Meskipun sudah dilarang Mowmy tidak boleh main ke luar rumah, Cheyenne Victory, 1.5 thn, memutuskan untuk tetap menyelinap keluar. Namun udara kebebasan tidak lama dihirup. Entah apa yang terjadi, ketika Mowmy menyadari Cheyenne, atau Che, tidak ada di dalam rumah ternyata Che sudah bertengger di dahan tertinggi di pohon Pule depan balkon kamar Mowmy. Ketika ditemukan, Che sedang duduk, basah terkena hujan sambil mengeong sedih, “Turunkan aku…” Padahal biasanya Che akan menyambut panggilan Mowmy dengan langsung berlari-lari kecil riang gembira.
Cheyenne Victory, 1.5 th, terbiasa hidup nyaman bersama Mowmy
Menurut Mowmy, “Jadi biasanya kalau Magrib Che sama Tilly ikutan kita ngumpul berbuka. Emang kadang-kadang Che masih di kamar. Makanya tadi tuh nggak terlalu khawatir, tapi kok trus pas naik nggak ada ya, mana hujan pula. Eh nggak taunya nyangkut lagi dia di pohon.” Lagi? Ternyata ini bukan kali pertama Che nyangsang di pohon. Sebelumnya Che sudah pernah nyangkut di pohon depan rumah tetangga. Karena itu ketika Che tidak ada dimana-mana Mowmy dan Kakak L langsung menuju balkon kamar. Betul saja, ungkap saksi mata, Kakak L, yang berjasa menemukan sang kocheng koneng, “Che itu kebanyakan gaya. Udah tau nggak bisa turun pake naik pohon segala. Ayo turun, bisa naik masa nggak bisa turun!”
Upaya Mowmy dan Kakak L membujuk Che turun belum menunjukan hasil. Giliran Pawpy to the rescue, “Dihusyah-husyah pakai galah nanti dia akan turun sendiri,” ujar Pawpy dengan penuh keyakinan. Lalu Pawpy menemukan pipa yang akan disambung dengan tongkat galah bendera untuk menghalau Che turun. Dibantu Kakak L, ‘Misi Menurunkan Che’ dijalankan.
Berhasil? Tidak doong.
Mungkin Che terbiasa dijemput pak Satpam jadi susah sekali meyakinkan Che untuk turun meski berkali-kali dihalau galah. Kaos Pawpy sudah basah kuyup terguyur hujan demikian juga Kakak dan Mowmy, sementara meongan Che makin kencang terdengar.
Perjuangan Pawpy ditengah derasnya hujan demi Che
Sampai pada suatu titik Kakak L kesal dan mengomel, “Che! Bisa naik harus bisa turun! Sapa suruh kebanyakan gaya? Emang enak basah-basah?”
Ajaib, setelah diomeli Kakak, kali ini Che kemudian mengambil ancang-ancang, beringsut turun sendiri lalu lompat ke balkon! Che langsung ditangkap Mowmy, dikeringkan dan diberi makan.
Alhamdulillah drama kocheng oren kali ini berakhir bahagia. Sudah pasti Mowmy maafin Che biar dia nggak kayak kena azab lagi, nyangsang di pohon gak bisa turun. Terima kasih Pawpy dan Kakak L. Kalian tim penyelamat paling jitu!
When I was planning today’s menu, a baking day was not what I had in mind. Since we have acquired a few frozen ready meals, I was going to make one of those. All I need to make is rice and vegetable. Easy peasy.
However, when I was getting the stuff from the freezer, my daughter who wasn’t fasting today suddenly said, “Hey Mom, these tots are gonna expire soon.” Wait what? Oh yeah… May 2020, that’s real soon. Then I checked the rows of containers, wow, we had a fair amount of chicken leftover. Quick sniff, still good. Ok, change of plan. Let’s make something with the tots and chicken.
It just so happen a couple days ago my friend posted a chicken potatato bake dish her daughter made. I thought, something like that might work. So I look for recipes. Well what do you know, after looking at a few, there’s one that’s almost tailored the ingredients I have on hand! Cool, I will use this recipe then.
Ingredients assemble!
I basically just followed the recipe, adding fresh potato to make up the amount, use finely chopped garlic because I don’t have powdered ones. I was also quite lucky that once all the chicken is shredded (it was from 2 dfferent chicken dish on 2 different days) it amounts to just under 3 cups. Since I also don’t have the suggested toppings I decided to throw in some brocolli for veg and colour.
Before the soup mixture is added. Pretty, no?
While everything is cooking in the oven, I started clearing up. Upon returning the cheese and milk to the fridge I noticed I had some bread still sitting there like unwanted dance partner. Well hey, let’s look for bread pudding recipe. I think the cooking gods must be on my side today. Soon I also found a recipe with ingredients that are available in my pantry. I use this recipe substituting raisins with regular dark chocolate – I don’t have cooking chocolate of any kind since I rarely bake sweet stuff.
In goes the pudding.
The oven pings. What do you know, while preping for the bread puds, the casserole is done. Yay. Casserole out, puds in. Adjust the heat. Done? Well not quite. I still have to prep the iftar table. This one is easy. All I need to do is just ball the blewah (a type of cantaloupe), add syrup, chill in the fridge – Babeh will take care of the rest. Then just fry the bitterballen made by my friend.
today’s iftar table
So yeah, today ended up to be baking day, making use of the leftovers. I’m glad to report that the fam are satisfied with the result. Alhamdulillah. How was your day? What did your make?
Indonesia is blessed with an abundance of spices, great weather, and lovely views. Which makes me wonder, back in the 1500’s or however long ago it was before those barbaric bules descended on our shores, did our great-great grannies while out in the fields or while tending the spice garden, did they gather round to discuss how to make a dish using the most spices, ingredients, and the most difficult way to go about it?
