putu, kelepon, terang bulan

While enjoying this vacation, I managed to steal few hours to do some fun coding. Nothing spectacular, but it yielded something I will surely share in the near future. However, since I am still in the mood of bombing the planet again, here is another post with food pictures.

Something else we were glad to taste during our extremely short visit to Bandung were Putu and Kelepon, typically sold at the price of 1 EUR for 25 pieces. They are basically rice cake filled with palm sugar and served with grated coconut. Putu is steamed, while kelepon is boiled. The latter is also colored using pandan leaves.

While sampling culinary specialties means that we do not cook quite often, when the opportunity presents itself, it is of course a good feeling to eat something home-made once a while. Here is one: Terang Bulan (literally: bright moon). It is some sort of pancake, very similar to Martabak except Terang Bulan is filled with sugar, sprinkles, condensed milk, cheese, and the likes. Hence, it is also known as Martabak Manis (literally: sweet Martabak), a term that is somehow I dislike (because language-wise it is unnecessary as there exists a good name for that and thus it extends and pollutes the meaning of Martabak with a very weak reason).

The recipe? Check what this lady has posted. Terang Bulan is sweet and healthy (reduce the amount of sugar if in doubt), it makes for a good snack in the afternoon.

Last but not least: Eid Mubarak to everyone!

traffic jams? no sweat!

Ronald and I were doing podcast whose topic is about programming and other related things. We tried not to dive too much into the technical details, though. Check out the first two episodes with me at temanmacet.com.

We will plan to have this on a regular basis. Who knows this becomes yet-another-Jeff-and-Joel clone? :-) Feedbacks are warmly welcomed.

Note: skip this if you don't understand Indonesian. There are tons of similar podcasts in English, so we pick our own lovely language!

Again, kudos to Ronald!

it takes two to tango

sate kelapa

A dish that is on the prominent position of my must-eat list (when I am on vacation) is sate kelapa (or in its local variant known as sate kelopo). This is like the usual satay, except that it is sprinkled with coconut rasp (hence the name, kelapa is coconut) before being grilled, thus giving its distinctive, wonderful and appetizing smell.

You can find sate kelapa if you travel around Surabaya and perhaps other places in East Java. A portion of 10 pieces typically costs only 50 Eurocents. Served with lontong (bite-size compressed rice), with peanut-mixed-with-soy-bean sauce, you would never stop eating it. There was a time I had a double portion for breakfast, every single day in a week!

for the glorious nation

Approaching the Qt 4.5 release, in order to relax the atmosphere a bit, and while I was just back from vacation in Indonesia, last week I brought nice goodies to the office. Read what I posted to our internal list:

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Subject: durian, for the glorious nation of Indonesia
Date: Tuesday 24 February 2009
From: Ariya Hidayat <ariya.hidayat@trolltech.com>

Executive summary: try durian candies I brought, find them on the desk in the 5th floor, next to the stairs.

Durian [1], an arguably very nutritious and delicious fruit, my all-time favorite snack, best things before sliced bread and LISP, is unfortunately forbidden to be carried in the flight, placing it in the same category as guns and drugs. Since I am not a brave as our Chief Troll (with his cheese adventure), instead of smuggling a large quantity of durians, cowardly I fall back to a simpler solution: durian (flavored) candies. For me, they taste fantastic (albeit not as heavenly as the fresh fruit, or when made into mixed drink [2,3]), but for most people, they stink, smell horribly, and taste disgusting.

When you start the losing fight with your stomach, when you count the minutes in the toilet, when your days in Emergency Room are almost over, now think about it: how do most Asian feel about European cheese? [4]

Now I am back on completing my patent application on "Method and Apparatus of Information Extraction from Combatants Using Exotic Tropical Fruit", before someone ratifies the counterpoint as an addendum to the Geneva Convention.

Enjoy the ride!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian
[2] http://flickr.com/photos/ariyahidayat/3293814359/
[3] http://flickr.com/photos/ariyahidayat/3294638128/
[4] Surprisingly, "durian" and "revenge" share a general theme: they are best served cold

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These candies of course can not reach the real taste of the fruit itself, especially when made into fresh drink like the picture here:

bravo bravo quebec

Travelling around Sidoarjo, East Java? Drop Steak Liana a visit (located across the train station) and enjoy its rather well-known roasted ribs (Indonesian: iga bakar) for less than EUR 2 per portion.

sweet potato vs steamed sponge cake

If you happen to visit Malang (East Java), do not skip the chance to visit Bakpao Telo right in Lawang, a small city just before Malang. The shopping complex is located conveniently on the main street, its enormous size makes it impossible to miss. What is unique there? A lot of assorted snacks (cakes, cookies, chips, and many more), made of highly-nutritious sweet potatoes, known here as ubi jalar or ketela rambat, often shortened to tela or telo, hence the name.

Needless to say, the following delicious steamed sponge cake (bolu kukus), which costs me a fortune (20 Eurocents or a quarter dollar), is my favorite.

knocked out

The beauty of taking a trip from/to South East Asia is simply its ridiculous journey. In the last 72 hours, I have been in 6 different airports, gone through 7 hours timeshifting, trapped 3 times in inhuman traffic jams, exposed to 40 Kelvin temperature drop, and of course enjoyed only sporadic in-flight sleeps and food.

For my aging, weak body, it hardly comes as a surprise that I am K.O.

scrolling through the paragraphs, clicking through the photographs

I heard that seven is a magic number. I am seeing the seventh winter in my life. How magical.

For roughly 300 weeks I stay in Europe already. And I will still be here for some time to come. But after reaching some of my goals, missing many others, I decided I will pay my home country a visit.

Bracing for the impact of reverse culture shock.

the sky will be my shroud, a monument of cloud

Things are still exciting as ever. In two weeks, I will be in Bali. Yes, I will be there for the Workshop on Open Source and Open Content (WOSOC) that is held in conjuction with IEEE Conference on Signal-Image Technology and Internet-based Systems.

Check out the full schedule, find the invited talk: Qt for Rapid Mobile Application Development, and enjoy some demos that I will premiere there. Update: the talk is actually one of the keynotes.

So, if you are around and want to have a snack or a chat, just let me know! Mail me at ariya.hidayat@gmail.com.