On Our Birthday Party Conversation

The other Sunday my family gathered at one of my aunts' home for her birthday lunch. This conversation was between two uncles, a bio-ethicist doctor and a dentist, and me in Bahasa Indonesia, except for the figuurzaag which is a jigsaw.

Bio-ethicist (B): do you know where to get a figuurzaag?
me: yupe, ace hardware
Dentist (D): yes, or Depo Bangunan (home depo-red)
B: do you know what a figuurzaag is?
me: it's the circle one, no?
B: no, it's the one you pull and push *did the movement*
me: oh, I bought that one for mom in NL
D: what do you need it for?
B: Oh, we have this 3 year old cadaver at the faculty and it's already rock solid. So, I want to cut it into pieces for class.
D: Topographical anatomy?
B: yes
me: why dont you use figuurzaagmachine?
B: the cadaver wont be fit on it
m: yes it will, I think Von Hagen use it with his plastination
B: I need to ask the anatomy guy how to cut it cleanly.
D: yes, ask the guy, he knows which saw you'll need.

The next thing I knew, while I was trying to find one on the the internet Uncle B went to Ace Hardware to look for it with a cousin of mine.

Just another family gathering, huh?

My Life Is..

I found the picture on the right on Pinterest and showed it to an old buddy

His comment was: 

more like laughing at my expense to be precise hahaha

To that I replied:

hahahahahahahaha but it wont fit the t shirt

It's true.. I've been entertained by his antics lately, which is more entertaining than any romcom on telly

Here's to The New Year

So, the world didnt end on Dec 21,2012, let's begin our new adventure! 

Season's Greetings

May your Christmas also be as special as you are 

and 

may the New Year be filled with happiness, joy and prosperity to you and your love ones!

xoxo

T.A.

El Bulli: Cooking in Progress

I only managed to see one film during EuropeonScreen, namely El Bulli: Cooking in Progress. El Bulli is the name of a Spanish restaurant, headed by the celebrated molecular gastronomy chef Ferran Adrià, which won the title of the best restaurant in the world for 5 times and also had 3 Michelin stars. This restaurant only accepted 8000 bookings a year and there were at one point two millions people apply for those slots.

The movie was shot between 2008-9 and first premiere in 2010, a year before El Bulli closed its door for the last time on July 30th, 2011. 

As a documentary about a celebrated restaurant, the movie directed by Gereon Wetzel practically left out the patrons of El Bulli. There were no interview of how the patron experience the food, you just saw some of them moving around and taking pictures of the kitchen or with Adrià. 

Just like El Bulli (research) kitchen, the movie is very clinical with no narrative. For a movie about food, there were not many scenes with food but more head shots of Adrià and his deputies. For a movie about gastronomy, there were more scenes about vacuuming and drying an ingredient than actually cooking it.

While Adrià said that his food should evoke emotion, "the more bewilderment, the better"  beyond 'joder' if I understood him correctly, the movie is rather flat. However, I do appreciate that we could see their process and attention to details that make them the best restaurant in the world. It also makes me appreciate the amount of creativity, skills, effort, science, time and emotion behind each dishes. I really appreciate all the beautiful photographs by the only person trusted to take Adrià's dishes: Francesc Guillamet.