You're Invited

My second writing for SatuJakarta -South Jakarta Community Magazine, been published on April 2008 edition. You can read on page 13; You're Invited

Happy reading!

Goodbye my Maxtor….

Life is always unpredictable, full of surprise on every corner you turn off. Good things happened, bad things happened more often.

I had to say goodbye to my Maxtor today. Its life ended 2 nights ago, when I couldn’t access every-single-file I stored on it. I tried to kept calm, took a deep breath and tried again and again. After dozen of clicks attempt, and I seem lost connection with my best friend for the last 2 years, I called for rescue.

You know, women these days had very advance and sophisticated gadget, even state-of-the-art gadget. When it comes to service failure, most of women will came to this stages: panic attack –not knowing what to do, can’t thing clearly for next step-; tried to unplug-and plug all the cords; gave up ; calling for rescue. I experienced all those stages. When it came to rescue, I tried to tell my husband carefully, not only I don’t want to bother him checking my computer on 11pm that night –I wish, though, deep inside my though- but more like I was afraid I can’t face the reality if he does checking, that my external hard-disk called Maxtor had decide to froze itself.

Hard to accepted, bitter to swallowed, but it’s so true that after Z checked my Maxtor, it doesn’t work. I smiled –nervously- and said: ok, I sort them out tomorrow.

No need to wait until tomorrow, Z quickly googled some data recovery-company, and found one that look promising.

So, this afternoon I traveled 30km north with Z and Maxtor on his bag, meet this data-recovery guy, and I had to listed all of my most important file on the hard-disk. Most important ? Everything is important, of course. All those photos from our travels, my son photos since he was born 5.5years ago, my daughter photos from the last 1 year, and all of data for my online-shop, to name a few. Could I decide which one I want to recover first? Of course I can’t!

I still have to wait for final news from this guy. He dropped us an e-mail explaining what happened –about the data was corrupted, and so on and so on- and we agreed to pay him to recover all the data. Not cheap though.

I should learn not to put every-single-data without back-up on one place. I should stored some copies virtually. Or I should back to the era that put everything on writing on my notepad is much much better way.

For now, I just have to wait, and wait, and wait. For 4 until 8 days.

Bye Maxtor. Wish me luck.

Honey-soy Chicken

Serve 4-5


You need:
*1 kg of Chicken Drummettes (about 10-14 pieces)
*1/2 cup of dark soy sauce
*1/2 cup of honey
*3 garlic cloves minced
*flour for dusting


How to:
Mix soy sauce and honey on heated pan on medium heat. When it dissolve and mixed, add minced garlic, stir until mix well, turn off the heat
Pre-heat the oven. 180C for 10 minutes
Dust drummetttes with flour, arrange in baking tray
Pour honey-soy mixture on to drummettes, spread evenly
Bake for about 45-60 minutes until golden brown. Turned it over once when halfway cook if necessary
Ready to serve


TIPS & HINTS
Indonesian kecap manis goes very well and could be use instead of dark soy sauce
Honey-soy drummettes can be serve with plain rice, fried rice, brown rice, or pasta and vegetables with mayonnaise dressing

Simple Spaghetti with Sausages

Serve 3-4


You need:
*1/2 kg of beef sausages, sliced
*1 red capsicum, chopped
*250grams carrots, chopped
*2 tomatoes, chopped
*1 can of tomato paste (+/- 200ml)
*1 can of chopped tomato (+/- 200gr)
*1 onion, chopped
*2 tablespoon of Olive oil
*500gr spaghetti, cook according packaging instruction
*Salt & pepper, to season


How to:
Heat olive oil in a large pan
Stir onion, capsicum and carrots in, about 30 seconds
Add beef sausages, stir/mix well about 1 minutes or until sausages cooked
Add can of chopped tomato and tomato pasta, stir well
Add chopped tomatoes, mix well
Season with salt & pepper
Pour meat sauce over cooked spaghetti
Serve while hot


TIPS :
When cooking your pasta, always add your pasta when on water is boiling. Don’t need to add oil on the water or after draining the pasta, as the oil will coating pasta and make pasta doesn’t absorb flavour from sauce well.

Once you drain the cooked pasta from the pot, rinse pasta under stream of cold water to prevent pasta from overcook

You can always add basil (chopped) on your meat sauce on the last minute. It will enrich the sauce (add on the same time when you add fresh chopped tomato)

Sprinkle your spaghetti with parmesan cheese, it make taste better
Penne can be use instead of spaghetti

oh deer...oh deer, why you taste so good?

