Happy happy merry merry

So aside from making and eating food, we did do some other things to celebrate Christmas and Hannukah this year in this tropical place..  like sleeping off the food we ate and catching up on rest after very late nights with friends...

... and decorating the Christmas tree made of teak pieces.  It was either that or a plastic one or a tropical plant.  Zeric chose this one, it's a bit funky but it works.  Nevermind that it's about 100 pounds heavy! 

... and playing with all of the great toys we got!

We lit the menorah each night, and remembered our barucha..

"Happy Monica!!!" as our friend Indie says!

The kids put on a great holiday performance at school.. it was really impressive, and all the kids from the maternelle (3s, 4s and kindergarten) had a great time doing it!

Of course, it's important to cool off with a Bintang (beer) in the pool after some heavy duty Christmas stocking action..

And finally, time at the mall (a must in Jakarta) with friends enjoying the [um a bit surreal] Christmas scenes.. I wasn't there for this one, but according to our friend Pammi (photo credit here), Santa even had a Thai mail order bride cum elf at his side. 

Hope yours was happy, merry and fun!  Big hugs from all of us waaaay over here.

Holiday foooood!!

The years when Hannukah and Christmas fall at the same time are just tough.  This year, I wasn't so good about taking pictures of food (sorry, Lauren!).  I will tell the story anyway and add the pictures I do have.

On the first night of Hannukah (lalalalala), we had a party with about 40 fun people.  We served latkes and Zeric's carrot salad.  We served marinated chicken (great recipe! see http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Apricot-Glazed-Chicken-240961) from the grill and leg of lamb from the grill too. We had an orzo salad, and Toni and Adam rocked the oil theme and brought springrolls.  Yes!!  For dessert we had Mom's cream cheese cookies with apricot and berry jelly (action shot included), and Jew chocolate sugar cookies (picture also included).  I think Reuben got me those cookie cutters last year, and they really do the job!  We also had challah donuts (we thought of you, Juan!).  He really really best part of all of this is that ibu Sikom spent the night by the hot pans of oil for us.  You see, all food in Indonesia is fried.. okay, not all, just 99% is goreng (fried).. so she is an EXPERT.  She did a great job with the latkes and the donuts, and I didn't get burned this year :)  It was awesome.

Four short days later, we hosted a Christmas dinner.  Fewer people than on Girard Street but not a less ambitious menu:

Bubbly ~ Cordorniu (Spain) and Chandon (California)

White wine ~ Les Cinq Pates (France), Bordeaux, 2009

Red wine ~ Chateau Ste Michelle (California), Cabernet Sauvignon, 2005

Amuses Bouches ~ Pate, locally-cured salmon, curry-spiced nuts, turmeric-pickled daikon radishes, cornichons, fish roe, parmesan canneles, sage crackers, white bean dip with garlic and cumin           

Hors d'Œuvre ~ Seared duck fois gras and king prawns with white wine poached pears, mint lime tamarind sauce

La Soupe ~ Carrot soup with hints of ginger and coconut, sage crackers

La Tarte ~ Home-made ricotta, spinach, tomato, carmelized onion and pine nut tarte

Fruits de Mer ~ Grilled oysters on the half-shell (Creuses Tsarskaya No 3), cilantro tapenade   

Le Poisson ~ Steamed jon dory in banana leaf with sticky rice

La Volaille ~ Home-smoked turkey, braised mushroom coulis, and three-fruit chestnut stuffing

La Salade ~ Niçoise                                                                         

        

Le Dessert ~ Mocha rum cake, flan, and French country apple pie    

Les Fromages ~ Epoisses, Vacherin Mont d’Or, chèvre

Digestives ~ Martell XO Cognac, Ron Zacapa Solera Grand Reserve Rum, Dalwhinnie Single Highland Malt 15 year                                                                               

Zeric and I spend a number of days planning and ordering.  We were introduced to this marvelous man named Stephane who imports things.. really, really good things.. from France.  Like cheese and oysters.  More on that in a minute.  So Zeric and I spent twelve hours in the kitchen Saturday.. and then it took another six hours to eat.  We did require techniques assistance from Veronique to de-nerve the fois gras.  Ummmm. yeah.  Glad it wasn't me.  And could have done without watching (it was kinda like a car accident that way).  Anyway, the eight of us around the table swore we would never eat again.  We actually had to take a break somewhere around the tarte.. where I forgot to put the trou Normand.  And we cancelled the salade nicoise.  Here are a couple of pictures of the food, but I'm really bummed that I didn't get one of Zeric's most awesome grill-smoked turkey--it was beautiful!  And I somehow didn't get a picture of my very first cheese canneles that Charles (Greene) and JP would be so so proud of. <sigh>  I guess I'll just have to make them again.

