Vicki’s delicious creations
VICKI Limchayseng Pastoriza and I are drawn to each other because of our love for baking and cooking.
I met Vicky, Campaigns Cebu’s Director for Client Service/Media through my daughter Stephanie. Vicky’s husband Adrian Zen and Stephanie worked together in Olbes, Ogilvy and Mather in Cebu in the mid-90’s. Vicki fondly calls me “tita.” More than our culinary interests, Vicki and I are both colegialas and grew up under the guidance of the nuns in St. Paul’s College of Manila. It is, therefore, not surprising that we easily bonded when we discovered we are both Paulinians. After high school, Vicki moved on to Assumption College where she obtained AB Communication Arts.
Inspite of her demanding career with Campaigns Cebu, Vicki found time to pursue and obtained a Certificate in Culinary Arts in 2010 where she finished class valedictorian. She is currently doing on-the-job training in Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino. And to add to the marvel of what she is into, she has started accepting orders for her Vittoria Cup cakes and Instant Frozen Meals.
Vicki’s love for cooking started when she was growing up in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila. Her father is pure Chinese while her mother is Spanish, which account for a passion for both cuisines. Her mom and her grandmother were good cooks. While her grandmother’s cooking is homegrown, her mom took short courses in Hotel and Restaurant Administration to enhance her small business of baked delicacies and special dishes as well as the Chinese cooking lessons she conducts.
And to showcase her culinary creations, Vicki invited Libia Chaves, Philippine School of Culinary Arts Chairman and me to a leisurely lunch one Saturday in her cozy home in St. Michael’s Village in Banilad. Her colorful cupcake tree greeted us. She showed us her home cooked instant meals, which are packed in small containers and frozen, most of which are ready to eat after a few minutes in the microwave. We started off with her Spring Rolls or Lumpia Shanghai. They are best deep fried while still frozen. The sauce was not the usual sweet and sour but a mixture of soy sauce sweetened with sugar. They were delicately crisp with a tasty filling of ground pork, shrimps, carrots and turnips. Her Barbecued Baby Back Ribs, a twice-cooked dish flavored with soy, catsup, sugar and pepper can be microwaved or baked in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes for a quick meal. The Chicken Palmer, Vicki said, is her mom’s recipe, with chicken pieces cooked in curry using milk and stewed with tomatoes. Her grandmother’s specialty is Braised Chicken with soy and ginger she calls luto luya. One of her bestsellers, Arroz con Pollo, is her poor man’s version of Paella. Her Lasgana is also a big hit. Libia and I, with our photographer Gerard Pareja, feasted on Vicki’s instant meal specialties. We also took home a container of frozen Callos.
The icing on her delicious creations is her Vittoria’s cupcakes. Her chocolate cupcakes are deliciously moist and firm. Vicki has perfected her boiled icing. She revealed that it took her several trials to get the right marshmallow consistency. Quite tricky- this boiled icing since I have been working on mine, too. The boiled syrup has to have the right consistency to spin a fairly long thread before pouring in a thin stream into stiffly beaten egg whites. So I call Vicky if I have cravings for these divine cupcakes.
