still

Here there is time to be calm; to watch a shaft of morning sunshine drift across the kitchen, or steam rise from a green tea into the cool and humid dawn. Instead of television we are entertained by the antics of our barking gecko, or hermit crabs scratching on the kitchen floor. There is space for awareness, for a pause between thoughts; a simplicity and peacefulness that we value greatly. Are you finding some time to be?

getting younger

Aquaman has chalked up another year of waves and commitment to the simple life. We celebrated with a divine breakfast at Colin & Linda's, after the weekly market run.  With an ocean view from the dining pavilion, we dined on frozen banana, date and cacao "mousse" with coconut cream and almonds,  papaya smoothie and a strong coffee that had us buzzing for hours. The perfect fuel for a surf; and being the good wife I had arranged for clean, head high sets all afternoon. 

Happy birthday dear Tommy, selamat hari ulang tahun. x

goodbye pizza, hello papaya

After a six week stint of macchiato, vegan pizza and art study in Italy, I am back on the beach with my toes wiggling happily in the sand and my arms rejoicing the daily lagoon swims.  If you don't already, you can follow my Italian journey, and other off-island activities on my Treacle blog here.  Good for those times when you are overcome with my palm tree gazing activities or Aquaman's barrel riding prestige. 

It was a long haul from Madrid via Hong Kong and Jakarta to the City of Dreams, where I was able to catch a few horizontal hours sleep before the ferry ride home to my hubby. What a blissful moment.  He was very patient with my first three days of travel stories and nightly slide shows. Now I'm back in the groove of the simple life with updates to share from the latest island activities, so blend up a green smoothie or pack the moka pot, it's blog time. 

banana rustling

Our neighbours, Colin & Linda, 300 metres southward, aren't arriving till August, however their banana tree got the dates wrong and bore fruit three months early. Their housemaid generously offered the bunch to us, being we are the number one banana consumers in the village, and Aquaman carried it home where we waited impatiently for five days until they ripened.  Green smoothie with banana, papaya and banana, banana with dates, banana on a plate, banana in a bowl, and best of all, banana eaten as nature intended, in the hand, straight out of its own biodegradable packaging.  

beer snacks

Our weekly market is on a Tuesday morning, so Monday can be grim in the fresh food department; especially at the beginning and end of the season when supplies are limited. Today I can't even throw together my standard tomato, carrot and greens combo. We're certainly not faced with makan kosong (lit: eating nothing, usually rice with a tiny bit of fish or some chilli) like many of the locals, or about to resort to Bintang and dried octopus, but I have to admit I'm looking forward to a different ingredient selection when we return to Australia.  Diced carrot, grated carrot, julienne carrot, sliced carrot...how about a bit of beetroot?.

Old Mother Midge went to the fridge...

1/3 bag Angus Park prunes (hand delivered special import)
1 handful bayam (amaranth leaves)
2 T Japanese sesame dressing (hand-me-down from neighbour)
2 knubs ginger
1/2 bottle Kikoman soya sauce (another hand-me-down)
1 T organic strawberry jam (more donations)
1 T miso paste
1 t seeded mustard
1/2 C peanut sprouts
1 cucumber
1/2 lime

In the cupboard there is 1 cup of brown lentils, 1 cup of alfalfa seeds, 1 cup of rice and the usual beveage selection. Thankfully there are three papaya and five bananas in the fruit safe that we'll tuck into for dinner. 

 

If you want more eye candy or an excuse to avoid work, there is a new review over at Crema and Crumbs, and photos from our trip to Georgetown here.

nature's takeaway

After the previous post about donuts, I thought I better redeem myself with a banana promotion. What great love I have for the this perfectly packaged superfood.  Recently I had the joy of picking and eating my first ever banana straight off the tree. While bananas are still peaking at $15/kg in Australia, this organic beauty was free. 

We munch and blend our way through between 100 and 130 bananas each week. They are home delivered from nearby gardens, and we pay around 10c each.  The locals think we are totally insane. They believe you can only feel full if you eat rice. They have never drank a blender full of frozen banana and cacao smoothie.

My current favourite snack and tea accompaniment is sliced banana with lemon juice and a few dates.  Eating banana with a fork elevates it from banal to dainty.  Or so I like to tell myself. 

Banana enjoyed whilst flicking the inspiring pages of My Heart Wanders, by Pia Jane Bijkerk.

Thank you Linda. xx

garden plots

Almost every house in the village has banana and papaya trees growing in the grey water zone. These are the source of the fruit that is pivotal in our diet.  Hand delivered, organic, zero food miles, and the price is right. Pumpkin vines ramble around the yards, and small plots are set aside for spring onions, chilli, soya beans and leafy greens.  The more enthusiastic gardeners have a second, larger plot that is shared with neighbors and other family members.  They tend to neat beds protected from the free range livestock with rocks, sticks and living posts. Soil varies between red loam and a black clay that hardens like a rock when dry.  There is no volcanic activity in this part of the archipelago; therefore none of the fertile earth that feeds the crops of Java and Bali.

