I was feeling adventurous when I visited the nearest traditional market near my new house in Kerobokan. Many fresh fruits of all kind are sold there, including the dragon fruit (buah naga). The I-think-I-know-this-but-I've-never-tasted-it-before fruit was tempting me to buy it. I asked the seller how it tasted. And quickly she said, "Sweet." Then she looked back to her mate and asked her, "It is sweet, right?"

Okay, that was not exactly convincing.

And then she suggested me to buy one and try it myself. Apparently one dragon fruit was quite big and heavy and after scaling it, she charged me Rp 6,000 for one piece. After buying a kilo of srikaya (sugar apple) for Rp 7,000, one single piece of dragon fruit felt expensive. But I bought it anyway and regarded it as the cost of an adventure. The dragon fruit does have an interesting colour and wicked skin texture though.

First experience eating the glorious dragon fruit:
Apart from its bold appearance, the white fruity flesh and its small peeps taste somewhat low key, and not in a bad way. It is almost sweet but not sour at all, which is perfect for my taste. Moreover, it is rich of dietary fiber, calcium, and Vitamin C. Researches found that it is also good to help control levels of glucose blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetes. Some people also believe that the dragon fruit is useful for those suffering from high tension.

With all the advantages offered and given, it suddenly doesn't feel that expensive anymore.

All images are copyright of Carla Ardian Photography.

food review

9:51 am

I am not much of a movie/TV watcher. I'd rather spend my time taking photos outside or inside, or face my laptop and do some editing on the photos I have taken OR lie down reading one of Jamie Oliver's cookbooks and ponder what to cook for dinner. But when I watched this year's grammy award - and really only about 15 minutes of the whole lengthy event - I fell in love with the way Meryl Streep took the award.

I did not see much of its trailer either. When I finally decided to buy the DVD, I had no idea what the movie was all about. As I said before, watching movies is not in the list of my most passionate things to do. SO, I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a movie of two different personalities of two different times, and how their lives resembled each other in their passion about cooking - which so happens to be one of my passions too!

Julia Child was an eccentric cheerful woman married to Paul Child, an employee of the United States of America embassy. Her journey in cooking started out when Paul was posted in Paris. She was fascinated about basically everything: the food, the market, even the people! She took her first French cooking class because she was bored and had nothing to do. Later on, the fact that most of French skilled chefs/cooks were men triggered her competitive mind to kick their arrogant asses that women can take part of the professional French cooking too.

Years after, when Julia's books had been published, and republished, one of her biggest fans, Julie Powell, felt like she had never achieved anything because she had never finished anything that she had started. She worked in a cubicle of a government office and daily received complaining calls from the 9/11 tragedy. She felt that her life was worthless and with the help of her loving husband, Eric, she started out a blog which recorded her Julie/Julia Project. The goal of this baby project of hers is to try out every recipe in Julia's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" book in one year. That was 536 recipes to try out in 365 days. She formerly started the project for herself. But after a while she gained popularity and had a number of fans who supported her through the project. Even the New York Times and the other news agencies were trying to interview and feature her!

So anyway.... I'm giving this movie a 4.5 star for the excellent acting of Meryl Streep and for reminding me that my blog has been deserted for months and that there are so many great recipes out there to try out!

I am now going to open Jamie's Ministry of Food cookbook and I suggest you to take a look on Julie & Julia trailer below.

movies review

9:05 am