Pondok Pesantren Alkhoirot

Indonesian Chef Blog for Indonesian Food Fans

Riana Ambarsari is a name I should put in my post when I quoted her tribute to the demise of Bunda Zidan aka Inong. I was in the rush then, as usual. And just comes to know her true name days after the post when I surfed through some links in her blog. Like me, she seems to have several experimenting blogs: from personal blog, to cooking and recipe blog; both in blogspot and blogsome.

I dont know what the different between the two blogs, I’m very bad “chef” who can only cook rice and fry telor mata sapi and omlette. But if my early and rush assesment is right, the blogspot one seems to be for any “heavy” food recipes from all over the world. While in the blogsome is more dedicated for “lighter” one ie dessert.

Despite her blogs are not specifically dedicated for Indonesian food recipes, it should answer Indra Pramana’s friend queries and satisfy their needs as her food blogs are written in a good grammatically correct English.

Some recipe which is typically Indonesian way i.e. from mother to daughter can be seen, for example, in this post:

My Mom used to make this every Ramadhan. She simply called it Es Buah (fruit cocktail). But in fact, she never made it with any other fruits. It was always only mango. At times, she threw in some kolang-kaling (sugar palm fruit) only because I asked her to. And it was by far the best refreshment I’ve ever had…

Blogging in English will create larger audience beyond the Malay speaking readers, and hence larger appreciation for you. And no wonder then if she’s got mentioned in an influential food website.

It’s important to note though, that my urge to Indonesian blogger to blog in English is only for those who have sufficient proficiency in English, meaning your words can be understood by English speaking readers. Not necessarily the native speakers. So, those who don’t meet the minimum requirement doesn’t have to be upset with my statements regarding this matter, nor should they feel unappreciated. Bahasa Indonesia can still be understood by large audience of around 250 million people of different nationalities: Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Malay Singaporean, south Thailand, beside Indonesians themselves.

Speaking of food, Ramadhan fasting time is approaching. When I was at home during Ramadhan, my late mom used to cook various foods available to satisfy her kids to take “revenge” when time to break our fast on sunset has come. I imagine how sweet it’d be if Riana Lagarde cooks her best recipe to break my first day fasting due hopefully on three or four days time from now.

For all Muslims around the world, Happy Ramadhan! Ramadhan Mubarak for all Urdu/Hindi speaking Muslims.

And Selamat Menyambut Ibadah Puasa Ramadan buat seluruh rekan-rekan Muslim di Tanah Air dan di manapun berada. Maafkan segala salah dan khilaf saya sebagai pribadi.
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From the time I started blogging about a year ago, I reminded Indonesian blogger to blog “for the cause” and hence, one should try to make quality content every now and then. By “quality content” it doesn’t mean a merely thoughtful-philosophical kind of content as not everyone has the capacity to do that. Quality content also include reporting what you see around you. Sort of “investigative” reporting in journalism world with, of course, much lighter sense of the term.

For example, I elaborated further in another post:

What I propose you (and me) to do is we should be an alternative information, beside the established indonesian media toward the outside world. To be another window of information and reality of Indonesia for the rest of the world.

For that purpose, what we need to do is not so complicated: just try to tell the world about what’s happening (of social and cultural values) around you. About poverty, corruption of LURAH (sub-district head), Camat (district head), or any officials you were facing with. By telling all daily cultural-social stories and dynamism regarding the wrong-doings and good things of our officials, our religious figures, etc, we’d give more lights to other people in indonesia as well as in the world about the raw reality on the grass root level. Something which every now and then is missing from the established media, either because of space limit or face value of the news.

At the time I wrote those two posts, someone reminded me in the comment box that there’re some quality-content Indonesian blogs outthere which I need to visit and look at. Hence the start of my blogwalking; a new activity that led me to this weekly blog review feature.

