Cikelin Chronicle

I am a complete idiot on cooking . Ibu saya piawai memasak masakan super lezat. Sayangnya bakat itu tidak 'menurun' ke saya. Kok bisa ibunya pinter masak tapi anaknya gak bisa masak sama sekali? Entahlah. Seingat saya waktu kecil dulu saya juga sering disuruh membantu ibu di dapur. Tapi ibu tidak pernah sabar dengan hasil kerja saya yang lambat dan tidak sempurna. Asal tahu saja, ibu saya sangat cepat dan trengginas dalam bekerja, dengan hasil sempurna. Seringnya, bantuan saya malah menghambat kerja ibu, jadi saya sering diusir dari dapur.  Alhasil, saya tidak mewarisi ketrampilan memasak ibu. Tapi saya tidak bisa menyalahkan ibu yang terlalu pintar memasak. Nyatanya adik saya juga berbakat memasak. Dia lebih sukses menjadi apprentice ibu. Sepertinya, masalahnya memang ada pada diri saya sendiri. Tinggal di negeri orang memaksa saya memasak sendiri. Sehari-hari kami makan makanan Indonesia. Suami saya termasuk orang yang belum kenyang kalau belum makan nasi. Dulu saya sel...

What's in your mind when you hear the word 'jemunak'? Jemunak is a traditional food, a snack, made from steamed cassava and sticky rice, garnish with sprinkled coconut and palm sugar sauce. It's soft, melt and just delicious. Yum! Suddenly, this world pops up in my mind. I used to eat Jemunak to break my fasting in ramadan, when I was a child. You can't find Jemunak anywhere but in Muntilan, a small town where my mom grew up. In my village, Karaharjan, there was only one person to make jemunak: Mbah Mul. He is my late grandma's neighbour. I really miss it that I googled it. To my surprise, I found two articles about it in local newspaper. Yup, it is about Mbah Mul and his jemunak. You can read it here and here . Now he is so old and nobody else can make jemunak. I'm afraid this yummy snack will extinct soon. Argh, better call my mom to ask about Mbah Mul. A.K.

Closer to lebaran, I realize that I miss Lebaran atmosphere in Indonesia so much. This surprises me as I've never felt homesick before. To be honest, I enjoy living here. I can read as many books as I want. I breathe the fresher air. I eat better food, and I learn so many new things, inc. cooking, not only aussie's but also international meals. However, I really miss the hectic atmosphere of Lebaran, when people rush to get to the hometown, when people do unreasonable lebaran shopping.  Here, I just can't feel the atmosphere. I didn't know where to go for Eid Pray, until this afternoon. I hear no takbir. Plain. I did my best to make this lebaran a real lebaran. I did shopping spree for lebaran clothes (ehem, it's an excuse to buy new clothes actually, hehehe, but it worked). I cooked ketupat (not in coconut leaves, but in polyethylene plastics), gulai and cucumber pickles. Nino asked me, "Why bother?"  Well, I just wanted to. I just wanted this to be speci...

1. Water in the toilet. Using paper towel is terrible. 2. My whole family and the semanggi's 3. My motorcycle 4. Everyday Sunshine 5. Tempe goreng, Mie ayam pinggir jalan and HotCuiMie Malang 6. Reading Kompas in the morning 7. Silly Infotaintment 8. My Friends... ehm... let me think. well, I remember that I dont have any 'real' friends there. I dont have a social life. Even my brother told me that I'm not really exist in the real world. Hihihi... [I can chat w/ my online friends from here, so it doesn't matter to me much]. A.K.