Food, glorious food!

Boring...3 on a moped.

September is here, time for me to make my annual contribution to our blog. I know, once a year is pretty pathetic but I’m trying to be exclusive, kind of like a Ferrari, just better looking. So what to write about? The trips we have taken in our new car, the elusive quest to see a family of 6 on a moped, or maybe the crazy bugs we have found in our house this week. All good topics, but very Toyota, I need a Ferrari topic. It came to me as I was cleaning up the charcoal from the barbeque that was knocked over by one of the neighborhood cats: Food, glorious food! So here it is: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

Our housekeeper/cook.

Our housekeeper: we really lucked out with her, our little old lady may not be a spring chicken but boy does she know how to cook! We have been spoiled with home cooked meals every day: chicken soup, fresh samosas, noodles, rice, you name it, all followed by freshly cut fruit of course. Unfortunately she’s not around on the weekends so we have to fend for ourselves (I know, life’s rough over here). Lucky for us there are places in the mall that have food-for-money exchange programs and what’s even more amazing is that it costs about 150,000 rupiah to feed a family of four. That translates to about $16, including the tip.

The Bad

BBQ- in :)  Beer-out :(

Our housekeeper: she cooks a great meal and what do you do with good food … you eat it, and if you’re anything like me, you eat too much of it. And what happens when you eat too much of it … you get bigger, and we all know I don’t need to get any bigger; Anouk yes, Papa no. So that is why on Monday I am starting the first annual my-housekeeper-makes-really-good-food-but-I-have-no-self-control-and-it-goes-straight-to-my-hips diet. Can you fire someone for cooking delicious food?

The Ugly

Disgusting durian.

Our housekeeper: just kidding, she’s cute as a button. I just have to say, I don’t usually look at a button and think “wow, that is one cute button”, I would have gone with “cute as a baby tiger”, but that’s just me. Anyway, there are plenty of foods here that fall under the ugly category. There’s durian, the fruit that stinks to high heaven. The smell hits you as soon as you walk into a store that sells it and there’s really no way to describe it. There are the black eggs that are for sale in the supermarket but we’re just too scared to buy.

Awesome... 100 year old eggs.

And then there are the potato chips, oh the potato chips. My theory is that the big-wigs at the top potato chip manufacturers made a bet to see who could come up with the craziest flavor and actually get people to eat it. My two personal favorites are prawn (the chips are actually pink) and salmon teriyaki, clearly two flavors that should not come as potato chips. But it’s working, just like big oil can double gas prices in the summer, so can big potato chip get you to eat the most obnoxiously flavored potato chips, at least they got me to eat them.

So there you have it, job finished. Time to sit back, open a bottle of Bintang, grab some snacks and watch some soccer. Oh how I love thee, pre-diet days! Until next year.
Rob