Fish Balls, Quail Eggs, and S'Mores...Oh my!

A few weeks ago I mentioned s'mores to my host family, and they had never heard of them! I spent quite some time describing the amazing deliciousness of s'mores, and their ability to bring people together over many camp/bonfires. Last night we made them! The road to doing so wasn't easy, but with some hard work and determination, we pulled off the feat!

Around 6pm, my host sister and I departed on our mission. We visited two sari-sari stores before finding one that had graham crackers and chocolate. The chocolate was a bit different from the typical Hershey bars that are typically found in the chocolatey-gooey delight. They were the size of mini-Reeses cups. But, I told her, it would get the job done. We continued on to search for marshmallows. It took us four more sari-sari stores until we did it! They were rainbow colored, which ended up being pretty awesome because the s'mores looked SUPER cool!

On our journey, we passed by a shop that:
1. gave massages
2. gave haircuts
3. sold (and cooked) fish balls and quail eggs

My host sister asked me if I had ever had either, and when I said I hadn't, we immediately stopped and ordered some (sans massages or haircuts). While we waited for them to cook, we watched the news--all in Tagolog-- with a few other people, none of who looked like they were getting massages or haircuts either. Once they were cooked, we put different sauces on them; sweet, spicy, sour, what have you... Let me tell you, they weren't bad! I didn't mind them one bit.

The next store we went to had marshmallows, so we ran home with breathless anticipation! My host sister was concerned that we didn't have special BBQ sticks, and I told her that we actually DO just use twigs and branches from outside. I don't know if she believed me or not, but we ended up using forks and toasting the mini (about 1/2 the size of regular marshmallows) 'mallows over our gas-burning stove. It was pretty efficient, as we were able to put two on each fork and two of us toasted while my host sister was the s'more technician, as Subway would put it. (They're the ones who legitimately call their employees "sandwich technicians," right?)

The result was RAINBOW DELICIOUSNESS! I was happy to share some of America's finest cuisine with my Filipino family :)