Food War

By Lu

Mh....how can you not salivate? Thanks, Liza!!

With the culinary competition theme dominating the prime time on television, needless to say, it was quite effortless for the idea to ransack people's minds. I was talking to a friend last night on my way home, that when we were young, we never really thought of cooking as a profession nor did we aspire to be a chef. Cooking was just a thing to do at home so you could eat. Nowadays, it's a different story. Celebrity chefs on TV and others with famed restaurants really changed the landscape of food service profession. Now, it is totally cool to be a chef and go to school to be one. Hey, you may end up on TV!

However, I do thoroughly enjoy watching the culinary competitions on TV. It started for me with the old Japanese Iron Chef. It was so damn cool when the chairman ate the pepper. The original Iron Chef was a tad corny, but it was also awesome watching these Japanese chefs with their crazy knife skills chopping away under time constraints. Then, it blossomed to Iron Chef America, The Next Iron Chef, Top Chef, Top Chef Master, Top Chef Just Desserts, Cup Cake War, Hell's Kitchen, Master Chef, Chopped....the list is endless.

There were some sayings about how TV sends subliminal messages, and I started to believe it now. I really do believe that I got my competitive sense in cooking because I watch these damn shows so much. At times when Top Chef was on, I couldn't wait for the week to get to Wednesday night already so I could watch the new episode. I was addicted and enthralled with the show.

Several months back, some of my childhood friends and I started a culinary competition unexpectedly and unplanned on facebook. At first, it was very casual and unassuming. Then, it became a full fledged food war!

What is food war? It started with  friends who love food - eating it, making it, and taking picture of it, just sharing some food pictures on facebook with no specific intention whatsoever. It was just a picture posted on facebook. But then, it snowballed. It wasn't just about posting pictures - it became sort of like a game between us. Now, we post pictures to tantalize the others and make them drool. But wait, we didn't stop there....at times, one was really successful in making the other wanting that food, the person on the other side had to make it to fulfill that craving, or going to get it if it's available close by. Mind you, the five players are all living in various countries. Chika and Ineke live in Singapore; Audrey and Liza live in Jakarta; then, Peggy in Auckland, New Zealand; and then me here in Chicago. It is not always easy to get a meat pie in Chicago after seeing the succulent dish on Peggy's wall, nor getting all the Indonesian delicacies that Audrey and Liza so heartlessly posted after devouring the food I could only imagine eating. Crap, even writing this, my mouth watered.

Yeah, you got the idea. This war, we don't use hand grenades for weapons. We use food and it can hurt like you wouldn't believe. Let me introduce you to my food war lords!!!

CAMP JAKARTA

Warlord Audrey ready to bang!

Audrey and Liza...mh.... they got me so hot at times I wanted to throw scones at them for retaliation. They hurt me, a lot. Oh, man. I mean, they live in my hometown and I crave Indonesian food like you wouldn't believe, even when I didn't try. I just crave it naturally every day of every week. Just looking at Audrey's food pictures daily just hurt so much. She's really mean. She would post all these great looking Indonesian dishes, and I had to comment on how good they looked and she tantalized me by saying .."when you come home to Jakarta, I'll take you here." Yeah, when can I come home?! Not today, and not tomorrow and I wanted the food right then! Grrr..... she makes me mad!

She also dabbles in the kitchen on top of eating out and scouring Jakarta's culinary spots. She gave me a recipe of Mapo Tofu that I tried and liked. Beware of this one! She's a multi-tasking food warrior!

Admiral Liza, with her fork and knife! Scary!

Liza always posts beautiful food pictures and they looked more than appetizing - captivating and salivating. However, she makes me laugh a lot from her crazy comments on the pictures. At times, the comment thread on one picture can be so long. Yeah, I know many of our friends complained that all threads and facebook news are dominated with our food war actions. Believe me, like any wars, it has a lot of bystander innocent casualties. We had a lot of those. Poor people. Liza is a big swimmer and because of that she earned a nickname "duyung" in Indonesian or mermaid. With this food war, we dubbed her weapon as the trident or yeah... fork! I wanted her to take a picture of herself with huge ass fork for this post, but apparently there was no fork big enough for her, so she was humble and used a regular fork. We always laugh at her when she commented on a fish dish and how it made her salivating. We would tease her and call her a cannibal eating her own kind. Though, really - fish do eat fish. They have no boundary! No means to an end for a full stomach! Did you see the raspberry cupcakes picture above? When Liza posted that, I swear, I reached for it! Damn screen!

Tofu and Egg Indonesian style by Audrey

Mouth-watering Gambas Ajillo by Liza. This was the start for me

 
CAMP AUCKLAND

Spy Peggy, hiding behind the camera

Peggy is the sole warrior of Camp Auckland and she specializes in coffee bombs. Oh, all her coffee pictures just wake me up in the morning. She's serious about her coffee though she tries to limit it to one cup a day. It also helps  that she's an accomplished photographer because a cup of coffee could look so much better in her pictures than perhaps how it tastes.

She likes to cook once in awhile but she never really took pictures of the foods she made. Instead, when she went out eating New Zealand's (NZ) delicacies like meat pies, then Mr. Nikon took action. She produced some great food shots! She always gives me tips too in taking pictures. I'm having a lot of fun with her not only with food war, but also with photography. One of her favorite things to do when she has a day off is to go to local cafe to enjoy a cup of coffee, a good breakfast, reading a book and maybe take a picture or two. I can always count on her for some incredible shots of breakfast items.

Breakfast with Peggy...

