Day 28 — Komang’s kitchen
Eddie, the house lizard, was up to his usual tricks this morning and woke us both up in the early hours as he was clambering over our plates and cutlery on the sideboard. We went back to sleep but woke up a little later and had a breakfast of fresh bread, tomato and cheddar cheese. I say ‘cheddar’ but put it this way, it comes in a box and it wasn’t in the fridge section of the shop. It’s as close as we’re going to get but to be honest it’s not too bad at all.
We left early to get to the vegetable shop before it closed in the morning. Today was the day we start cooking for ourselves to help money. If we are going to be stuck here in isolation we’d better start living like the locals. After our recent visit to the foreign (western) supermarket, we came to the realisation that we will not be cooking our own food while here in Bali. Our western food is far too expensive here. The night before we’d looked up a number of Balinese recipes and noted down some of the main ingredients we’d need. These included the usual suspects; rice, noodles, soy sauce, oyster sauce, chilli sauce and some not so usual suspects tomato ketchup and an amazing sweet syrup called Kecap Manis. The latter is very delicious and is great as a side to any rice dish — it’s basically soy sauce boiled with palm sugar and tastes sort of like maple syrup. We went to the vegetable shop 200m up the road and spent just under £15 (quite a lot for this country) but came away with two bags full of all sorts. (Magda wondered why I spent so much money on Liquorice All Sorts …I’m joking. I’ll stop.)
Later in the day, Magda gave me another Qi Gong lesson for 45 minutes. Even though we did it in our air-conditioned room we really had a sweat on so took it as a good time to shower before concentrating on some freelance work. While working we heard some commotion outside and, what sounded like, someone shouting on a megaphone. We rushed out to the balcony to investigate and there was a large truck spraying the road with disinfectant and someone delivering a message on a megaphone. We asked Komang a little later who this was and what they were doing. Apparently, it was the leaders of the village telling people not to leave their homes unless necessary and to self-isolate.
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We had almost everything we needed for a simple tuna salad so to break up the monotony of staying in, rode up the coast and back to western ADI Shop. We got some more of that amazing German bread plus a few other bits to finish our tuna salad. I got excited when I found some baked beans on the shelf but that excitement soon receded when finding out the price at the counter — £2.50! For a can of beans! I put it back on the shelf. I said it before and I’ll say it again, we need to eat like the locals. Returning home we spoke to Komang about the possibility of having his wife teach us how to cook like the Balinese. Perhaps she could earn a little money, plus it was the best we could make of the situation we were in. He seemed to appreciate hearing our interest in his culture and said he will speak to her about the idea and get back to us.
After giving two excited kids a pack of chocolate wafers, Magda went upstairs to prepare the salad and wash dishes in the bathroom sink, while I used Komang‘s kitchen to boil some vegetables and make some hard-boiled eggs. It felt quite a novelty using the basic kitchen and, even though it was a simple meal, I felt like a fish out of water. Even getting into a tin of tuna was a dilemma and Komang had to use an enormous knife to hack away at the sides to reveal the inner nectar. The sink where I needed to wash the vegetables wasn’t even in the kitchen — this was outside under some stairs and at floor level where I crouched down and tried to sit on the miniature wooden stool that I’ve seen them family use. The older lady of the family seemed to be cracking up seeing a westerner try and do something she must feel was second-nature. It was all in good humour and I was laughing as well. Eventually, the dinner was ready and we sat on the balcony watching the sunset and eating our tuna salad. We relaxed in the evening, did a little more admin and carried on reading my book “Living with a full cup.”
