A good friend is someone you can share good news with. I agree. But for me, a very good friend is someone who eats everything I cook! *giggle*
My mom is a fantastic javanese cook. So was my late grandmother. Everytime I was in the kitchen with them, I felt hopeless, my cooking skill is nowhere near theirs. And they both learned by practice, no cookbook available. Yet, the composition of ingredients and spices was always just right.
So for years, I was convinced that I couldn't cook. During my student years I always bought food from street food stalls or simple instant food and spent every single weekend at grandma's for the delicious treats she would prepare for her visiting grandchildren.
You become what you believe. But somehow things change. I got sick and was hospitalized. The nutritionist from the hospital provided me with a plan I had to follow for the next 6 months. I was horrified. But eventually, I got used to the diet. The plan included fresh ingredients minus heavy spices, and excluded all kinds of canned and junk food. And then along came something I never thought would ever happen: I started to cook.
Somehow I relieved because I had to avoid spices, which is sort of compulsory for Indonesian cooking, so I had the reason (to tell my mom and grandma) to cook simple, 'European' food. I started with French food. That was nostalgic. It's like coming back to my year in France 11 years earlier. There, in the little town of Lunéville in the north-eastern France, every Monday and Wednesday, coming back home from school I would discover authentic French home cooking prepared by our Madame Boite. She had worked for my host family for long time; she was simply part of the family. And indisputably, she's the expert of the home. When I opened the door and I heard the music from
Radio Bleu, it meant that Madame Boite was there, in the middle of preparing delectable food and ironing clothes, all at the same time, swift and efficient. She would sing while spraying the lavender water on the linen, and soon dinner was ready, and the whole family would eat together, talked about what happened during the day, or our plans for the upcoming weekend. The food was as simple as
pot-au-feu, fish fillet with rice or just green salad with
vinaigrette, but the whole thing was so special that the memory is permanently implanted in my brain.
In 2003, during my summer course in Uppsala, Sweden, I met Joanna, a Polish girl, a passionate and inspiring vegetarian, an avid learner of Indian and Scandinavian cultures. Our bond was instant. The time I introduced myself to her, given the fact that she had studied Indian anthology, she responded with a long story about the meaning of my Sanskrit name, Amreta. I was fascinated. Well, somebody appreciated my name!
The next two weeks, together with our Austrian friend Wolfgang, we were inseparable. I would follow her to one restaurant to another looking for vegetarian food, share our stories and aspirations, or just laugh at everything that happened in our lives. From Sweden I continued to France, and with my host sister Isabelle and brother Jean Christophe exploring the trails in the Vosges mountains and the wine route of Alsace, camping in the vineyard, sampling the local food and tasting the wines. All about good food and good friends. It's about good life!
Back to Indonesia, I became more into vegetable though I can't say I'm vegetarian (like Joanna). My mother was terrified once she knew I preferred to eat only vegetables as frequently as I could. She was afraid I would be sick. I told her I still ate meat when there's no other option, though not too much. Just as she kept questioning me about it, I did get sick. But after a blood examination, the doctor told me that my hemoglobin level was too high, and I was suggested to avoid red meat as much as I could. The Universe provided an answer for my mother's worry!
Now at home, in the tiny kitchen of the house I shared with other four girls, I eagerly try to revive all these good times through my cooking. Though not with everyone I could share my palate, at least, my long-time house mate Fina stays the one with fantastic enthusiasm for our home cooking activities. We stack cookbooks and magazines in our bookshelves for reference and inspiration, but since we always have to adjust the ingredients to whatever available here, we often ended up creating our own recipes!
From vinaigrette to tabbouleh, pasta sauce with basil or potato with dill, we keep our travel dreams going from our kitchen and dining table. And when we want Indonesian food? Easy, we just go out and buy gado-gado (mix vegetable with peanut sauce) or nasi goreng (fried rice) from some food stalls across the street...
Home sweet home!
Mom and me - 1974
I was learning to ride....what, a goat?