Peggy sent me Edmond's Cook Book, which is the classic cook book of NZ - sort of like the "Better Homes and Garden's Cook Book" in the US. She gave me a project all the way from Auckland to make some dishes that are NZ's. I have been perusing that book and I owe her one dish yet to make. I promised her though, so look forward to a recipe post taken from Edmond's soon!
However, even living on the edge of the earth, there's an Indonesian restaurant nearby. She posted some pictures of Indonesian dishes she ate at Warung Wardani in Auckland. The one that pierced my stomach literally was the Soto Betawi, an Indonesian beef soup with coconut milk base. I swore I was going to make it until I googled the recipe and it asked for so much spice mixture. I retreated and accepted defeat.

Meat Pies...ohhh God!!

CAMP SINGAPORE

War Goddess Chika and her 8 hands! Watch out!

These two ladies, Chika and Ineke,  are fierce competitors. Both of them are accomplished cooks and bakers and they weren't kidding around. They joined forces one time for Chika's daughter's birthday, and when I saw the spread of rice cakes served with Opor Ayam (chicken stew) and its fixing, the birthday cakes, and the muffins...I actually had to make my own dinner party. I was hurting, bad, looking at the rice cakes and the chicken stew. It was a typical Indonesian dish back home and how I missed it. But then, if I made it, I wanted it complete with all the fixings like rendang (beef stewed in spices and coconut milk), sambal ati (chicken liver cooked with chili and vegetables), etc. However, I couldn't eat all that on my own. I invited some of my friends who did  not complain about helping me eat it. But, you know it caused me a whole weekend of cooking because these things took a long time to make. I was happy though afterward.

Opor Ayam, Indonesian Stewed Chicken

Chika's Danish...what?!

Chocolate C4 on Major Ineke's hand!

Chika is always cooking for her family - her two beautiful children and our adjunct player, her husband, Dominic. Dom at times joined in the fun with his coffee pictures. Yep, he and Peggy could really have their own coffee war! Chika never claimed to be the food expert; however, she was just being humble. When she whipped out homemade Danish and Croissant pictures, I knew she was hiding her ammunition! Ambush!!

Ineke, came from a family who owned foodservice business. If I'm not mistaken, her family had a successful bakery back home in Jakarta. She's the master baker. Baking breads or decorating a cake with fondant seem so effortless to her. One day she posted pictures of these butter buns - I almost cried. I am a sucker for a fresh baked bread from the oven, and that picture looked so good I felt I could feel the steam. These two ladies are so fierce! Chika for awhile always posted a picture of a pastry for me to wake up to in the morning. She said it was my breakfast. Liza and I always laugh because we both said that our computer screens are so gross from all the licking we've done!

Yummo Butter Buns!!!! see that butter melting on the parchment?

CAMP CHICAGO

Lu, the culinary ninja!

I'm also a lone warrior here in Chicago. I mixed up my strategic attacks with some rockets of restaurant food pictures as well as home made retaliations. I think I was the one who suffered quite a bit and I actually tried hard to fulfill my craving by making the dish. Well, not all of them obviously. Like the Soto Betawi - I retreated gracefully and waved my white flag. Some others I could manage to make, I would certainly retaliate. I think I'm quite ruthless myself. Chika and the other warlords were quite tantalized with some American or Mexican dishes that aren't readily available at their neck of the woods. Dom was also salivated a bit looking at my duck and noodle pictures that I took at Ming Hin the other day.

What I gathered from all this food war-mongering is motivation to practice cooking and baking. It really gives me excuse to cook, take the weekend and go crazy cooking. I also use some of this hard work for materials for this blog. In our crazy lives, at times it is hard to find the motivation to add on to your already busy week. However, food war has been a great source of those little kicks in the behind for me. I always want to show the other players what I made or what I ate. I want to hear Chika telling me that what I made is looking really good and what's the recipe. I want Liza to tell me that she wants to stab the steak with her fork through the screen. I want to hear Peggy telling me "nice shot!"

Chocolate Chip Muffins, inspired by Chika

Carne Asada for payback..not so easy to find in Asia, huh?

See - this food war embodied 4 things I love. First, it gives me avenue to eat. Almost every day one of us complains that we gain weight from food pictures. How could it be? Hahaha..probably because we ended up going out so we could get new photos to post!

Second, it gives me excuse to cook. Yep, I already told you in the above paragraph how I look forward to the weekend and just cook my ass off.

Third, it gives me reason to practice my camera skills. These girls aren't only foodies, but they are also photographers. It is so awesome when I get compliment about the food, and also about the photographs. It's like a double whammy! I really don't want to post crappy photos as I'd get embarrassed. Therefore, I try my hardest to hone-in my photography skills. I am even taking a class this weekend for it. Don't tell me I am not invested in this.

Lastly, it gives me means to talk to my friends. I'm sure you probably remember me writing about some of these girls in my older posts. They're my friends for almost my whole entire childhood and also now in my adult life. It's so great to be able to talk to friends about whatever things in life, as well as doing something we are all passionate about.

Chika, Peggy, and I video skyped a couple of weeks ago and how fun it was! Peggy was sick so she was just chilling watching me making Indonesian Pastels (Curry Puffs/Empanada), and Chika making meatballs and Marinara sauce. It was fantastic!

At the end, food war is so much better than any other wars. It still has the competition, the ammunition, and the soldiers. However, though we have our competitive sides, we are just five kick-ass girls who found more friendship within our war. I'd like to apologize to some of our other friends who were bothered with our long comment threads...but hey, it's all for fun and I know some of you also enjoyed looking at the yummilicious pictures. This war is my kind of war.

MAKE FOOD, NOT WAR!

Special thanks to my girls: Peggy Muliadi, Debbie Maria a.k.a Chika, Liza Wibisono, Ineke Kristanto and Audrey Widyanata. Thanks for working with me in this project and took the awesome war poses! All photos are used with permissions. 


Thanks to Sonya Hira for taking my picture! I look ridiculous! Just like how I wanted it!