Cooking as my joy

I have thought to write a practical simple book of menu from my own modification during the past years. Cooking have become my interests since I was a little girl. It is not because I want to do a domestic work.

Moreover, I have seen kitchen and cooking as the place where I can do many experiments like it will be at the laboratory.

My adventure of cooking came when I was in Amsterdam during my PhD studies at Amsterdam School for Social Science Research. I had to save my scholarship to pay for family's expenses in Indonesia, therefore I had to cook to live simplely. However, I actually turned to be living with lots of variety on my everyday cuisine.

I cooked creatively that could not be seen as a simple menu.

Then I moved to live with Debra and Peter Bell in Syracuse, New York for working with my English, there I learned how to cook the American gourmet cuisine. For our engagement in Syracuse, I cooked for the whole guests.  Later when we got married I cooked also for more than 200 people who came to our wedding in Berkeley, California.

Cooking makes me happy because I can think about the beauty, the color, the taste, the composition, the price and the people at the same time.

I remember after our wedding we moved back to Indonesia, for six months I enjoyed being as a housewife and created many things for my cooking experiences before I returned to Holland to continue my study.

At the VOC's building, the East Indies building where our school was, I always reheated my lunch or dinner at the kitchen of our institute, then people would directly notice that it was my food. There is something specially on the smelt according to people.

However only now I decide writing down everything that will be coming out from my hands as my own cooking experiences. I wish in this blog where I can share my cooking as a sign of hospitality and love to other.

Cooking has been a way for me to celebrate my life. When I visited old,  new friends and families  I always use the time to cook something to the hosts.

Cooking from what available for them is so interesting, challenging, and innovating.