Puto Binan

Erica arrived in the main house with a giant Puto Binan!  Apparently she had gone on a trip to Laguna, and passed by some store that was selling the speciality--it's basically a rice cake, sweetened with brown sugar and topped with cheese and salty duck eggs.  Knowing that it was Gwammy's favorite, she bought some for the whole family to enjoy.  As you can see, less than half of the puto remained when I got there, it was wiped out in a jiffy!  Michaela and I then reminisced about the puto seller who would shout "Puuuuuuto, Puto Binan!" on weekends during the early seventies, and we siblings would be up at 7am just to catch him when his basket was still full of goodies.  Erica just loved the kakanin that he would sell (that was around 5 to 15 centavos each for kutsinta, halaya and puto), and early riser amongst us siblings would literally hoard the stuff to re-sell to the other siblings.  "Hindi ka nagising eh!" we would always chant, to the consternation of the late risers!  Yes, Puto Binan binds us together, and a lot of fond brekky memories came out of that purchasing ritual.