A Silver Anniversary Dinner

CEBU, Philippines - I received an invitation to the 25th Year Thanksgiving Dinner of our office's supplier of computer parts and accessories. We have been sourcing many of our office hardware and software requirements from them for some time. Perfect Star PC Shoppe has a branch located near my former office on P. del Rosario St., and that's how our business relationship started. I like them for their reliability and after-sales service.

 These days, it is difficult not to be computer literate, and much more difficult if office or personal electronic equipment malfunction. We have become subservient to these machines and the youth today, especially, cannot imagine life without their gadgets. Even your favorite food critic uses a computer to make this column possible.

But I was born in an era where addition and subtraction were made using the fingers, or the abacus or sheer mental calculation. We had keyboards only for the piano, we cut and paste using the scissors and glue, the web was home for spiders and the stuff of horror movies, applications were intended for employment, and viruses infected only living creatures.

 Then came the personal computers. In 1978, one of my friends, Mario Briones, bought the TRS-80 from Radio Shack with 12-inch monitor (black/lightest blue and white!) and a tape recorder for data storage. All software were homemade using the Basic, Cobol or Fortran languages and my interest was to develop a program to formulate feeds (minimize cost/linear programming) for chicken and pigs. My, that was a long time ago… and some of my beloved readers were not even born yet!

Now back to the celebration. The Silver Anniversary Dinner which was held on June 30, at the Salon de España of Casiño Espanol de Cebu Inc. Janice Monungolh introduced me to the CEO of Perfect Star Lenton Beltran and CFO Rosita Beltran and I congratulated the couple for their success in the very competitive industry.

 As usual food photos had to be taken before the beautiful displays were opened for dinner, and the service brigade of Casiño Espanol de Cebu Inc. were very accommodating to our simple requests like an extra plate of peanuts and wine glasses were quickly refilled.

Two salads were served, "Tossed Tomato & Mozarella Salad in Pesto Sauce" and the "Traditional Potato Salad with Quail Egg and Smoked Salmon." I went for a plate of "Steamed Batonette of Root Vegetables," onions, carrots, celery & potato and the "Glass Noodles in Savory Sauce" for carbohydrate. Nice!

Then I tried the seafood, "Fish Fillet with Capers and Dill Lemon Beurre Blanc" and the "Parmesan Crusted Chicken Fillet with Tomato and Mango Salsa" before savoring the star of the show in Casino Espanol, the "Lengua Estofado." Lechon de Cebu was also served and the service brigade was quick to serve this delicacy to our table. The other guests at the nearby table started to wonder who we were being served, excuse me, by a succession of waiters.

Without computers, this dinner would not have been possible and it took the business acumen of Perfect Star couple Lenton and Rosita Beltran for the company to survive and prosper the last 20 years and with hope and prayers, to be able to celebrate its golden anniversary in 2039.