The Magic Time

The Magic
Be the Masterchef
My favourite home task is cooking! I always admire people who can cook. For me, a cook is like a magician. That person can turn raw ingredients into something tasty, delicious, and nutritious at once. Such a very rare skill and essential to have in life.

My first cooking memory was cooking fried tempeh at our house in Jakarta when I was in Grade 3 Primary School. It was so easy! Just put mineral water and add salt, put your sliced tempe, and fried it. The taste was so delicious! I think that's how I fallen in love with cooking. I love to cook my favourite food to eat hahaha.

In my opinion, everyone should be able to cook because eating is our fundamental needs. At least you learned to notice whether a water is boiled or not. Do not make mistake just like what my dad did. He did not know about cooking at all, and he thought cooking is a woman's job. Thanks God he's changed already now!

So for you who think that cooking is woman task at home, let me tell you, you better go out of the cave, and see life man :)

Couchsurfing Jakarta Cooking Club

I am so blessed to know these beautiful people :*
By the time, I learned how to cook from my mother. She taught me the basic recipes and I still remember how happy we were when Christmas was near. My mother usually bake cakes, nastar, fried kembang goyang, and doughnuts for Christmas. Cooking brings happiness memory of me. However, I did not enjoy cooking for daily eating at that time. I preferred to bake cake etc so that I did not really help much with cooking at home.

In my theses's working hiatus time, I joined Couchsurfing (CS) and registered myself into CS Jakarta Cooking Club. This cooking club offered us how to practice cook from the natives. So when we have CS friend who come from overseas, we will ask him to teach us how to cook their homestyle recipes. Our costs will be split by the number of people who will join the activity.

People who want to join the cooking club are so many but it is limited to be max 10-12 people for every cooking class we have. First come first serve. So, you need to be updated and watch out CS Jakarta Cooking Group in order to put your name in the RSVP list hahaha.

I was so lucky, usually the cooking schedule always match with my schedule, thanks to my hiatus time working on my theses hahaha. Through CS Jakarta Cooking Club, I build friendship, met my soul sister Kak Debby, learned to be brave to put and modify recipe, and know more about other country's culture. I began to enjoy cooking, until here it came.. we were registered ourselves into Korean Food Festival and Cooking Competition.

Korean Food Festival

Mr William Wongso as our cooking competition juror
Our CS Jakarta Moderator, MG told us in our group that there will be a Korean Food Festival and Cooking Competition in Gandaria Mall, Jakarta, on October 2011. I was late to find it out, and set up with the latest member to join: Herman and Arianne. Being the last actually became a luck for me since these 2 are very good in cooking. However MG said, we have to register ourselves to the website and it depends on the committee whether they will put us into the competition or not. The number of group participants was limited to be around 20s team.

Herman, Arianne, and me decided to have "Say Kimchi" as the group name. When I was going to register our names in the website, I realised I had to put the best effort in filled out every registration's question given. I put these historical story, why we chosen the group name "Say Kimchi" and sealed the registration with prayer.

From all of us in CS Jakarta Cooking Club who registered, only "Say Kimchi" team was selected to join the cooking competition. We were so surprised! We had to learn how to cook Japchae and Bulgogi, moreover the jurors would be a Korean Chef and William Wongso! For Godsake, it's William Wongso!

The Magic is on the Way

Had the real Korean taste :*
The smart and competitive Arianne asked us to have food tasting first for the best Korean Restaurant in Jakarta. We had to taste the real Korean Japchae and Bulgogi in order to win this competition. So that we ate in these 3 Korean restaurant who proud to serve the best and original taste of Korean foods. We had a taste of their Japchae and Bulgogi to found the real Korean taste was in the last restaurant, which was the most expensive one also.

After that, we learned to cook it twice in Arianne's house based on the recipe we had. Actually we were going to cook based on recipe in the internet. However, we were so lucky! When Arianne did shopping in this Korean Goods' Department Store, she met a Korean. Arianne asked her whether the recipe we had was right. Arianne asked Japchae and Bulgogi cooking tips to this woman, who later on we found out that she is the wife of Korean Ambassador in Indonesia. We were in the right hands hahahaha.

Korean Cooking Competition Day

Yay! We came as the first champion!
The competition day was there, and we were so motivated to be there in Gandaria City, Jakarta. We were confident because we believed, whatever people cooked that day, not everyone understood, that this Korea Cooking Competition was looking for the real Korean japchae and bulgogi's taste. At least we won in one point at the 'originality' side.

The committee provided ingredients and the cooking utensils but we added our secret recipe for our japchae and bulgogi. Mr William Wongso and the Korean Chef did the scoring and how happy we were to know "Say Kimchi" turned out to be first champion of the Korean Cooking Competition. We are The Masterchefs!

The Magic is still There

The magic is continued...
Since that cooking competition day, I gain confidence in cooking and flourish my love and happiness in cooking. I enjoy my time cooking in Jakarta house (when I was at home) and for my friends in Timika and Batam.

I love to cook, study new recipes and shared the secret spices from any cook/teacher I met. If you are happened to visit me in Batam, please tell me in advance so I could prepare to cook my signature dish for you.

Meanwhile, why don't you try grab your apron and go to the kitchen this weekend? Lets share recipes, lets us begin our magic time :*



Batam, 10 December 2018

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