When we went to Growers Market couple of days ago, my eyes got stranded with one of the stall selling meat. What really interested me is they stated on their posters, all of this venison fresh meat had halal certificate from Australia Muslim Association.
The seller mentioned that all meat all halal, and we didn’t discuss any further. We went home with 3 big lot of meat, enough for 1 month stock.

Something rings my bell when I wanted to write about this Growers Market, and I did some research on every farmers or producers website. I opened this meat seller website, I saw pictures of deer. I read cautiously, and found that ‘venison’ is the way to call deer meat –which I obviously never heard or knew before- like we call beef for cow-meat.

I did read venison on their poster, their label, when I bought it. I never thought what it was. I though it’s kind of name of the farm or the product brand. How silly.

When I told my husband about it, he was surprised. He was in the same page with me. He never heard about it. I tried to assured him that I got plenty of recipes from their website, so there is nothing to worry about.

I throw this meat onto my grill, made a perfect tender steak. Very lovely texture, and taste great. More like grilled chicken liver rather than usual meat taste.
I’m happy to share –just- the picture with you.

What an experience!

ENVIRO-Bag on Ayahbunda Magazine

I am very happy to tell you that our ENVIRO-bag is published and promoted on Ayahbunda Magazine, out yesterday (May 10,2008) . They had Green Edition, and the Enviro Bag fit perfectly with the theme.

I deserve a big bunch of flowers for this hard work, don't you think so?

I'd love to presents this occasion as a birthday gift for my daughter -Ramyaziya Ruchira- who turn one on May 11, which where I got the name for my online shop -Strawberry Patch-.

Dare a Deer, dear?

We became market junkie now.

Last Saturday was our second visit to Good Living Growers Market held at Prymont Park. We nothing next to rushed this time, way different with last month, knowing this market is only open for couple of hours. Somehow we managed to arrive earlier than last month. We must’ve been lucky with all the public transports, I guess.

You might wonder what is so special with this market. Ok, let me tell you, if you expecting to find some ‘normal’ items like sold in Supermarket, you’ll be disappointed. The vendor’s sells more like organics-things or their own products from their farm, or their homemade food. Others sells fresh food, fresh meet direct from paddock, blueberry pancakes ready to eat –in case you haven’t had time for breakfast- or even flowers. Rare and unique flowers and stems –not kind of lilies or roses you found in every florist around the corner; more like exotic for me-. Coffee? Morning shopping without a cup of cappuccino won’t be a perfect outing morning. There are six or five coffee vendors, but you can’t past the obvious queue on Toby Estate Coffee.

Because this is second trip, we won’t go and bought same products as before –except products that have no competition and we fall into it-.

So, here our best pick from both visit:
· Fresh Lamb from Saltbush Lamb. First we bought lamb-chopped marinated in Moroccan-style; which we though will be spicy but turned out to plain for our Asian-tongue. Second time I bought fresh lamb-chopped, we had it for dinner on Sunday night and it was very beautiful and juicy lamb.

· Pastabilities.
We kept coming back for their sauce. I haven’t do anything with their chili&tomato jam I bought last Saturday, I will using it for spreading my next pizza project. It quite spicy, for sure –I tasted it-. I bought their grilled-eggplant and chili ready-to-use-pasta sauce, but they run out the stock last Saturday.

· Cordial from Fruitsoda, we bought couple of bottle ginger and kaffir lime cordials on our first visit. We didn’t buy anything last time, knowing winter just around the corner and we don’t feel for hot cordial.

· Sesame sauce –Goma- and Miso paste from middle-age couple who made everything on their kitchen. She is Japanese and the chef-of course- and he is an Aussie and did very good talking part. The best miso paste I ever ate –outside Japan- and us not very lucky last Saturday, they got nothing left when we came to their marquee. Have to wait until next market, next month.

· Parkers Organic Juice. The second best fresh juice –the first is the one I made from my kitchen-. They had sparkling version too. Why these juices taste better on the market rather than the one I bought from my neighborhood café?

· Venison from Mandagery Creek Farm. Do you know what it venison is? A deer, dear. From a dear-farm. One thing that catches my eyes is: they stated on their poster about halal certificate for their products. So why not try? I haven’t cook it though, tomorrow or the day after. But the meat seems so smooth and soft, so, wait until I eat it. I will tell you the rest.

Going Barn

We love eating out. Especially if those places or restaurants are kids friendly. With high chair and kids menu available. Also crayons and papers to make my littlies busy.

We went to the barn 2 Saturdays ago. Not literally barn, this barn is a café.