Yet, after so long time–one year sounds very long enough to me–travelling throughout the Indonesian blogosphere, it still amazes and upsets me that I fail to find a good quality-content blog owned by Mulya Amri, known in the blogosphere as Muli who started blogging three months before me. I found his blog only after he commented on my post here.

Mulya Amri’s blog content is as good as it can get. He seems trying hard to make clarity and unbias as his niche in making opinion; and for that, first of all, he makes it clear who who is:

I’m an independent consultant working on & interested in topics as shown below. To acknowledge possible biases, let me admit that I’m male, early 30′s, brown skin, Indonesian, Muslim, married, educated in urban planning, travels between Jogja, Bandung, and Jakarta.

I strongly agree with his implicit statement that clarity of identity will lead you to clarity of intention behind the topics of any interests. Especially when you’re interested in discussing issues where clarity of identity is needed: socio-cultural-religious-political issues.

That’s where people who read your opinion (in your blog) will know whether (a) you’re an insider who’s trying to be self-critical for the betterment of your own self and community or an outsider who just want to make a fun or a bashing to prove that you are a much holier and much more “civilized” entity than others; whether you are a person with strong universal values who’d like to protest against injustices done by anyone from any nation, regardless of faith of preference, culture or civilization or (b) are just a cheap individual who’d want to satisfy his/her lust by criticising and/or attacking others all the time and dont bother to appreciate the positive things done by THEM, while at the same time praising anything WITHIN and ruling out to criticise the wrong things in it.

I believe Muli is one of those who fall to the first category and therefore deserve accolade and respect from all of us.
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So far as traffic and Technorati ranking go, among the top ten Indonesian bloggers who got mentioned in the Tempo magazine a few weeks back, William Pramana is certainly the most deservedly blogger to have such honor. Long before Tempo magazine made the long report on Indonesian blogosphere, Priyadi has made a Technorati-based survey and William came out as the numero uno. I was amazed and surprised to know how he very humbly responded to the honor and honestly wrote:

I am honored to be on that list but I don’t think I deserve it because there are so many Indonesian blogs with better content and better user discussion. The reason why I came on the top of the list is because I generate so many incoming links.

I generate so much incoming links NOT because people recommended me or they refer to one of my blog entries, but because of my contribution to the WordPress Theme Competition Blog. The Golden Grey is used by so many wordpress powered blog.

Priyadi’s effort in making the survey is now followed in a better way by Heri Susanto. In Heri’s blog, you can see live–dynamically changed ranking in accordance with Technorati–the top 100 Indonesian blogs. You can see William’s blog is always on top and is even number 15 on overall Technorati ranking out of 51 millions blogs listed in Technorati!

Of course, William achievement doesn’t confine to that of Technorati. He’s what we call the product of techno geek prodigy who has a taste of and was playing around with anything computer since his childhood when he was just a 12-year old kid. And as internet necessity is zooming by the day, it’s not surprising that he has achieved now what “conventional profession” can achieve years after. Just take a look at his brief CV:

William is a small business owner providing IT services to Australian small businesses. He has been experimenting with various operating systems, computer networking, programming, and designing websites since he was only 12 years old.

I always admire any achiever, Indonesian achiever in particular, in his/her own field or beyond. To know that he/she deals with all his/her achievement in a humble way just manifold my admiration. William Pramana is among those guys I admire for both his achievement and humility. Two things that we hardly find in a single person.
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If you are a beginner in the blogging world, and are feeling confused on how to start making your debut post, Alaya Setya’s blog is a good blog to take a look at as an alternative style. But wait, by no means do I say that she is a debutant blogger. Infact, she’s blogging since 2002. So, she’s one of those seasoned Indonesian bloggers who starts blogging at the time when blogging culture was known by few Indonesians.

Her style of blogging is unique: brief, light, having good sense of humor and some written in a conversational style which make the messages she’d want to convey all the more impressive and enjoyable to read. You can read all of her posts on your coffee-break and you won’t be aware that you actually read so many before you even finish the last drop of your capuccino or kopi tubruk. She also write almost all of her posts in a del.ici.ous-tag-cloud style. The first Indonesian blogger whose blog I’ve seen consistently using this style.