French apple pie

sage crackers, went well with the caviar

Toni and Steven with their Xmas cracker crowns.. it's apparently a British thing

Jaffa and her juicebox.. and festive dress!

And now I am dedicating a section to the oysters because they deserve it.  I'm not sure how Stephane did got them here so quickly, but we so much appreciated it! These were fresh and sweet.. and Zeric ordered a lot of them :)  the only thing we didn't have was the correct knife so Julian and Zeric went to it with regular knives.. yes, cringe.. because Julian took one for the team and now has a nice hole in the meaty part of his hand.  Thankfully, Pammi had cream and Hello Kitty bandaids on hand.

 Overall, a good time was had by all, and everyone rolled out the door in time to get kids in bed just before Santa came back around especially for us after China (because we missed his first stopover in Indonesia according to NORAD).  We sure did miss hosting all of you in DC!!  We are glad to have some fun people to hang with here, especialy those who love eating!

Finally, the kitchen the next morning.. including menu and GANTT--of course!

Jaffa and the shark

Jaffa is an artist like her uncle.  Sometimes she gets up in the morning and needs to draw before she does anything else.  She informed me the other day that she is now tall enough to reach the paper in my printer so now is the time to invest in A4-sized paper companies because she tears through it.

Jaffa is also learning to swim, but with hesitation.  We were talking about trying surfing lessons this coming week (because, after all, there are some of the best waves inthe world here), and she is reticent.  I was hoping that surfing would inspire her to get in the water more; we even gave permission for her to see the surfing Barbie movie at a friend's house and she was singing the 'catching the wave' song for hours afterwards... and then, she drew this:

   

"A shark with the mommy goldfish in its belly, chewing on the baby goldfish"

Perhaps this is a hint as to why she prefers to build sandcastles..

Being patient in the commissary...

...while Mommy and Daddy shop for booze.  They were just a little bored, amidst the crackers and dog food.

On the road (aka macet), Part II

Macet means 'jammed' in bahasa indonesia, and it is most commonly used when referring to traffic in Jakarta.  I mentioned before that the traffic here is insane, and that the motorcycles are the worst.  Here's a visual for you:

I also mentioned in my post about traffic (September) that here motorcycles are a mode of transportation for entire families.  I'm still trying to get a picture where the kid is actually standing up in between the parents.  That will be post Part 3. Meanwhile...

Family of 4.. see the arm of the kid between the parents.                                                  Kid in sling.. that makes it safer? 

only 3 this time.. both parent with helmets and kid with.. baseball cap?

Finally, remember when I swore I would never ever ever drive a minivan?  Well, my friends, it has happened.  We own a Toyota Kijang and it IS a minivan.  And I've driven it twice.  Both not to far from home, and on very off hours.  Zeric's driven all over the city on the weekends, and if he gets the 196something Vespa he really wants, he'll be one of those crazy people in the mob of two-wheelers trying to get themselves killed every morning and evening.  Can't wait.   

Food Part 5 II - K is for kopi

 Addendum to prior posting: 

Another visit to Anomali coffee for some beans and my free cup of "please pick your beans, and would you like drip or French press, madam?"  I like them and they always have cute boys working behind the counter.  And looook what they had this time on the bar (see left).  I have never seen a milk-froth pig before.  Neato. We should enter these guys in that international competition.

Unrelated note about a competitor that has the Kenyan beans I like.. LOOK what they have now:

I'll take orders :)

Hosting cicaks

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting Geckie and Sophia, Jaffa's class pets, for the weekend.  These are not just any cicaks (pronounced cheechaks), these are some beautiful lizards.  Sophia is the slightly smaller one and she is very shy.  She hides in her habitat most of the time, only coming out when the live crickets come to visit (yum!).  We had a great time watching these beautiful creatures, they were elegant and curious--and have stunning lime green eyeliner!

