Babinka Royal & the Last Tour to Endor

Babinka Royal was one of my Mom's specialties. As a kid, i could take it or leave it... but as an adult it's simply heaven (especially warm or heated up in the microwave first). This is the type of food that the health nuts would say "if it tastes good, you better spit it out"... There are different type's of Babinka desserts out there but... this particular one is kinda sorta like a Filipino pound cake because of it's density and... all of the good artery enriching eggs & butter in it... but... it's a little more chewy/springy... because it's made with that Mochi Rice Flour (sometimes called "sweet" rice flour). Ingredients:

• 1 box Sweet (Mochi) Rice Flour (you might be able to find this in the "international" section of your supermarket or... one of those Asian grocery stores)
• 2 tablespoon Baking Powder
• 6 Eggs
• 1 12oz can Evaporated Milk
• 1/2 cup regular Milk
• 2 cups Sugar
• 3 sticks Butter (melted)
• 2 tablespoons Vanilla

Instructions:

• Beat eggs
• Stir in melted butter
• Stir in milk
• Stir in sugar
• Stir in vanilla
• Stir in baking powder
• Stir in sweet rice flour
• Mix all until smooth
• Poor mixture into 9x13 dish
• Bake @ 325 degrees for 60 mins

I've heard that sometimes, folks add shredded cheddar cheese to the batter but... that's a little too filipino weird to me... I've also heard that some add that mucousy macapuno coconut stuff to the batter but... that's a little too slimy weird, for my tastes too... I guess if you sprinkled regular shredded coconut, or that angel flake coconut you use on cupcakes, on top, it'd probably be a good thing... Anyway, that's it! Enjoy! 

Suman (Bico)

• 5 cups Mochi Rice
• 5 cups Water
• 14 oz Can Coconut Milk
• 1 1/2 box Dark Brown Sugar

Instructions 

• Clean rice, add water & cook in a rice pot
• In a saucepan, combine coconut milk and 1 box of the brown sugar.
• Cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. 
• Reserve 1/2 cup coconut milk mixture and 1/2 cup brown sugar for top.
• Stir remaining coconut mixture and brown sugar into cooked hot rice; mixing well
• Spoon rice mixture into 13 x 9 pan
• Pour the reserved 1/2 cup coconut milk mixture over top of rice and brown sugar.
• Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees
• Sprinkle 1/2 cup remaining brown sugar on top
• Broil for 5 minutes to melt sugar and brown the top

 

 

Pecan Tarts

 

crust:

• 3oz Cream Cheese
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup flour

 

filling:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup regular sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon flour
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup pecans

Instructions 

• mix crust ingredients, roll into 24 1in. balls and form tart crusts into tart pan by flattening each ball and brining the dough up the sides.
• mix filling ingredients and fill tart crusts
• bake @ 325 degrees for 25 mins

 

 

Chocolate Rum Bundt Cake

•  1 package devils food chocolate cake mix
  
• 1 package instant chocolate pudding
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  
• 1/4 cup rum
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup chopped walnuts 
• 1 package chocolate chips
  

Instructions

• Combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, sour cream, oil rum & water in large mixer bowl.
  
• Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.
  
• Pour into greased and floured Bundt pan.
  
• Bake at 350 degree for 50 minutes.
• Sprinkle top with powdered sugar.

 

Cheese Cake

 

Crust:

• 1Pkg Lorna Doone Cookies
• 1 Cube melted Butter

 

Filling:

• 2 - 8oz pkgs Cream Cheese
• 3/4 Cups Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 3 Eggs
• Bake @ 350 for 20 mins

 

Topping:

• 1 Cup Sour Cream
• 3&1/2 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• Bake @ 350 for another 8 mins