We traveled about 15 km to southern Sydney and it took us about 1.5hours –including 2 times changing buses and waiting time for the buses to come-. Not to bad, for a good food and different ambience.
The Barn Café located in suburb of Rozelle. We had been here once before, without the kids –long before my second was born- and the best thing after food is grocery shopping.

This café, not like ordinary café. I means, the interior, the ambience, the food, they all standing tall. As it name –barn-. A big spacious room divided into 3 sections: café, food groceries store, coffee shop.
The café itself took the biggest par of this premise. They mixed different style of wooden chairs on every table, and the bulky-wooden table reminds me of my grandma. Very homy and friendly. Make you want to sit here forever. The menus not too many, yet guaranteed to please your taste buds. We ordered bread platter with dips –which a plate with various bread serve with 3 different home-made dips, very yummy- as an entrée. My husband opts for chili king prawn wrapped beautifully on kind of crispy pastry sheet and serve on bed of fresh salads.

I love a lamb –always- that was why I ordered lamb shank –surprisingly big but very tender- with cauliflower mash and crispy potato ribbons sprinkle on top of it. No veggies though –not really healthy- but on that moment I just want to enjoy the food without thinking about how much I missed the veggies.

For kids meal, nothing new. Every kid loves fish&chips or pasta or simple sandwich, I presume. The pasta my son ordered turned out as kangaroo-shape pasta with simple Napolitano sauce. Plus he got smarty ice cream as dessert for his kids’ meal package. It is kind of relief though, found out the chips wasn’t kind of frozen chips-ready-to-fried thing, but this homemade chips cut in chunky way, taste so light. So good that when I throw out batch of frozen chips on the oven and serve to my daughter on the following day, she just bite a bit and whining all way during dinnertime, that the chips on the barn café was much much better, she wants only that sort of chips. Good girl. That is the downside of teaching your kids eating fresh and good food.

It’s cost us less than 90dollars, and that including coffee, big bottle of sparkling water and a bottle of chinotto –Italian soda-thing-.
Every cent is worth.

Once we finished our lunch –we sat on our table for about 2 hours- we begin our journey to their food shop. So many well-known brands on the shelves next to less-known brand (at least for me) present their own unique character.
We check-out with a bottle of their brand of olive oil, Turkish bread and a couple of organic chocolates.

For my son, the most appealing wasn’t the food or the place. But the menu book and the bathroom. Rather than binding in sort of normal-spirally-way, they binding the menu book with mini fork or spoon or knive as the binder. Very arty. And with the toilet, what fascinated my son is the way they use big wok as the sink and hole-ing the bottom of the wok so water can goes through. My son even snapped the idea of using our old wok to do the same in our bathroom. As if we can easily change it.

We went home happy.
Now, do more research to find our next pit stop.

Grandparents Day - part 1

I just attended Grandparents Day on my son's school. So many stories to share, just not having a chance to write it now.

But there was a lovely moment when the School Principal read this hearty poem -by Libby Haythorn- about Grandmothers, that some grandparents cannot help themselves not to laughing -or smile at least-.

I'd love to share this poem with you.

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STORIES GRANDMOTHERS TELL

Grandmothers then seemed larger with their ample floral bosoms and swathes of comforting corsetry.
They made scones and jokes,
lived in large erratic houses,
knew wars and depressions first hand,
had relatives, lots of them,
were free with advice, divinations,
wore hats and pusplish lipstick, pandered after youth.
Had stories, lots of stories all of them their own, and all of them more than likely true.

Grandmothers now have figures,
apartments nearby,
separate holidays and lives of their own.
They hanker after youth,
have facelifts sometimes,
contemporary anxieties and very few grandchildren.
Their stories have changed and seem, some of them less likely to be true.

-------------------------------------------------------

I started to imagining, what it will be like when our time comes, become grandmother.
Will grandmothers on our era wear ipod or carrying i-mac everywhere, connecting to internet 24/7 and live on our own?

Finally....My STRAWBERRY PATCH

After weeks of sleepless nights...
Weeks of bored of my PC monitor....
Hundreds of hours uploading all data’s and photos and configured everything...
Thousand times of checking and re-checking, going mental to make sure everything running properly....
Heaps of hugs and kisses from Z and the kids...they kept my adrenaline pumping back to finished this project............

I am happily launching my real online shop. The serious one. The proper one.


STRAWBERRY PATCH


This is just the beginning...there will be more work to do, more photos to be taking, more constant-phone-call to Indonesia...and more headache on 11pm past....

I am just feeling happy now, let me enjoy the moment.

Big thanks to everybody that tirelessly supporting me and make this happen