Day 267: Balinese Cooking Lesson
[Slow internet, no pics for now]
This morning we left the hotel at 7:15 am to kick off a long but rewarding day of cooking.
We met up with Penny Williams, an Australian-born chef who has lived in Bali for 12 years — first as executive chef at our current hotel, then as owner of Bali Asli, a restaurant and cooking school she built herself about 30 minutes away from our hotel. More on her below.
She took us to the market at Amlapura, which is East Bali’s biggest, and we spent over an hour there, checking items off the list, sniffing produce and learning about new spices and veggies. Penny’s learned Balinese Indonesian, and as a daily regular, knows her way around the stalls and vendors. Super fun, locals experience (no other westerners there at all).
James was especially popular on this outing. His green Balinese shirt, shaggy hair and earnest interest in everything had the ladies fawning all over him. Add to that the fact that Penny let him hold the cash and pay at each stall and he was the most popular human at Amlapura market. It’s unclear whether he “gets” that this is the case or if “Famous James” is just going about his dopey, clueless business.
Back at Penny’s place we enjoyed tea and coffee with some of the goodies we’d picked up from sweets stalls. Her view is insane — overlooking lush rice terraces and….the volcano. Oh! And she has a sweet elderly black dog named Zorro.
Then we got to work.
First up: Making canangs. Pronounced “cha-NANG,” these are the ubiquitous flower-and-rice-and-incense offerings you see everywhere in Bali.
These are on the ground in front of every home, business, hotel, shop, temple etc. and they get refreshed a few times a day. One of the most common sights on the island is a lady walking around a street, farm, hotel property with a tray of these, placing them around on the ground.
It’s a simple palm-leaf basket tray filled with flowers, rice soaked in holy water and incense.
We learned to make them and learned about the significance of the flowers, the correct placement, the direction they need to face, the rules for preparation (right hand only, etc.).
Looooot of daily effort to prepare these and not surprisingly it’s the women’s job.
We learned that the Balinese call hydrangea the “flower of a thousand cracks” because all the little blooms create “cracks” in the larger flower. Love that!
Next up: A big bowl of ingredients in a bowl and a kid-friendly discussion about the elements of cooking — sweet, salty and sour. The kids were totally into this. Involved a lot of smelling and thinking and discussion about flavors.
After that we put on aprons and started to cook. Honestly we could’ve done with one demonstration, but we ended up preparing six different dishes! We lost the kids halfway through because they couldn’t help with the woks.
One funny moment: We were making a vegetable side that included beans. Penny said, “You can make this dish with any bean available. Willa chimed in with, “Even black beans?” Yup. Then James, totally sincerely, goes, “Even jelly beans??”
That got a laugh. Penny said in her eight years teaching this dish, no one had ever asked that.
Penny’s manner is really calm, warm and soothing. You’d never guess she’s out here doing these lessons almost every day of the week! We had a lot of time to chat with her about her life story, which I’ll get into later.
By 2:45 pm we sat down for a massive lunch. Delicious, and as always, tasted better because we’d made it ourselves. Nasi goreng (fried rice), baked fish parcels in banana leaf, sprout/bean side salad, chicken satay with peanut sauce and pumpkin rice dessert.
At last we bid our new buddy Penny (and Zorro!) farewell and drove back to Alila Manggis for our final afternoon at this beloved hotel.
On the drive, we passed a burial ceremony on the roadside! There was a crowd of people and someone digging a grave, right in the grassy area beside this country road.
It was moving/disturbing to see for some reason.
Back at the hotel we did our pool, swimming, tea time, soccer routine. There were some kids who’d arrived, and we noticed the mom conducting a casual nit-picking session on one of her daughters’ heads. I’d recognize that process anywhere, now.
I was horrified, but once again reminded that lice only seems to be a big deal in America. People everywhere we’ve gone, including Europe, are kind of like, “Meh, lice, whatever.”
For dinner on our last night we headed once again to the beach bar. I was so stuffed from lunch I just had a cocktail. The kids sat at the bar again and played cards sweetly while they ate their dinner. So lovely.
MISC:
On Penny
We’ve been talking a lot these days about creating the lives we want when we get back. No soul-crushing office gigs, no settling. We’ve come too far this year. Our biggest challenge will be to resist the slide toward something familiar or that feels like we’re “supposed” to do, and create a life we want — namely, one that pays the bills and affords time flexibility (ha!).
In that regard, Penny is a total inspiration. She came to Bali 12 years ago after a break up and a burnout (she worked in Europe under the dreaded Gordan Ramsey). Her plan was to stay a short while, but she ended up moving here permanently.
After four years she’d saved up enough to buy a beautiful piece of land, and then turned it into exactly what she wanted, not what she thought it should be according to other people’s expectations, etc:
- She only serves lunch because she likes her nights off.
- She only cooks a menu of limited items she likes to make and eat — nothing else.
- She teaches classes.
- Everything about the place was her decision, all designed to what she wanted out of life.
As a result, she’s created a little operation that’s unique and delightful.
I loved one quote she had, which was that she’d learned “to become one with the compromise.” Like, oh that thing didn’t work out quite how you expected? That’s ok, I’ll gladly work with what did appear and come up with something unexpected.
On religion
Those who know me well know religion has never been for me.
We’ve traveled to a lot of places this year where religion has played or currently plays a very important part in the culture, whether it was Spanish/Portuguese colonialists bulldozing South America with Catholicism or Egypt/Jordan/Dubai, where we visited during Ramadan, or China’s many intense ancestral beliefs, etc.
Balinese Hinduism is fascinating because it’s an island time capsule of 16th century Hindusim from India mixed with Chinese traditions and southeast Asian buddhism. All sitting in the middle of Indonesia, which has the world’s biggest Muslim population.
The intensity of the spirituality and adherence to its daily rituals sparked yet another conversation between me and Teddy — is all this energy and time and devotion holding people back? Is it preventing progress? Or is the structure of it a good thing that’s adding to people’s lives (and offering structure/order?)? You can probably guess where we lean, but I’m trying to keep an open mind.
On “getting” Bali
I’m really glad we’ve seen that there is a whole island out here that isn’t t-shirt shops and Australian coffee houses. I needed that. Could’ve skipped Ubud altogether, frankly.
With these spots on the east of the island, I’m finally starting to see why people love Bali. It may not be my personal paradise, but I can now say “I get it” when others say it is.