The Last Tour To Endor

One of the coolest rides at Disneyland and Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studios is the Star Tours ride (admit it, you probably get your star wars geek on once in a while, right?). This year (2010) they're going to shut down both to refactor (haha... old programmer mentality) the rides, adding scenes from the prequel movies and making it a 3D experience. Here's a vid that Disney recently put out, with a textual teaser at the end, that they show when you first walk into the Star Tours ride queue line enclosure: Disney held a "Last Tour to Endor" celebration at their annual Star Wars Celebration event. Here's a fun vid that summarizes the entertainment during that event: and, updated on 9/8/2010, here's Disney's official wrap-up video: As you probably saw in the above vids, they tweaked the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular show and added Star Wars characters (haha... they called it a "Raiders of the Lost Jedi Temple of Doom" mash-up): There was a lot happening on the Star Wars Celebration hall floor... Here's a vid of a kid reporter giving a tour (pretty good... looks like she'll have a promising career!):

They also had a Star Wars character dance off show: The folks, taking their last ride before it's closed for refurbishment, were pretty jazzed up: Another interesting happening at the event was the Jon Stewart George Lucas interview... here's a play-by-play on it:

• Jon What a fantastic celebration. I obviously waited outside all night.
• I wanna thank the organizers for hosting this in Central Florida in August, it allows us to experience the actual conditions on Dagobah. We're gonna have some fun with a man who you may not be familiar with but is the reason most of you aren't at a Star Trek convention right now. Now introducing... GEORGE LUCAS!
• (lucas walks out, fans go crazy...)
• Jon: That's all the time we have for today... Do you get the profits from handheld recording devices cause I saw quite a few.
• George: It's just like your show only a smaller audience
• Jon: "Just like my show only popular... First of all, welcome to Orlando.
• George: Thank you. I live at Disney World. Last chance for you to go on Star Tours before we shut it down and open up a new one.
• Jon: Slow question to start... (then he rambled a huge question about Episode IV and how 3PO started driving the Landspeeder)... Sorry I can't capture that whole quesiton live, but it was funny and ended with George... Why?
• George: It's amazing what wonders a good oil bath will do for him.
• Jon: As I walk around the convention hall, there were R2s full size, rolling around all over. After filming with trouble, what's it like seeing this room with working droids?
• George: It's a tragedy. I spent 8 years trying to make ONE droid move forward more than 10 feet without crashing. In the end the droids, there were 8 of them, were so inadequate that we had to make a fiberglass one, and pull it with sticks. Here, we have some of the most beautiful R2s you can imagine. If only I could make another Star Wars...
• (crowd erupts)
• Jon: You do realize now none of these people will get any sleep tonight. Here's one from Chadmiral Ackbar "I hope his name is Chad, and I'm sure he has a vanity plate that says It's A Trap. The names, is there a process, is it random or are there stories behind them?
• George: Right from the very beginning, the one thing about writing is I don't like to do it. I get to work at 9 I go back at 6, and all the writing is done between 545 and 6. I have a book that has just names. Wherever I go (with my son) I'll see something and I write it down saying that's a good name! Ewoks is a derivation of where we live, it's an old Indian vilage site, the Meewok Indians. Darth Vader is "Dark Father" in dutch-ish. The TIE in the Celebration Hall was identified as Belgian by George and Jon.
• Jon: What does it feel like when you see the 501st, with divisions in every country in the world.
• George: The thing about the 501st that's great is it just sprang into life. There are 5000 in 32 countries, they're everywhere I go wherever I need them. They visit kids in hospital and the kids are overwhelmed, it's a very good organization all the way around.
• Jon: When you see the largest 501st is in Germany.. do you see.. does the Polish 501st get nervous?
• George: You know the Belgian 501st has TIE fighters, has Jabba the Hutt, so they're not getting taken over. A fan in the audience yelled out that there's a Rebel Alliance as well, and Jon joked they were supposed to keep it secret.
