Today I worked on the recording of Rido reading Aji’s Indonesian story in Dutch. Since Rido is half-Indonesian and half-Dutch, I knew I had the perfect narrator for this story. Also exciting, his mother has an amazing Indonesian restaurant in The Hague!
Marrying a Dutch man was my first introduction to Indonesian food. While Jan was raised on meat (fried in butter), potatoes (boiled) and vegetables (boiled even longer), somehow Babi panang made it into his family’s list of “regular food.” Chicken saté, rijsttafel, beef rendang, all nearly as widely accepted as the famous Dutch hutspot.
My serious love of Indonesian food really blossomed when I landed in Jakarta, on my way to meet Aji and Larasati for the One Globe Kids series. The mix of sweet, spicy, and salty blew my mind and forced me to take lots of photos of food. (I’m serious, I had no choice. The deliciousness had to be recorded.) Here is a small sampling of the possibly grotesque number of things I eagerly devoured:
Indonesian food isn’t always easy to find, unless you live in The Netherlands. Luckily for me, even the Hema (the Dutch version of Target) carries prepared Indonesian food. So today, with Rido’s voice in the background, I relished a Gado-Gado salad, complete with potatoes, green beans, egg, bean sprouts, lettuce and peanut sauce. Trying one of these should be on your list if you visit Indonesia, or The Netherlands.
Stay Globe Smart, Anne Glick