Because I am a Jewish mother (though Zeric has the same instincts), we, of course, ran out of the live crickets we were given to feed them on Saturday night.  Not thinking of the internet resource to learn about their eating habits or diet, I sent Zeric out on a bug-hunting expedition so that our guests would not starve.  The horror of having to bring starved lizards back to school on Monday!  So Zeric took some kids and dutifully braved swarms of Denge-swollen mosquitos to hunt for Geckie and Sophia's dinner.  He came back

having scored zero on crickets.. but he had a huge white grub, a cockroach, and some termites (see picture) all from our very own yard.  We figured that they would likely have the sense not to eat anything that would kill them, so we tossed them in (except for the grub, which was waaaay too big for their mouths and just yucky yucky yucky to have around.. it was returned to far away outside).  And.. hours later, after having had to chase the cockroach around a bit, Geckie and Sophia looked quite content.  Phew. 

When we proudly brought back the happy and well-fed lizards on Monday morning, we found out that we were the first to provide a non-cricket buffet.  See?  You eat good when you come to our house.  And then we also found out that their tails are fat because they store energy there and we could have not fed them for a week and they would have been fine.  Nevermind that.

We also found out that it is intentional to have a boy and a girl together, apparently biology class starts early in the French school.  Let's hope that they like the cover of darkness because I am not ready for THAT conversation with the kids, not even about lizards.  We did, however, put ourselves on the list for babies should their be any.  It's the lime-green eyeliner that sold me.

A visit to the dentist

It always causes some apprehension, and given how much we like Dr. Z in Adams Morgan, we (the little we) were very worried that this dentist wouldn't be nearly as gentle--and most importantly, that we would not get toy rewards for good behavior.  Well, we have a new favorite dentist: Dr. Hilly.. and the commute is just as good.  Dr. Hilly's place is impressive, state-of-art, and you even get to pick out the video you want to watch while your mouth is being jostled and poked. [Sorry to you big people, you are stuck with BBC news, no 'My Little Pony' choices for you.]  And, yes, you get toys for behaving.  Because Indonesians are so nice, you can even coerce them into giving you more than one (if your parents don't interfere, dangnammit).

The real reason I'm writing this blog is not to let Dr. Z know that she has competition, but rather to give you a good giggle about the form that you have to fill out when you arrive.  There were some other questions, but these were the ones that sent Zeric and me into fits of giggles in front of the professional and polite receptionist.  Read carefully:

The comments section of this posting is for you to tell us how you would fill out the form.  At least one of you had better choose 'histerical' as your mentaly attitude if you want to keep being my friend :)

Helping around the house

It wasn't even the run-up before the holidays that inspired the kids to help around the house, they just like to.  Sometimes.  I wonder how long that is going to last.  Tonight Eben asked when we were going to start cooking for next week's visit to Mirasole (the embassy house up in the mountains, see November post for the last time we went) and was very disappointed when I put him off till tomorrow. 

For future reference and coersion, we have captured some of these helping moments in digital record...

using the ladder: cleaning fans and hanging things

helping in the kitchen.. cutting celery for matzoh ball soup and setting the table

getting ready for prom?? (yep, that really is my bra)
oh, he's gonna make a good husband someday!

All I want for Christmas..

.. is my two front teeth!  Jaffa lost her two bottom teeth tonight--her first ones!!  I remember the day that those two little teeth first appeared (that was right before she starting biting me when she was nursing), and tonight, they are out!  Our little girl is getting to be a big girl. <sigh>

It started yesterday when Eben popped her in the mouth and they got real loose. (Can't punish him if she truly asked for it!) Then this morning they were still real loose, so she showed the Breslar-Chichester-Oleksiuks how wiggly they were on Skype.  By the time she got home from camp they bent the whole way forward (ew).  Daddy helped yank one before dinner.. and one after dinner.. it went something like this:

"Here we go, let's pull the other one out," says Zeric.  Eben braces himself, Zoey grabs the camera.

"Ready? Set.. pull!"

"Done!! Hooray!!"

A better shot of the gap:

Soon she'll be asking for the car keys.

Eztu Glass Factory visit

Also waaaay back in November, the group I belong to with the Indonesian Heritage Society http://www.heritagejkt.org/ went for a visit to a stained glass factory just outside of town.  Eztu Glass imports glass from all over the world and exports stained glass all over the world.  It's an impressive operation, very interesting to see the inner-workings of an Indonesian factory.

The group of us were taken through all of the steps in creating huge and small stained glass objects: windows, ceilings, suncatchers.. you name it. 


shaping and buffing the glass pieces




drawing the designs




putting the pieces together



bronze "lead"

about 3 feet by 4 feet



finished windows!



Just a small part of the mural on the outside walls made with leftover pieces of glass from the factory.

The most amazing part of the process for me was that--in spite of there being a lot of glass--we did not see one drop of blood!