• Jon: When you're doing A New Hope, this is a new style of filmmaking, how do you stay positive when everything was turning against you in being able to create it in the style you wanted?
• George: It helps to be nuts.
• Jon: I think we've just written the title of your autobiography.
• George: You have to have such persistence, be so stubborn, and just say I'm right, I don't care what the rest of the world thinks. No matter what the odds are against you. With New Hope and then Empire, that was very dark. Getting that next film going was very difficult, there were times when it looked like it wasn't going to get finished, and you had to say, "I believe in this".
• Jon: Is there anything that happened in that process that was changed by the studio that you'd like to change back?
• George: I was very lucky in that I was in SF, my studio was there, we made the movies in England away from Hollywood. The studio executive said "I think you're a talented guy and I'll invest in you" even though he didn't know what I was doing. We ran out of money, we went over the schedule, I couldn't do the Jabba the Hutt scene, some of the special effects I wanted Star Wars was a huge success, Warner had cut THX, and I forced them to put it back the way it was, and eventually I had the time and money to do that for Star Wars.
• Jon: Luke Skywalker, you're tyring to keep him hidden from Darth Vader whose last name was also Skywalker. When Vader saw on CNN that it was Luke Skywalker who had blown up the death star, do you think he thought "Boy, that name sounds familiar." Any thought given to an alias to keep him hidden?
• George: There is a logic to that, 1: there are a lot of skywalkers. You think there's one in the universe, you should see the phonebook! That and the other part which is, the one place that is most painful for Anakin Skywalker is Tattooine. That's where he grew up, where he lost his mother, it's the source of his struggle. You'll also know that the Emperor has long suspected that there are children. In the beginning, Vader doesn't know that there are children, so he put that out of his mind. The Emperor knew there was a possibility, cause HE told the lie that "you killed Padme". When Luke blows up the Death Star and you come back in the movie we're celebrating for 30 years, the first thing he says is "Skywalker is alive" and that's when Vader finds out he even has a son.
• Jon: Were all these backstories planned ahead or did you have to go back and add them?
• George: No, I just make it up when someone asks. *laughs*
• Jon: The intricate universe, how do you create that?
• George: In the beginning, I did a movie, it was supposed to be one movie, and it started with Episode IV, like an old matinee serial you missed the first few. And halfway through the movie, you realize his enemy is his son, and in the end his son redeems him. And that was way too big as one movie. So I broke it up to stretch out Darth Vader and who he is. In order to tell the story of episode IV I had to write the back story to tell who Darth Vader is and that was originally not intended to be a movie. Because the backstory was not filmable then. The big tech breakthrough in Empire was to get a muppet to be believable as a real thing and not just a sock. I knew he was a Jedi Master and he fought, but we couldn't show that. When tech caught up I knew I could tell the real tragedy of Darth Vader and start with him as a child. That's where having my own company paid off. I first went to them, and I said I'll do 3, I'll do the trilogy and the studio was all excited that I was doing the origin of Darth Vader, and they said fantastic! and I then told them "Well I'm starting with him as a 10 year old boy" and you'll never see Vader and they said "no, we want to see Vader killing a bunch of people". I even admitted that the first part of the story is usually kinda boring, which is why I started with chapter IV.
• Jon: Was there ever a point where you felt like Vader couldn't be redeemed in the end?
• George: Well he was always going to be redeemed. The original problem was that I wanted all three movies made. So instead of asking for a bunch of money, I only asked for the rights to the sequels. They said "Hey, this makes our next quarter look good, we don't have to spend the money, we're giving away something that's probably not worth anything anyway". So he had the ability to make all three right from the start, and took virtually no pay for New Hope. At the end of Empire, the middle part is usually not much. I was looking at this and said this is gonna be hard, cause I was ending it on a real downer. I'm your father, cut your hand off, this is rough. So I asked a Psychologist, is this too hard for a 10 year old? he said "You know, it won't hurt them at all" cuz Darth Vader is a bad guy, some kids will handle it in their age range and say "hmm interesting" and younger kids will jsut say "he's a bad guy, so he's lying." it's their built in safety net.
