‘Laugh at yourself, but don’t ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don’t leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.’

~Alan Alda (Oh, how I loved to watch M*A*S*H)

I’m such a Katjang* at times… I just had toast with goat’s cheese, no cow’s cheese for me since being half Asian comes with having no enzymes in my system to digest some of the sugar in cow’s milk. I can hear you think: what’s wrong with having toast and cheese?

Well… I added a thick layer of Sambal Badjak extra hot/spicy on top of it, the kind of Sambal that makes some of you run for the water tap *hehe* That’s what you get when you mix two races… *LOL* At least I can laugh at myself and my weird cultural habits.

Another one is having leftovers for breakfast, not just any leftovers but Nasi Goreng for instance. I remember some of my Dutch friends had this weird look on their faces whenever they caught me having my Indonesian or Chinese leftovers covered in sateh sauce for breakfast the next morning.

I can’t get my favourite Sambal Badjak here, actually it’s hard to find any Indonesian ingredients here especially the boemboes [pastes]. My friend K, who is a quarter Indo and lives in London as well has the same problem. There’s only one solution which is preparing it all from fresh ingredients. Read: lots of work!

Luckily when I went to the Lowlands in April to move my stuff to London I bought two of the biggest jars of Sambal Badjak that I could get 750g each. There’s a bigger size still but hey… there’s no need to exaggerate right?

Last weekend I bought three coconut palms to add a nice touch to my office. I remember my dad kept one for years in the cellar, he brought it to the Lowlands when he moved from Indonesia. I remember I asked him about it when I was a little girl, I didn’t know what it was, he told me he wanted to plant it one day, he never did. So these brought back memories and I simply couldn’t resist… Remember to always follow your dreams and take steps to move closer. Even something as simple as planting a coconut…

Have a beautiful weekend!

*Katjang means peanut… In the Lowlands Indos are sometimes called Katjang which is considered name-calling to some but others [yes even Indos] consider it to be a nickname…

A spoon and a jar is all I need

My coconut palms sitting on top of my cool chest of drawers flightcase