Friday, December 21, 2018

Mostly Food and Drink

This post is truly just a random walk through a variety of things. First up is Diet Coke.

I don't remember writing about this so I will do it now. Last spring I read that Coke was coming out with 4 new flavors of Diet Coke: ginger lime, feisty cherry, zesty blood orange and twisted mango. I waited with anticipation until our visit to the US last summer and we sought out 1 can of each. B finally managed to find them. Of the 4 , 3 were a definite "NO!" Only the twisted mango had a good flavor. Would we ever purchase them again? Probably not.


If you can't read the price tag for these green grapes in the next photo, it reads Rp 3,229,000. That's equivalent to over $200.00 US. Seriously? For 5 kg of grapes?  I had to look these grapes up on the Internet. They are shine muscat grapes and one source insisted they taste a lot like a mango.


 This is a photo of my friend's orange almond cake. It starts with a whole orange you boil in water. It's loaded with ground up almonds. I got the recipe before she left.

 Another mango season, another gift! 29 mangoes this time. Cream of the crop from Lilly. Gave away most of them again. After all, what can you do with that many mangoes at once? They all ripen at the same time.
 A couple of green drinks. They were both ordered as an plain, no sugar, iced green tea- or so I thought. I guess I wasn't clear. One turned out to be an iced green tea whipped and the other was a heavily sweetened iced green tea latte- probably sweetened with condensed milk.

For our loved ones who always have these in the pantry. Tostitos showed up at the market one day. Rp 127,500 ( US 8.50). And the bag isn't that large. I had to pass.
 I finally decided to make and serve the family hors d'oeuvre to people unrelated by blood or marriage. The American Women's Association had a sort of Thanksgiving potluck. We were supposed to bring a favorite family recipe. Hmmm.... I went for it in part because for the first time in 4 years, I found colby-jack cheese at the market. That in combination with gherkin pickles and maraschino cherry halves or thirds is all you need.
 The comments? What fascinated me is that folks liked them. Especially a couple of ladies from India. This combination of flavors made perfect sense to them. Almost all of them disappeared. It's possible a few folks tossed them in the trash but at least 2 people took a few home for husbands.

I also served a mango and pineapple salsa with cinnamon topped cut up flour tortillas baked until crispy. The salsa had just a hint of spice.
This is called a butterfly:passion fruit, fresh lime, orange juice, elderflower , mint and soda water. Quite nice but I can't remember where I ordered it.
We had lunch one day at a Korean restaurant. This was chicken something but all wrapped in cheese. They brought gloves to the table for you to use. A couple of bites were OK, but it was just too much stuff covered in cheese.
I have made a couple of loaves of bread in recent weeks.  This was just a plain white bread.

 This one loaded with seeds of all types, inside and out.
 I think this was called an Ibis. I believe it had a little melon syrup in the bottom, so still a "green" drink if you stretch the definition.
This was a lychee squash so I'm not sure what is green in the bottom of this drink. Lychee is white but there must have been a little melon syrup or something in this one as well.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Inauguration

B comments:  On 29 November, SRI had its official inauguration or grand opening. we had over 300 guests, including journalists, and many dignitaries including the Minister of Industry for Indonesia, The Minister for Foreign and economic Affairs for France The French Ambassador to Indonesia, the Manager partner for Michelin and three other high level Michelin leaders. Plus the head of the police, the head of the Army and many of our partners commissioners, directors, and leaders. we received many flower boards from our contractors and from our neighbors or banks.

The line of cars coming to drop people off. VVIPs came to a different entrance so I wasn't able to see this.
The main entrance.
Local dancers.
The VVIPs being led by the dancers to the stage and podium. The person in the yellow shirt is Pak Airlingga Hartarta, Minister of Industry for Indonesia and the person to his left is the Minister of foreign Affairs for France.
We ordered special batik for the Board of Directors and key Michelin or CAP leaders and for the ushers and support team, a team batik uniform. Here is a small portion of the team afterwards.
The Michelin display. We  had a booth for SRI, CAP, and Michelin to show off our products or share with customers.
We did a plant tour and stopped in one building for a photo opp. 
some of the police and army leaders coming out of the photo opp. BTW, this was just 30-ish of the 300 guests. Are you getting a sense of the complexity of all of this?
some of the team with our guests at the photo opp
The two Ministers at the Michelin booth. 
Security was everywhere.
The key VVIPs in the operating building.
The main tent and the national anthem. Then it was speech time. 

Recognize anyone? 
Some of the crowd. 
Each Minister signed a prestasi or stone commemorating the inauguration. 



Sounding the gong officially opened the plant.

while some people got to do a walking tour of the plant (more detail than previous tour) my boss and I and a few others got to do a press conference. Interesting experience and we had simultaneous translation to Bahasa, English, and French. 
The SRI team clowning around and taking a much needed break after the event finished. 

A small token we made up for everyone who supported our plant start up. 

A small dinner party the night before the Inauguration at the home of the head of our partner company. Like the chandelier? from the Czech Republic in the mid seventies. Also, to answer your question, YES, the dining room is big enough for all of us to fit around one table. 


Monday, December 17, 2018

Out and About

This post is a hodgepodge to be sure! This first one is me capturing our helper Ibu Tin while using those funny stickers on my phone. Her nephew does it to her all the time!

 We saw these purses in a shop a while ago. Honestly, I just had to stare. Who would use one of these plastic pink, yellow, purple, blue hairy bags? Or the prickly looking plastic bags on the top shelf?
 I saw this sign..... ?
 Pretty sunset.
 Rainy season began at the end of November. I was at the AWA Center on this day. It was raining so hard, you couldn't see out the windows!
 The "stairs" in this shot are separate shelves, on separate posts with a railing on the side.