• Jon: Most impressive star wars memorabilia you've been given by a fan?
• George: I got a little me, carbon frozen which I liked alot, then I got another, which was Jar Jar Binks in Carbon Freezing. That was so good, that ILM made a full-size one. There's always gotta be someone who takes the brunt of the ridicule. In the first film it was 3PO, no one could stand him everyone hated him, he was fussy. Then in the third it was the Ewoks, and that took all the pressure of 3PO. We had a sign in design that said "Dare to be cute!". Now the third one to take it all is Jar Jar. he's basically the same fussy bumbling idiot that 3PO was in the first one. Younger comedy, the older fans don't like. We realized we have a real honest-to-god generation gap with Star Wars. Anyone over 40 loves 4-5-6 and hates 1-2-3 . The younger ones love 1-2-3 and Jar Jar Binks! If you're ten years old, stand up and fight for your rights! Of course, now, now, we have the under 10 year olds that only know about Ahsoka, and they're happy, they don't even know about the Star Wars movies!
• Jon: Are you working on something for fetal, that can be injected in ultrasound?
• George: We're working on that right now, Seth Green. I thought Robot Chicken was so funny that we'd make a little comedy cartoon show like Spungebob for 4 and 5 year olds, and he still thinks it's for 21 year olds. So as far as he knows it's for 21 year olds, and it'll look like it's for 5 year olds. No one knows what it'll be yet, but I know one thing, it'll be funny.
• Jon: There's a lot of religious undertones, did you ever think I'd just take this and turn it into dianetics, start my own religion, move everyone to the desert... what was the deal behind the Force?
• George: I used comparative religions and the commonality is there, it's what The Force is. It's the commonality through all religions. So they said "what is that God" between all religions, and they didn't want to personify it, so that's what the Force is. It's a way of keeping spirituality alive
• Jon: So the Jedi, they're kinda a priest... but they can channel it..
• George: Well it's more the monk idea. You get a warrior monk, the idea in Star Wars is they're not really warriors, they're negotiators. They negotiate disputes between planets, but they do it with a big stick, their lightsaber. If you don't come to a conclusion, I'll settle it for you.
• Jon: What's the idea behind them not getting married, the emotion behind it?
• George: Well, you have the light side- compassion, you care only about everyone else, the dark side, you care only about yourself and pleasure personally. There's a line between loving someone compassionately, and not being greedy; once you're greedy you get fearful that you'll lose what you have, so you have to give up everything. You can love people, but you can't possess them, you can't own them. Once you get power, it corrupts you. So Anakin, he fell in love with Padme, but then found out he would lose her. So he was tempted with someone saying "I can give you the power to save her".
• Jon: So what I take from that is Jedi CAN have one night stands. Palpatine insinuates that he learned power over life and death from his master, and then insinuates "too bad he was killed in his sleep" did he kill him?"
• George: Yes, he did. That's what Sith Apprentices do!
• Jon: Do you realize what you've made here?
• George: I'm still just a guy who makes movies. I'm philisophical enough to know that maybe it'll survive, maybe not. But I know we made a mark on the 20th Century and maybe we'll last through 21st. I really want for the first guy to get on Mars to say "I've wanted to do this ever since I saw Star Wars." That's the one thing I really want.
• Jon: Question from a 10 year old who wants to be a director, what's the secret?
• George: Do well in school, go to film school (college), and be mindlessly persistent. People go "how do i make a movie?". I say, well, you go get a camera, and get some kids to act for you. If you have no money, go sell your furniture.
• Jon: What's Obi-Wan's home planet?
• George: This is something that was one of the first things I wrote in the very first script. He comes from the planet StewJon (he says with a grin). And, since StewJon, I had no idea you existed obviously, but since you exist and his planet is connected with your name, and it's in the scripts, and hasbro reads the scripts, obviously... (R2D2 wheels out with somethin on his head, it's a Hasbro toy of Jon Stewart from the planet Stewjon!)
