We’ve been fortunate enough to attend dinners or events styled by Cebu’s style arbiter Teresin Mendezona, but we have yet to see her repeat herself. No two “Tita Teresin’s”—as she is called with fondness by friends and associates—arrangements and stylings are the same, whether they are for weddings or for Cebu’s significant events.
For the Asean meet in Cebu about a decade ago, she used hundreds and hundreds of stalks of sampaguita to fill the tent with their white image and sweet scent.
For the golden wedding anniversary of Michel and Amparito Lhuiller, she used orchids to form chandeliers—and after this, we had seen it copied many times.
Stylish yet tasteful and classy, never boring, with always an element of surprise. That’s Tita Teresin’s stamp, and she loves decorating with what’s around, literally, like what’s in her garden. And she does it with taste and elan.
That was why when our good friend, Marissa Fernan, VP of SM Prime, said she was setting up an intimate dinner with Tita Teresin on our visit to Cebu over the weekend, we looked forward to it. We knew it’d be a visual and culinary feast in Tita Teresin’s home.
She laid out a summery table so refreshing to look at, with a centerpiece of yellow orchids and its roots running the entire length of the table for seven.
The yellow orchids were replicated on the tablecloth of yellow and purple blooms.
She served molo soup, salad of “ubud” (heart of palm) and pineapple chunks, which we ate out of fresh pineapples sliced in the center.
For main courses, we had steamed parrot fish on a bed of purple rice—wrapped in banana leaf accented with a bloom—and of course, the famous Cebu lechon, with unripe mangoes and atchara on the side.
The night was warm with an occasional breeze, and Tita Teresin had her baskets of fans ready.
On a night like this, tropical living is a blessing. —THELMA S. SAN JUAN