Adobo is another one of those traditional filipino dishes... Hard core filipinos tend to like stinky sour things with lots of rice. haha... when you cook Adobo, it might stink up the house a little (although... some folks like the garlicky vinegary smell...)

Ingredients:

2 lbs chicken (e.g. 2 packs of wings, thighs, breasts, drumsticks, or a mixture thereof)
and/or

a small pork butt roast (it's really the upper part of a pork shoulder, don't know why they call it a butt)

5 cloves garlic minced

1/2 onion chopped

5 cloves (the spice clove, the kind you poke into a ham)

2 bay leaves

2/3 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup vinegar

about 1/2 cup of flour or so (to coat the chicken)

pepper to taste (some folks put a tablespoon or so of whole pepper corns)

Directions:

Rinse the chicken pieces parts and pat dry...

if you have wings (haha... the chicken, not you), you can cut the little drumstick part from the other part, and trash the little tips if you wish (or you can keep 'em whole, sup 2U)

if you have the pork butt (haha... the roast, not you), chop the roast into 2 inch cubes, getting rid of the excess fat if you wish (probably tastes better if you leave a little fat)

coat the chicken (and pork if you're using it) in the flour

Optional: quickly fry the flour coated chicken and/or pork in oil until both sides are brown

Put all of the other ingredients in a big pot and stir around a little

Add the meat and bring the whole thing to a boil, stirring occasionally, until about half the liquid evaporates (about 20 to 30 mins)

Add water until it's barely covering the meat and bring to a boil again

Lower the heat and simmer for about 30 mins

Great over steamed rice... actually, it's probably kinda nasty w/ any starch other than rice...

That's it! Enjoy!

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

so... with the Disney Dream Cruise we'll be taking next July, we were thinking of spending a day or two @ Universal Orlando to check out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (WWOHP).

Our family has been potter fans ever since the first book (Sorcerer's Stone) was published, taking turns reading each book as they came out (daughter first, then son, then wife, then... always the last... me...). We made a big night of it when Sorcerer's Stone first came out on the big screen (going out for dinner & all)...

so... when Universal announced that they'd be introducing the WWOHP theme park, well... of course we're going to have to check it out some day... Our kids aren't kids anymore so... it's getting tougher to find an excuse to check things like it out, especially since were on the other side of the US from it... Anyway, here's one of the original teasers that came out on it:

NBC put on a "The Making of WWOHP" special while everyone was waiting for them to build the park:

and here's the WWOHP commercial that was shown during the 2010 Super Bowl:

The special WWOHP grand opening ceremony was pretty spectacular:

One of the hottest cool rides in the park is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey:

Really can't wait to check it out... oh well... I guess a year isn't really that far away (heard that the forbidden journey brakes down a lot... maybe it'll stabilize by then :)

a few more WWOHP video links:

Hogwarts Castle (queue line for forbidden journey)

Flight of the Hippogriff Rollercoaster

Dragon Challenge Rollercoaster

Hogsmead (kind of like a Harry Potter Main Street USA)

Ollivander's Wand Shop

Harry, Ron, Malfoy, Butterbear, JK & other grand opening scenes

Hermione, Hagrid, Neville, Fred & George

Ellen

Hogwarts Frog Choir

Tri-Wizard Cup Show