Greenys

When people asked me about when/how i started to have interest in gardening, I’d say since years ago. And finally I can explore about gardening on my mom’s balcony 😜

I started planting some trees and flowers when I lived in my own house. I enjoyed that hobby until I decided to move to KL. But, eventually I stopped, since it was difficult to plant things with soil in a high rise condo in the middle of KL.

Last year I finally moved back to JKT after a decade. Organic salad was (and still is) extemely expensive compared to KL price. Browsed instagram for an urban garden inspiration, but what I found was way more than lay out inspiration, but a lifestyle. People are now more aware about food crisis, global warming, carbon trace, and the whole nine yards. I found many awesome fellows -men, women, young, senior- are planting vegetables in their own yards/balcony, even kos-kosan!!

When you tried to grow your own food, you’ll get addicted, no matter it can survive untill harvest time or just die along the way, you just can’t stop! 

Happy gardening! Lets give back to nature! 🙂

About Time – a complete love movie

Another romantic movie by Rachel McAdams, About Time. But what make it different is, it is a complete love movie. The plot was simple, though it is subtle about many love stories; love to your spouse, to siblings, to parents, to children, to friends; yet still keeping its simplicity.

Unlike hollywood movies, who always exaggerate about loves and deaths, it shows that life in general is meaningful with every its bittersweet moments. It is a beautiful and heartwarming movie 🙂

Bakwan Sayur / Vegetable Tempura

Did you remember the time you opened your refrigerator and you found last week’s carrots, spring onions, cabbage, or other vegetables? So, what to do? Lets make some bakwan!  Bakwan actually is not the same as tempura, but probably we can say that tempura and bakwan are 3 degrees cousins :p

Ingredients:

• 2 Medium Carrots
• A Quarter Cabbage
• Spring onions
• 1 Big Chilli
• 2 Onions
• Sugar
• Salt
• Pepper
• 300 gram Low/Medium flour (if you use medium flow, add a bit off corn starch)
• 1 Egg
• Vegetable oil to deep fry

How To:

1. Prepare the vegetables by chopping them fore-and-aft
2. Chop spring onions for sprinkle
3. Mix flour, salt, sugar, pepper, egg in a bowl. If the batter is still too tick, sprinkle with a bit of water until its thickness is just fine. Taste a bit the batter, you can freely add some pepper/salt/sugar
4. Puree onions, then mix it into batter.
5. Put all vegetables into batter, and mix it slowly.
6. Heat vegetable oil in a wok pan (wok pan needs less vegetable to deep fry).
7. Fry a spoonful vegetable batter in wok pan until it turns into beautifully brown fitter.

Actually you can put some protein in a bakwan, generally we put shrimp. But, we can put anything, from meatball, chicken chop, shrimp, crab stick, sausage, minced beef etc. The leftover batter can be kept for 2 days in an air tight container and put it in chiller.

In Jakarta, people usually eat bakwan without any sauce, but when I was in Balikpapan, they ate bakwan with peanut sauce.

To make peanut sauce, sauté onions puree (5 shallots, 2 onions, 2 nutmegs, 3 big chilies), blend it with mashed fried peanuts, mix with water on stove. Keep mixing it with water until the thickness is just OK, then add salt and sugar as desirable.

Replay

When I saw this blog’s timeline, 2013 is a missing year. I wasn’t missing, just buried in jobs, such a cliché reason 🙂

But, before trying to replay 2013, I’d like to conclude something: I’m in a new stage. It’s still a brand new stage, still feel quite strange and scared, but I feel more optimistic. Isn’t it great?! 🙂

I started 2013 with another broken heart..haha..not another boy things, but another ugly truth about their egos. But, that was just a small start. I got another job desc. I could see nothing good from that job itself, but it allowed me to get many other perceptions about both company and colleagues, which actually gave me vantage points as a part of management. On the other hand, my salary was like a labour..ahahha…but payed the bills.

The new job offered me nothing on my personal/social life. I kept working days and nights, especially my boss’ calls also in days and nights! In addition of the crazy work loads, both of my houses developments were done. At that point, I realized that managing a house without a partner was exhausting. Just to emphasize, I managed 2 houses. What a strong woman I am! :p

Approaching end of 2013, I got hit by an acute gastritis. That was another point when I realized I’d been abusing both my physical and mental. On October 2013, somehow I managed to open Humans of New York blog, and found this. I got THE job in THE company that nobody would never gave it up in order to have security. Reality bit, I didn’t feel secured.

Taken from one of Humans of New York articles

Those were the major turmoil how I got here now.

Zones

There’s a show titled ‘Friendzone’ in MTV. Well, it’s American’s ‘Katakan Cinta’ (yes..I know that early 00 show), but specifically for those who fall in love with his/her best friend. And also this cute meme of Ron Weasly. Meaning that we have been familiarize enough with the term of ‘Friendzone’. Been there done that, both as Summer Finn and also Tom Hanson.

There are other zones (this is solely my personal opinion):

1. Friend zone –> just friends, not more.
2. Family zone –> as brother / sister.
3. Betadine zone –> pelipur lara. He/she comes merely when he/she needs a shoulder to cry on.
4. Rest area zone –> “You are better than my wife/girlfriend” kind of thing when he got some problems with their current spouse.
5. Sleep zone –> need a ‘pressure/pleasure release’ thing. Stay safe when you intend to do this. No judgement.
6. Insomnia zone –> booty calls.
7. Charger zone –> an interim period. No exclusive commitment with anyone yet, so you’re an interim until he/she finds the right one.

Yes, there are many zones. But apparently, I’ve just experienced the one that isn’t described yet, which is Mother zone. You know, when apparently that guy is just a bit younger and you’re so cool, he just popped a statement (not a question) “You are like my mother”. It might be as a more elaborated definition from Family zone.

Bottom line, it’s not cool to indicate how many his/her alikeness with your mom/dad.