Have a look at her latest post about her niece:

niva, 2 years old, got into the office. she climbed one of the desk. there was no laptop on the desk and the chair was empty.
“where’s tante anya, where? she always repeat the question whenever she asks about something.
“tante anya is sick today,” i explained.
her two big eyes stared at me with i-don’t-understand-what-you-just-said look.
“tante anya is aduh,” i assumed she understands ‘aduh’ better than ‘sakit’. when she found a band-aid on my leg after my karimunjawa trip, she told everyone that tante alaya is aduh.

she pointed at the next desk which was also empty.
“where’s tante nina, where?”
“tante nina is in singapore. she always has meeting every friday in singapore.”
probably the words ‘singapore’, ‘meeting’, ‘friday’ are meaningless for 2 years old, so she changed the topic to her favorite sentence:

‘i want candy.”

Or about her pain; her conversation with a nurse

“what kind of pain is it?” the nurse asked.
i just realized i don’t have any other word to explain the pain.
maybe i’m lack of verbal.
maybe i only have a little vocabulary like holden.
but for me, it was just a pain.

“is it a shooting pain or continous pain?” the nursed tried to help me.
and again, i couldn’t decided.
for me, it was just a pain.

But you’re wrong if you think that she’s just an ordinary woman who writes briefly because of ‘knowledge barrier.’ In no time you’d see that she’s a bookaholic where reading becomes a passion and a basic need:

i got a package from this guy through iman.

a book from my wish list: never let me go by kazuo ishiguro and 2 cds of photos that he took when he was here.

thank you, ndy…
thank you, man…

to ninit : there’s something for you too

i will read the book after finishing the house of blue mangoes

Unfortunately, she doesn’t give any more details on her profile. Judging from her friends she often mention in her posts, however, I suspect she’s one of Indonesian writer. Maybe Ninit, could tell the readers more about her.
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How to have a good blog content? How to be a good and insightful blogger? Or in other words how to be a good writer? Devi Girsang, though implicitly, says loud and clear: “Love reading and writing!” She’s right. While reading is a must for recharging your rechargeable brain in order to keep updated with the latest information of your interests and be a well-informed person, writing is the best way to keep whatever we read and absorb and then build it up further into a totally new idea or a convergence of various thoughts.

Yet, another factor as mentioned by the Atmajaya University medical student Devi should not be ignored: love to read and write. You can still have the chance to be a good reader and prolific writer even if you don’t have love of doing them. But to be a big writer love and passion are a must. Paulo Coelho in an interview with Nisha Husain from the BBC a few months back said that without love and passion of what he’s doing, his first novel and most popular ones,The Alchemist, would never have come into reality.

At least, if reading is your love and passion, your talking and blogging will benefit many because it must’ve been insightful, even if you haven’t published any writing in a conventional medium which is just a matter of time.

Devi Girsang has written several published articles including fictional short stories. Yet, the more important thing is she’s just a 20-year-old girl living in Jakarta, an Indonesian capital city known more for its having-fun & party-loving youth. That should be a strong message to other youngster in the capital and other province cities as well that “fun” should not necessarily be associated with laid-back attitude and unmeaningful activities; that “love, passion and fun” could mean both ways: hardworking or self-destruct.

Making comparison to a better personality is profoundly important for anyone, young and old generation, to improve one’s personality towards progress. And that’s why sucessful personalities always write their (auto)-biographies to be read and whose paths are to be followed. In some other parts of the world, (auto)-biography of a prominent individual is always sold-out. It’s not the case in Indonesia.

Let’s face it, we like and enjoy reading and watching a celebrity-gossip news or a junky soap opera more than reading or watching something more useful like, say, current affairs news or Discovery Channel.

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