The common practice is to burn manure on the surface and dig in the ash.  The addition of compost or mulch is not widespread.  Watering is by hand, hauled from a nearby well, except in the sizable sweet potato crops that are planted in swamps. Every time I visit the local gardeners, I return home with renewed vigor for my little keyhole plots.  The rocket and basil seeds germinated in 48 hours, and the seedlings I received from a friend are sprouting new leaves. Hopefully, by the time the in-laws arrive in August, I'll be picking fresh greens.

bali transit

For most visitors, Bali is the destination they have been counting down for; annual leave, school holidays, honeymoon, girls pamper trip or post-season footy debauchery.  We are in the unusual situation were Bali is a transit zone or a weekender.  Like a trip to the city from down south, when lounging in cafes and browsing through boutiques melds with food shopping and errands in the light industrial area.  We are neither tourist nor expat, although we wander in both shoes. 

We had three nights in Bali enroute to our end of the archipelago. First on our list was to hire a scooter and head straight to Bintang supermarket for a banana binge.  Floods and cyclones have pushed bananas in Australia to a luxury level and we were dearly missing our staple food.  The whole kilo was devoured before we left the carpark.

There was still room in the tummy for more tropical fruit and a soy latte at Grocer and Grind while planning our list for the day. (Note : G & G have a new branch on Jalan Uluwatu in Jimbaran, which is a welcome addition to this espresso starved area).

You might imagine my list to be populated with a massage, pedicure, bikini wax and hair treatment; in between high tea and a beach walk. I thought that as well, until the reality of picking up new bamboo blinds, shipping air cargo and getting fingerprinted at immigration bunted the spa activities aside.  However, we did both get to the haridresser; for Tom's pre-season hair cut and my damage control treatment.

"Oh dear madam, you're hair feels like sand."

The blinds are to replace those destroyed in the wet season storms, thanks to the failure of our assigned worker to close down the house.  The domestic air cargo is not on any tourist itineraries that I'm aware of, and so should it remain.  Unless Gen Y and younger would like to see what a typewriter looks like.  Look mum, no cords!

indonesian women don't get fat

With specimens this small, it isn't hard to be a member of the 30 bananas a day club. So dainty and full of flavour.

boiled goat or radioactive biscuits?

It is hot. Energy zapping hot. Lay-motionless-and-sweat-hot. The water in the lagoon is warm, and is like swimming in a pool of wee. It rinses off the sweat, but is far from refreshing.

I make my first visit to the shop and I am so hungry that the radioactive packaged biscuits are starting to look like food. I read the odd label to shock myself and wonder again how an entire shop can contain nothing vibrant and fresh. On display in the new glass cabinet, next to the fluorescent puffed balls of hydrolyzed poison, are some bun like offerings. Anything that can remain in a stable state in this heat surely cannot be edible. I return home for a salad of carrot, greens and cucumber.

Our nearest neighbour, Long John, has arrived from the Gold Coast and saved the day with a bunch of bananas. The few we had left were so mushy they went to the goats. We try to ration them for a few days, but they ripen at an alarming rate, and without 24hr power we can’t freeze them for smoothies.

We are invited to a “building site party” of a house that Tom designed. It is customary to acknowledge certain stages of the project – foundations, walls, roof – and on offer is boiled goat and rice. Gee sorry, I have an appointment to scrub the toilet.

bananarama

Our tropical produce garden has begun with the gift of five small banana trees. A local girl carried them for an hour on her scooter. The compost bucket is steaming, in readiness to feed the hungry young plants. It's Saturday and we have polished off the 100 bananas bought at the market on Tuesday, so we look forward to the day when we can pick directly from the back yard.

Wellam, the electricity boss, must have fallen asleep on the switch as we have unexpected power in the middle of the day. I whip out the fastest cacao and banana smoothie possible, fearing a blackout at any moment.

A delicious and cooling way to deal with our glut of papaya is blended with fresh ginger, frozen, then reblended into a smooth granita. Who needs ice-cream?

baba ganoush

Market day again, and our plan is to split up and pounce early. I am after lemons and Tom is on the search for avocados and green bananas. We have success with lemons, oranges and bananas, but no avos. We ordered twenty to be sent over from the mainland; if, and in what condition they arrive is yet to be seen (note; they never arrived). Tom has bought a parang (machete) to begin coconut-opening lessons, and I lash out on four sarongs to cut up and sew into a mattress cover for our patio daybed. The mattress manufacturer’s taste in fabric is consistent with Indo kitch, and the bright nylon blue and yellow flower print has got to go.

Today is the third day without a phone signal and internet connection. Just when you get comfortable with something, an unknown force rips it away. Sweet demonstration of attachment causing suffering.

Finally, we manage to find someone keen enough to spend half a day scraping paint of our kitchen floor. We foolishly trusted the claim on the Indonesian cement paint that it would be “hard and long wearing.” Within a week, it was peeling off and looking like a crazy Picasso. The options were to hit it with a grinder, filling every orifice of house and self with cement dust, or find a patient local willing to scrape it off with a parang.

Tonight's raw gourmet delight is tempe open "sandwiches" with baba ganoush, salad and alfafa sprouts. For dessert I make a chocolate macaroon mixture from the almond milk meal and mush it up with bananas.

Raw Baba Ganoush

Ingredients
4 eggplant
apple cider vinegar
3/4 C tahini
4 cloves garlic
1/4 C lemon juice
1 T garam masala/curry powder

Method
1. Peel & chop eggplant into cubes
2. Cover with water and soak for 1 hour (asian eggplant do not require salting)
3. Drain off water, cover eggplant with apple cider vinegar and soak for 1 hour
4. Combine in food processor with tahini, garlic, lemon juice and garam masala