Indonesian dishes, to cook it doesn’t require hard technique, is just that the prep you need to do to finally stand in front of the cooker can be long and winding. Take the santan, or coconut milk for instance. Do you realise how many step it is to get fresh santan? First, you need to get a special type of coconut which these days you can only get in the wet market. Then you need to grate the coconut, the whole coconut, possibly more depending on what you are planning to make and for how many people. After you grate all the coconuts you need, you then mix the crumbs with warm water then you squeeze it until you get the essence from the holy coconut. Then and only then you get your holy santan. I’m not even gonna talk about the blended spices, the crush herbs, etc…
However, in 2020, well actually from couple of decades back or so, the wonder of technology allows all these process to be bottled up so you can now buy ready made santan, ready made sauce/seasoning/spices, etc so you can create those yummy but laborious dishes at home.
Dang. That’s a long ass intro just to say, I made my first ever rendang today using ready made spices! Woohoo! I feel so Indonesian tonight! I made rendang. It’s not from scracth, and it’s not that great but doesn’t matter, I COOK RENDANG TODAY!!!
My first ever rendang! Best eaten with steaming white rice. Yum!
I’m pretty sure I’m going to make it again at some point because I’m not quite satisfied at how it turned out. But for now let me bask in the happy knowledge that I, a proud holder of Garuda passport, made rendang. Yass!!!
When a friend posted her newly found space for her creative space it looks so good that I’m immediately envious. What strikes what she said this was not renovated, she merely declutter, move around stuff she already owned and somehow a new space was created. How cool! And made me a bit embarrased. I actually already have a writing corner, is just that I dumped everything on it that I ended up writing on my bed most of the time.
Since I was having a bit of writing block that day I thought why not just clean up my own space? So I finally get down to sort out all the accumulated debris. Throw out the junk, keep the documents, sorted which goes where. Soon, blank space! Time to rearrange. Put the neccessities back such as my pen collection, pencil sharpener, note pad, stack my album collection just to give it a bit of colour then voila, writing space ready to be used again.
Seeing my space cleared made me want to tackle one other thing I’ve been putting off: my 20 odd years makeup collection.
I started wearing makeup regularly when I started college. I’ve always loved reading about them on magazines and on the odd night out I would wear them, but I don’t wear them to school, just lip balm. There were no ban on my high school, I just never woke up early enough to do anything beyond getting dressed then run to catch the tram. In university suddenly I do. Makeup is so much fun! Loads have been written about the power of makeup so I’m sure you understand the excitement of going on makeovers, trying on new colours, selecting which products to take home, etc. Not to mention impulse purchases because you have an event to go to that night or simply was in a bad mood and need a small pick me up. Suddenly I’ve ammased quite a collection.
This is what a 24 year old makeup collection looks like. I’ve weed out stuff but there’s still a fair enough left. Not all of them are that old, some are just about 15 years, .nevertheless they’re still way past their use by date. Hehe
The lipstick collection. Always start with the lipstick. My MAC obsession started when I went on holiday to Canada. One the place I visited was Montreal, my friend lived there so after seeing all the touristic stuff of course we hit the mall! MAC was kinda new back then. To commemorate the visit my mother got me the Retro satin lipstick and Mahogany lip pencil to match. Thus a lifelong affair begun.
Some notable Leeds purchases:
Malt – for a nude lip for when I want to have dark eyes
Fetish – for the other way around ie. when just simple eyes but no red lips.
The bulk of these were bought in Boston and LA:
Paramount – I was going to LA, didn’t want to bring loads of stuff, so they ask what I was planning to wear, they said this would suit most of the outfits.
Vino – got a cute dress to a party so want something to match. heh heh.
Terra – because it was spring and everything I had was dark winter colour. Any excuses eh?
A bit more recent purchases from here and there:
Brick-o-La – I miss Los Angeles, the colour is pretty too.
Emphatic – was into pink at that time, also I was shopping with my Mom and she said I looked pretty.
We can’t have lipsticks without lipliner so here they are! Some are eye liner as well. I like trying on colour so there’s blue and gold as well as the usual black and brown. My faves these days are grey though. Softer than black, deeper than brown.
Then finally lip gloss. Gotta have them. Good for when you just need some colour on the run or want to add depth into your lippy. During summer I like wearing gloss as it feels lighter than regular lippy. Lancome was the best mascara I’ve ever worn. Also the most pricey. Airport purchase. Don’t remember where.
Once you start wearing full make up of course you have to have blusher. The middle one was my first ever blusher, a pinky brown colour. I got it in Leeds. I guess I was rather pale in England. The other two I think I got in Boston, a more pinkish and earthy brown colour.
What about the eyes? Fear not, below are selected eye shadows that held quite a history. The first one is the first ever eye shadows “couple” . I remember she said, use the light colour one for everyday wear, just add liner if you want. Add the black one for going out at night. Ok! The middle one I got for graduation. I felt very posh whenever I wore them. The last one I got when I was carrying my first child. The colours were very different from I normally wear. Alas, after birth I did not have many occasion, nor do I have the energy, to wear them. Still, I like to look at them and play a bit.
I do wear powder and foundations but those don’t really have emotional attachment because I use it nearly everyday so I just toss it when it ran out.
Except for this one. I keep this because, again, I got it while shopping with my mother. She said the colour looks really good on me. By the time the powder ran out, the brand has also closed shop. So I keep it for the mirror. Not throwing this one away.
And that’s the story of my old makeup collection. Thank you for colouring and making me feel good while wearing them. Time to let all of you go now. Thanks again!
Cerita Agatogata 