Stuck at home, couple cook relief goods for ‘bougie’ anniversary celebration

Bougie sardines and corned beef. Photo: Team Amparo/FB
Bougie sardines and corned beef. Photo: Team Amparo/FB

Quarantining oneself doesn’t mean one gets to miss out on life’s biggest milestones— just check out couple Chester Amparo and Karen Joy Amparo, who celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary by coming up with a fancy dinner from canned relief goods.

In a post they shared on Facebook early this week, the couple wrote that they should have gone overseas to celebrate their 10th anniversary on April 19.

“[B]ut that’s OK because we will always be happy wherever we are as long as we are together,” they wrote in their post, which has been shared almost 900 times.

“Fine dining or relief goods, we can work on it and eat it together,” they added.

The couple posted photos of the relief goods they cooked for dinner, such as Lucky Me chicken noodles, which they fancifully described as “[s]pecial organic flour with 50% salt carefully curled in the factory, seasoned with Mediterranean oil with white pepper and a little hint of version (monosodium glutamate) boiled in 106.2 C chicken broth, topped with pouches (sic) egg and chopped onion leaves.”

Read: Have Your Cake: Metro Manila shops that satisfy sweet tooth and sanity during lockdown

For the main course, they had Argentina corned beef—or according to the Amparos: “Caribbean brine ox meat tenderized for 2 months of quarantine, saute in minced garlic flavored with rare salt from Jordan river topped with encircled onions and grass.”

Another main course is Mega Sardines, or as the couple described— “Oriental less scale skin swimmer in Marinara sauce canned by the fishermen themselves using traditional sharpened tools. Topped with encircled onions, packed and delivered by village watchmen.”

In an interview with Coconuts Manila, Chester said the relief goods were from the Quezon City government. They were supposed to go on a trip to Taiwan, Cebu, and Bohol to celebrate their anniversary with their children but their plans were shelved when Luzon was placed on an enhanced community quarantine.

“It was hard to go out; it was also hard to buy stuff from the grocery or even to have food delivered,” he said. “So we just cooked whatever was available at home. That’s what we thought of cooking. Because celebrating our first decade together was special, our menu had to be special, too.”

It took them an hour to prepare everything, from the main course to the soup.

“It’s really easy to sauté and fry. And boiling noodles didn’t take a long time,” he said.

Aw. Well, congrats guys, and may you have many more years together—raised pinky fingers and all.

 

Do you know of other families celebrating similar milestones while under quarantine? Tell us by leaving a comment below or tweeting to @CoconutsManila.

 

 

 



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