High Tea and Oxtail soup

Sunday was the day after Yom Kippur, and I was ready to eat.  Lucky us, we got this fabulous invite from our friends and neighbors Toni and Adam (and lovely Amelie and sweet Alex) to out for an afternoon splurge.  The boys were going to one fancy hotel for oxtail soup.  The girls were going to another fancy hotel for high tea.  Eben really wanted to go to High Tea, but he ended up being pretty happy playing with Alex on the awesome playground, and eating a hamburger with an egg on top (guess he bailed on the oxtail soup).

The boys' hotel was the Hotel Borobudur.  Borobudur is a beautiful Buddhist monument, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur.  This is a replica, but we'll let you know when we go visit the real deal!

While the boys were chewing on tail bones and climbing the jungle gym, we girls were crossing our ankles and jingling our jewelry.  And scarfing sandwiches and petit fours.  The tea was amazing.. the cakes were splendid.  The hotel was, well five-star.  It was a fancy afternoon.  

   

Amelie and Jaffa, just before attacking the pastry tray

[left] A plate of Indonesian pastries was the perfect touch, I think I tried all of them.  Or at least the ones that Jaffa didn't get to first.  There are lots of million-layer cakes here: 8 o'clock, yellow.  Jaffa got that one, along with the one to its right.. with the chocolate stripe. The million layer pink (4 o'clock) was a kaffir lime/citronella mega jello.  Pretty good, not too sweet.  The green and white cookies were wiggly, so we weren't interested.  Brown, 10 o'clock, YUM.. sweet sticky rice.  11 o'clock YUM again.. fried plantain with coconut inside. Three middle ones were savory, went well with the two spicy peanut sauces (see bottom of the picture).

[right] 5-inch high scones. Warm. Really nice. Jaffa said they were as good as Charles'.  They were good, but she was delusional from all of the sugar she had already ingested. The butter/Bon Maman strawberry jam/heavy cream accompaniments were quite helpful in choking them down, however.  I choked down two, fully loaded.  Good thing I played squash today!


Toni and Zoey, and bunny.. satiated.
Bummer you can't see our heels, we were stylin'!



Taking time to smell the flowers

We have an open air flower market just outside the gate of the compound.  They have everything, including lilies and other sweet smelling ones that are great for overpowering sweaty dog smell. It's so great to pass by it every day.. and to be able to pick up flowers on the way to a lunch/dinner/gouter/tea.  $11 for a huge bouquet.  And the kids get free flowers for their room every time we buy. 

 

This counts towards making up for the cheese debacle.
[Two weeks till memere is here!! with cheese from France!!! ]

Did I mention orchids?  Cut ones last three weeks.. makes us think of Marlene!

Leks and Linda's House

I wish I could say that I know Leks and Linda.

I have met Lexs only once, briefly.  They are amazing

people, very much committed to the promotion of Indonesian

 culture.  They run exclusive tours to uncommon destinations. 

And they have this amazing, fabulous, incredible

house that we had the good luck to visit last weekend. 

In all, they have more than 72,000 Indonesian cultural artifacts.

Here are some pictures of just a few of the things we saw:

antique wayang golek puppets



courtyard pool

masks

stone clown, from the Mahabharata

gold heads, from all over Asia

Food Part 4 - some new, some known

While we've been exploring some of the local fare, we also have had a tendency lately to go back to some of the things we know.. and seek out some of the things we love love love.

Indonesian

  

(left) This is fried manioc/casava with a sweet and very spicy sauce.  I need to learn how to make it so that I can do it baked because the grease kinda gets to you after the third bite.

(right) This is fried garlic, comes in a plastic container in the spice section.  Not greasy.  Now one of my favorite ingredients and I have to keep myself from eating a handful by itself.

Cake

Preface: Pammi loves her some cocktails (what a great friend to have!), but more importantly about her is that she is addicted to Nesquik.  A big glass every morning.  And she knows every store in Jakarta that stocks it, just in case.

Her birthday was last week, so I thought I would see what I could do with one of the two Nesquik cake recipes I could find anywhere.  I am not a fan of the stuff, but it turned out okay.. particularly because I smothered it in chocolate ganache and heavy whipped cream!

Breads



Eben enjoying, Theda hopeful

Another reason I might be able to survive the cheese problem here is because we found 'Le Croissant Francais'. See http://www.lecroissantfrancais.com/.  Weekend morning deliveries available for croissants (almond, butter, chocolate), apple turnovers, ECLAIRS, and nice breads. 


Challah, the two-strand version.  Six-strand and more to come. Found this GREAT instructor on UTube: Ciril Hitz.  Not sure that I'll ever brave the twelve-strand!

Body art, part 1 - Uncle Reuben's fault

Uncle Reuben is doing some very creative things in Washington's art world.. see http://pinklineproject.com/article/touch-happening.  I am very proud of him, and and super excited about the twists and turns that his career is taking.  I am one of his biggest fans :)

That said, it would be nice if my children didn't take his lead when I took must-needed post-squash-butt-kicking rest on the couch.  But what do I say?  "You really shouldn't put ink on your body"?

Fortunately, I had the sense to buy (almost) all water-based markers.. so the only thing that lasted as a slightly blue armpit that I covered before hitting that ladies' lunch the next day.

The magic in our house - Supono and Sikom

Pak (Mr) Supono and Ibu (Mrs) Sikom are the kind folks here who take care of us and put up with us almost every day.  Pak is a patient, careful driver who never gives anyone the finger or raises his voice.  He must be a saint.  Ibu cleans and chases kids and makes the best springrolls ever. Both Pak and Ibu really like Theda and Olivia, and willingly play ball and tetherball.

Pak lives here in Jakarta, has a wife and three teenage daughters.  Ibu's husband, 11-year old daughter, and 9 and 6-year old sons are in east Java, a number of hours away.  We hope to meet them all someday soon.

We are lucky to have them keeping our household running, and happy to have them as a part of our family here in Indonesia!

Anjin anjin senang (happy dogs)

Some of us Americans live in a compound within a compound.. we call it the secret squirrel compound because it's easy not to know that there are about a dozen more houses behind the big green gate.  Unless you notice the US Embassy guards hanging around. 

We live in a place where the kids are in and out of each other's houses every afternoon.. having lunch at one and snack at another.  We think they are lucky to having something that almost looks like our childhoods of long ago when we ran the neighborhod and had to be home when the streetlights went on... except that they have a troup of pembantus (nannies) following them around moderating fights and making sure no one gets stuck in the trampoline. 

It also means that it's quiet. 

No sirens, no impromptu strangers ringing the bell, very few big noises, and (at the moment) very few other dogs. Theda is in heaven.  She's glad to have weathered the trip across the oceans to be here where it doesn't get cold, where Pak Supono asks to walk her and Olivia a couple times a day, and where she can sleep on the cool stone floor.  For fun, she and Olivia will--once in a while--remind the gardeners that they are getting too close to the house (through the glass and bars on the windows).

There were a couple of dog things that got thrown in the UHaul rental truck one of those last days of the move including old stinky dog beds and the collapsed (but still functional) tetherball.  Those were some of the first things to get ordered and shipped using the fabulous FPO.  [Ladies that lunch and get their butts kicked playing squash have to feel productive somehow!]  <big dog sigh> It feels like home.

Now Theda and Olivia are just hoping that I don't actually notice the mobile dog-washing truck that comes to the compound every weekend to wash a neighbor dog. 

Yes, things are back to normal.  Thank dog.