Silay, The Home Of The Dulce Gatas

I grew up in Silay surrounded by food, from simple fares to not so very simple ones.  Every Sunday, our breakfast in my paternal grandparents' house would consist of tsokolate (made from cacao tablea and fresh carabao's milk), fried rice, scrambled eggs, vienna sausage, homemade chorizo recado and bas-oy ( an Ilonggo soup made of minced beef, tomatoes, onions...etc).  Meanwhile, next door was my grand-aunt's home where there was always some kind of food cooking in her kitchen, from pinangat, lumpia sariwa, homemade ice cream made of coconut, vanilla or cheese, but best of all was the Dulce Gatas (literally means milk candy). This Silay specialty was something "to die for" so to speak.

Ann Legaspi-Co, In Her Mother's Footsteps

When I was a little girl, there was only one person from whom we would order our birthday cakes - Tita Maguit Jalandoni-Legaspi.  She made the best mocha and chiffon cakes I have ever tasted and of course, her unrivaled Mocha Sans Rival par excellence. From the time Tita Maguit passed on, the cake making business in Silay was reduced to commercial ones and there was no one who made cakes that tasted as good.  Our birthday cakes were never the same again.