actually spent about a month in the Philippines in 1965. My first husband was a Navy Officer and just before the start of the Vietnam war, I embarked on a trip around Asia, trying to meet up with the aircraft carrier he was on. But the war intervened. I had the choice to go home, but decided I was up to the challenge of traveling around and finding my way. The air ticket was paid for, and I knew I could stay very economically on the military bases around Asia.

International travel was new to me – very new. I was 24 at the time with the ink barely dry on my passport. And likely I was very naive as well. With hat, gloves, raincoat, high heels (that was simply the way people traveled back then) and suitcase (with no wheels) in hand, I first went to Hawaii and then on to Japan. Stayed there for about 2 months – alone – on a U.S. Navy base. In a family barracks with a bathroom down the hall. But the price was right. A dollar a day it cost me to live there. (There are some nice perks to being part of the U.S. military “family.”) Bus service traversed the base and I could shop in the military exchange, use the library, go to the movies for a quarter, attend wives’ functions at the officer’s club if I cared to, and venture out the gate of the base and explore the town of Yokusaka. I attended free Japanese language classes and befriended the very kind Japanese teacher who invited me to her home one evening. That’s when I first ate gyoza, a staple of the Japanese cuisine. Now you can buy it at Trader Joe’s, of all things! I could also eat at the two officer’s club restaurants on base. I couldn’t cook at the barracks where I stayed, so I ate out 3 meals a day. Fortunately, it didn’t cost much. And the food was good. I went into Tokyo a couple of times, took a tour, also took a 2-day military-run tour to Mt. Fuji, which I enjoyed very much. But most days and most hours of every day I was alone.

To entertain myself. I did a lot of reading and letter-writing to my family at home.Eventually the ship headed for the Philippines and I flew to Manila. I arrived late in the afternoon, after a very rocky flight on Air France, where the pilots received multiple trays of wine into the cockpit (permitted at the time). I discovered that I’d missed the three-times-a-week flight to the U.S. Navy base I needed to get to. At that point I was standing in the air terminal in Manila. It was hotter than hell. And humid. And I was very, very alone.I’d gone to an information desk and they had no suggestions. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t like the thought of finding a hotel in Manila to stay for 3 days until the next flight went out. I was a little scared and very unsure of myself. But I’d read that if you’re in a foreign place and you have a problem, perhaps the American Embassy can help. I could have phoned the Embassy, but no, I took a taxi there. In my high heels, my hat, my gloves, my suitcase and my very sweaty body. Maybe all that dressed-up paraphernalia helped me, since a kind secretary took pity on me and offered to drive me to the bus terminal.

That bus trip, in itself, is another very engrossing story, but it would take another 5 paragraphs to tell it. Let’s just say that I sat behind the driver. Passengers of all ages, shapes and sizes piled on, with their cages of live chickens hanging out the windows, luggage stacked on top of the bus, and off we went. It t’was the most frightening bus journey I’ve ever made in my entire life. And eventually, 3-4 hours later I arrived in the base-side town of Olangapo. It was about midnight.

I was totally unprepared for Olangapo. It’s a very un-Filipino-like town with little except bars and houses of prostitution. I count myself lucky that I eventually made it through the town in a taxi, to the gate of the military base. It was a Friday night and raucous American sailors were doing their best to spend their money, get drunk and make merry, I suppose. At one point, stopped at a light, a bunch of them approached the taxi (spotting me, a young blonde woman, alone, inside) and rocked the taxi, hitting the windows with their fists. They wanted me to come join their revelry. They hadn’t seen an American woman in awhile, I suppose, and they wanted inside the car. I was absolutely scared to DEATH. The taxi driver jumped the light and he drove hell-for-leather through the rest of town. On directions from the driver, I ducked down in the seat in the blocks to follow so the sailors couldn’t see me, and finally the driver delivered me at the bridge. I was shaking like a leaf. Big time. It was now about 12:30 am. Thinking back on it, I should have heavily tipped the taxi driver. I didn’t even think of giving him more than a regular tip. So, out I got from the taxi. Still with my suitcase, high heels, raincoat, hat and gloves. Picturing myself just makes me laugh now. I had to drag myself about 150 feet or so across a pedestrian-only bridge to approach the gate. There were no problems crossing the bridge – good thing! Everybody was already in town. Whew.

A couple of other wives I knew were already billeted there, so I tagged along with them. We had very slow days – breakfast at the officer’s club, lounge by the pool most of the day, dinner at the officer’s club, sleep. Repeat and repeat. I did see my then-husband some, but not much. I stuck like glue to the two other wives who were more worldly than I. Both had been Pan Am stews for some years so were far more well traveled than I. And they had friends everywhere in the world.

So now, we finally get to the focus of the food blog story. The lumpia. Perhaps lumpia are meant to be a main dish, but we had them only as an appetizer at the two officer’s clubs. And at the pool. And we wives ordered them every single day for lunch. I just l-o-v-e-d them. They’re similar to the Chinese style egg rolls that you know and enjoy, but slightly different. I liked dipping each one into the sauce that accompanied them. I was able, finally, to get somebody to tell me that they put maraschino cherry juice in the sauce. How odd, I thought. But, when you consider the number of maraschino cherries an officer’s club bar goes through, they were certainly resourceful coming up with a use for all that brilliant red, highly charged Red Dye cherry juice. No other recipe I’ve ever seen for them uses that ingredient. Not surprising, I guess.

Eventually, after that 5-month trip (I also went on to Hong Kong, back to Japan for another month’s stay, then home) I found a recipe for lumpia. I knew they were made with vegetables, minced up, julienned really, with shrimp, pork and chicken. I haven’t made them in many years. But they’re awfully darned good. If you don’t mind the prep and the fact that they’re deep fried.

I actually believe that trip I made gave me the lifetime urge to travel and I haven’t stopped since. But think about the maraschino cherry juice when you make this. And one frightened young woman taking a hair-raising bus ride across part of the Philippines, then a taxi ride through Olangapo.