• George: This action figure comes with 2 heads. One looks just like he does right now, the other has a goatee! (Jon smiled and shook his hand, and hugged him)
• Jon: "Here's the sad thing, I'm not gonna let this in any way increase in value, I'm gonna open it up and play with it!" (audience cheers)
• (they show an old Star Wars Underoos commercial of kids dancing in the underoos)
• George: Mark and Carrie love those commercials...
• Jon: You know what's fun is seeing how far we've come in 30 years choreography wise. Now, there's a couple commercials from Japan...
• George: There was a dark period in my life, and I fell on some hard times, so I produced a couple things; I had to get a job, I was a spokesman for Panasonic, but it got me through those years when I was raising my kids and didn't have a job.
• (commercial has ewoks running behind a child then a child riding on the back of Chewbacca and George Lucas saying "Something New", the tagline of the commercial
• Jon: Someone wanted to know about the Baron from Clone Wars.
• George: Baron Pappanoida came out of Episode 2 or 3. There's a scene in an Opera where I'm there, they finally convinced me to be in the movie. My name was Baron Pappanoida, but I was there with my family. Unfortunately my son got killed by a bunch of storm troopers there.. so that was a shame. His daughter actually wrote an episode about the family doing some fighting.
• (Jon introduces the clip with the Pappanoida family fighting in a bar)
• George: The show is getting better and better, much more sophisticated. and... we're already starting to write season V.
• Jon: Who's the new guy coming up in Clone Wars?
• George: As they get better, another episode my daughter wrote is where Ventris helps a.. well, On the planet Ventris comes from, the women are on one side and control the planet, and the men live in an enclave, and the Emperor used one of them to become Darth Maul.
• Jon: Maybe we have a special guest that can come out and share some information with fans? It would be nice if there was just a little special moment we could give to them...
• George: "THE BLU-RAY"... I wish I could say it was coming out this year, but it's not. It's coming out next year. We've put together different kinds of additional material. There's some really good materials being included in there. Some of it is one scene, more deleted scenes you haven't ever seen yet.
• (Mark Hamill comes out and the crowd give him a huge applause)
• Mark: Take a deep breath, and sit down, you're cutting into George time! I just saw this clip for the first time on a golf cart on a computer. This is my natural entrance as a Jedi. When they told me, I said "I vaguely remember this" and when they showed me I really remembered it. It's very short, but it's very special. For all you ultra-passionate fans, it's special for you because let's face it you're like family. This is my original entrance into the film Return of the Jedi.
• (Darth Vader walks down a hall, and into a chamber, meditating, reaching out to Luke telepathically. Luke is shown in robes making his Lightsaber. He turns it on, glowing green, nods, and turns it off. It was a bit ominous, and was meant to make fans wonder, until the Green lightsaber turned on, whether he'd join his father on the darkside or not.)
• (Carrie Fisher comes out on stage also to huge applause, shares a long embrace with Mark, then with George, and gives a handshake and a kiss to Jon. Audience goes wild again!)
• Jon: Are these Celebrations your only opportunity for you all to get together? does the turn-out still blow your minds, make you feel like yesteryear?
• Mark: You forget the passion exists, and they prove you wrong.
• Carrie: I never thought this would be happening 30 years ago. I got proposed to yesterday, so that was nice.
• Fan yells "HAVE MY CHILDREN!"
• Carrie: You want children? That's gonna be rough. (to george): Did you ever put the nude scenes back in? There's a huge Jabba and me porn scene that didn't make it in. That's what got me into drugs (big laughter).
• Jon: It's been an absolute pleasure being here today and having this conversation with all of you. George, thank you for being here, and Fans, thank you all for coming out.
• (Fans Cheer)
• George: None of us would be here if it wasn't for you. You are the reason we are here on all levels. I make movies for fans, I make movies for people that like to go to the movies, and uh... it's great to be appreciated.

And, finally, here's a vid of the Star Tours Shut Down Ceremony: