When Forestwood mentioned Nasi Goreng in her blog, it suddenly turned on a lightbulb in my head, because lately I find that I’m tired of everything I eat–even my favorites–and the mention of Nasi Goreng triggered a craving for a dish I haven’t had in thirty years or more. Luckily, two of my favorite cookbooks are Pearl Buck’s Oriental Cookbook and To All My Grandchildren, Lessons in Indonesian Cooking by Leonie Samuel-Hool, and I knew that they both have recipes for Nasi Goreng. I was surprised, however, at how they varied from the traditional Indonesian recipe to Pearl Buck’s evidently anglicized version. I leave it up to you to determine which you prefer. I for one am going to challenge my chef friend Brad to a cookdown to see which wins the crown.
Luckily, both have recipes for how to make all the spice blends and sauces such as kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) you could probably purchase ready-made in a gourmet or specialty grocery store, but if you can’t find them, I’ll publish the recipes for them and if you are lucky, The same goes for Dadar Iris, which is essentially a little omelet. I’ll even publish the recipe and story behind Beancake, Bees and Beans. Yes, a real dish in Leonie’s cookbook. I’ve met her and have an autographed copy, because her children owned an incredible Indonesian restaurant in San Rafael, California. One year on her birthday, they constructed a memorial to her on the wall of the restaurant next to the door and customers paid to have brass plates with their names inscribed on them to honor her. My friend Lee had one made for me. I wonder if I’m still there!
Click on photos to enlarge and read recipes!
Bill of Rights For the Human Race
With this particular virus threatening the whole world,
in what particular variant will it be unfurled?
We dose ourselves repeatedly but what of those who don’t?
The threat seems constantly renewed thanks to those who won’t.
They will not see it’s provident that every person tries
to conquer our joint enemy before the whole world dies.
Human after human continues to spread spatters
as though the future of the world hardly even matters.
Unvaccinated and unmasked, they refuse to bend.
Where do the rights of others start and where do their rights end?
Prompt words today are spatter, whole, particular, provident and dose.
Night Visitor
A shift in light, a shape just glimpsed, a moment fraught with fear.
What spirit floats in front of me and breathes into my ear?
It thrusts into my consciousness, filling all its gaps
with memories that, truth to tell, I’ve recently let lapse.
Its stories fill my night out in whispers soft and low.
It beckons me to follow it, but still I answer “No.”
In fear of where it seeks to lead, I do not heed its sighs.
It might be other than it seems, in another guise.
That truth we find in dreams, alas, carries no guarantee.
Do we see what really is or what we wish to see?
For the Sunday Whirl Wordle, the prompts are: fraught glimpse shape moment lead gap thrust might breath shift sigh low Image by Lux Graves on Unsplash.
Forgottenman at Serial Monography has acquainted me with another online Wordle of a different type that I have become equally addicted to. You can find an explanation of how to play it HERE . And you can go HERE to sign on play the game. A new one is posted daily. Please note this is an entirely different Wordle not associated with Brenda’s blogging site.
Traveler’s Advisory
An explorer most intrepid, while plodding pole-to-pole,
one day declared this wish to be his penultimate goal.
He wanted to increase his pace to maximal extent
by carrying less luggage everywhere he went.
He found a weightless backpack that, sadly, was inflammable,
into which he stuffed all his possessions that were crammable.
He then set off upon his trek at a healthy trot,
on a day the sun was inordinately hot.
Glancing off his zipper, it started a small fire
near the bottom of his backpack that quickly traveled higher,
igniting matches in his pack, and then the gasoline
he carried to start fires with set a magazine
stuffed into his bag top gloriously afire,
turning his whole backpack into a funeral pyre.
The moral of this story is, if your travel pack
isn’t fire retardant, don’t bear it on your back!!
Prompt words for today are inflammable, pole, explore, maximal and pace.
All paintings by Betty Peterson. Click on photos of paintings to enlarge. The reflection of my hands superimposed over the hand in her painting was purely accidental, but I love the implication of our work being combined in this piece. R.I.P. Betty, friend of twenty years. The one sketch and watercolor of me was done in a small bar/restaurant in Tequila as we were waiting for my broken-down van to be fixed on our way to the U.S. The other painting of me she gave to me as a surprise, using a photo I had in my blog. She added Morrie, not realizing this was a photo of me in my wedding dress in 1987. Love how Morrie was suddenly transported back in time.
Conversing with Betty
You are the first person I see every morning—
there on my wall and hanging from my curtain rods––
your heart and talent painted onto watercolor paper,
matted, framed and preserved under glass.
Your freed spirit spreads out into my room like memory––
the sorties to find pre-Columbian treasures,
van breakdowns on the road to Tequila and road trips to the border,
shared secrets, successes and heartbreaks.
My friend, your life expired while mine still runs its course,
but you have left the women you gave birth to
behind you on paper and on canvas.
Their eyes follow me upon my rising, look over me in my sleep.
In them, I retain the best of you
here in my heart and on my walls,
grateful to have you still around me,
conversing in our favorite language.
Serial Lover
He was skillful at his art: a lover and romancer.
For every question of the heart he had a valid answer.
Pivotal to all his charms was his savoir faire.
He had a knightly bearing—a quality most rare.
No lady could resist his charms or deny the thrust
of his passionate ardor. He always won their trust.
And although perhaps at first they might have hesitated,
In the end, each maid he wooed at last cooperated.
But when the heat of passion turned inevitably cold,
and he wiped the slate clean, though he never kissed and told,
he’d move on to another challenge of the heart,
forget his last night’s ardor and make a brand new start.
Prompts for the day are clean slate, answer, thrust, pivotal and cooperate.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 