New Year's Eve Project

When I was a teenager, my parents hosted a no-drinking New Year's Eve party at our house every year.  One of the favorites at the party was a never-ending tray of lumpia.  Lumpia is the Filipino version of eggrolls.  They are amazing.

Back then, Mom would make up a ridiculously large pot of lumpia filling.  Then a bunch of ladies would meet at the pastor's wife's house with a bunch of lumpia wrappers.  We'd sit around a large table and roll up lumpia.  Then, on New Year's Eve, our Opa would sit outside and fry them for half the night.  Freshly fried lumpia were added periodically to the roasting pan on the kitchen table.

This year, I got the bright idea for Cassie and I to make lumpia for New Year's Eve.  We celebrate separately, but we could cook and assemble together.  She and I worked at Mom's house (Mom, Dad, and Oma were out of town, but we have keys--Love ya, Mom!).  Cassie had three of her four kids and I had one of my two.  We let them loose in the living room and got to chopping.  While we diced, I noted that our local Chinese restaurant sells spring rolls for a $1/roll.  We were going to save so much money!

An hour later, we realized they should charge more.

I had forgotten that lumpia wrappers are packaged all together, without wax paper between them.  They stick to each other and are dastardly thin.  If you don't peel carefully, one or more will rip.  Sometimes it's possible to fill some of the ripped ones if you are careful about where you put the filling and if you can position the rip as part of the layers.

It was a lot of fun to laugh while we were working together.  Life is so busy it's difficult to spend time together.  Working toward a goal while hanging out was awesome.  The results were tasty, too.