Oh no! What have I gotten myself into?  I just signed up for a new pasta challenge on September 27 at Palms Country Club, this time with Mongsie Wulff as my partner.  For someone afflicted with the Asian flush (yes, I turn beet red with a sip or two of anything alcoholic), I keep forgetting not to commit to anything after a glass of wine.  But what the heck, I thought, I do know how to make pasta, so I would not horribly embarrass myself.  And, with friendly competition from Gabriella and Angie, as well as Marie and Mae, it should be loads of fun.  Here’s what happened…

Wednesday night, Angie Laborte who sits on the Palms Country Club Socials and Dining Committee Meeting, invited me, along with our other friends Mongsie Wulff and Miri Medalla to join their first Committee Meeting for 2014-2015 that night.  Miri couldn’t make it as she was overseas.  (For a quick intro on my friends, check out an earlier blog entry: https://monettehamlin.com/2014/07/13/the-wine-lovers-club-how-friendship-began/).

Mongsie and I have longed to attend the exclusive committee mainly because of the good repast the Chef Hans would lay out, but this was reserved only for their members.  The common denominator was that our husbands had all served as chairmen of the committee: Hans Wulff, Mike Hamlin, and Sam Medalla. This was a bittersweet evening, as each bite I took reminded me of Mike.

Chef Hans warmly welcomed us to the committee meeting.  I was happy to see Gabriella Wegfahrt and Marie Segura who had arrived earlier.  We were later joined by Dr. Mae Corvera, and a gentleman doctor from Asian Hospital, who stayed just a while.  It was definitely a woman dominated evening.

That night, we sampled Palm’s private raclette dinner. Raclette is a semi-hard cheese made using ancestral methods with unpasteurized milk of cows grazing on the alpine meadows on both sides of the French and Swiss Alps.  It gets its name from the French word ‘racler’, which means ‘to scrape’.

I first encountered raclette when I visited my childhood friend Lourdes Malto-Montenejo and her husband Bobby in Switzerland. A young couple then with their first child, Dodit and Bobby served this Swiss dish for my first dinner.  The cheese, distinctively aromatic and slightly nutty, was melted on a raclette grill and then scraped on our plates once creamy and soft.  We ate it with pickled onions, sausages, small potatoes, and gherkins.  Oh, how I loved it!  And how glad I was that Palms has decided to offer this for private dinners.

While partaking of the sumptuous spread which included Palm’s new Japanese sushi offerings and wines, we reviewed the club’s socials and dining performance, brainstormed how to invigorate the club’s activities and promote them better, and discussed socials and dining plans for the coming months, as well as, Palm’s 12^th anniversary.

Leading up to the anniversary, plans are afoot for a Pasta Cooking Challenge on September 27, a Kampay sa Tagumpay on October 11 with a live band and beers (Palm’s version of Oktoberfest), a late night party on October 18 at the Poolbar with a stand-up comedian, and a grand celebration on November 7 featuring the 70’s Superband, with proceeds going to Project Pink’s Stage Zero.

It was a wonderful evening spent with friends over good food and wine.  We all readily accepted the invitation to be part of the committee, had a good laugh over signing up for the Pasta Challenge, and reserved seats for the anniversary celebration.

And now, Mongsie and I must start practicing for the challenge. Mama mia!