So here's the thing. Every dish I cook has a little story behind it. But before I take you into the kitchen my wife and I share with her parents today, let me rewind to where this whole thing started.
How Two Guys Learned to Cook
I started cooking after my mom passed away. All of a sudden it was just me and my dad in the house. Two guys, nobody left to feed us. So we figured, okay, we have to learn this. Not fancy stuff, just enough so we could eat properly instead of living on whatever was easiest.
And no, we didn't just buy food from outside. We lived in a village, and honestly, eating out there would've looked kind of weird. A little wasteful, too, especially when the whole countryside was basically a free pantry. Vegetables everywhere. Want some protein? Go grab a chicken, or just pick up tofu and tempe. So yeah, we cooked.
Back then I was working and renting a room in the city, coming home to the village maybe once every two weeks. And every time I went back, I'd haul some vegetables or ingredients with me so my dad would have a real meal. Sometimes I didn't even need to bring anything, because one of my relatives ran a little veggie stall right there.
I'd make sayur sop, cook up some fish (our house was right by the sea), do something with chicken. My favorite though? Rica-rica babi. I even started messing around with pork satay, and I'm telling you, it came out good enough to sell. Tender, loaded with flavor. And that's not just me bragging. The whole family said so.
From a Sad Little Boarding Kitchen to Weekend Cooking Dates
Eventually life pulled me to Jakarta, so there I was renting a room again. Oh, and besides work, I had a side mission in the city: getting closer to the girl who's now my wife.
Cooking at the boarding house though? Basically impossible. The kitchen was not built for it, just a shared space that barely worked, so I stuck to simple stuff. But as me and my girlfriend got closer and I started hanging out at her place, something really nice became part of our weekends. We'd cook together. And I was the chef, obviously. We went through so many menus during those dating days, just the two of us in her family's kitchen.
We Got Married, and Oh Boy, Game On
Not long after that, we got married. And this was the moment I'd been waiting for. Finally, I could go all in on this hobby.
I cooked every chance I got. New menus all the time, some to pack as lunch for the office, some to eat at home with my in-laws. And that's when I noticed something kind of funny: I was slowly changing how my new family ate. I'd put dishes in front of them they'd never tried before, flavors that felt a little foreign at first but somehow still clicked. Mostly Indonesian food, with a bit of Chinese food thrown in whenever it was easy enough to pull off.
Every time food hit the table and we all sat down together, my wife and her parents would start praising it. They genuinely loved it, always telling me how good it was. And the best proof? My father-in-law goes back for a second scoop of rice, just to drag out the enjoyment a little longer. That one gets me every time.
I even started cooking extra on purpose so I could bring some to the office and let my coworkers try it. They always gave it a thumbs up. One time I brought in bakmi ayam, and now they keep bugging me to make it again. They even asked for the recipe.
I Don't Really Measure Anything
Okay, here's my "secret," which is barely a secret. I don't do exact measurements. I just cook by feel. The one thing I know for sure is that if the seasoning is bold, medok like we say, and I know how to balance it out, it's gonna taste good. So I never hold back on spices. Full pantry, every time. That's what makes the food actually come alive.
Slowly Building My Dream Kitchen
Lately I've also started collecting proper cooking gear, little by little. A wooden cutting board, some good knives, decent cookware, all the bits and pieces. Nothing crazy, just slowly rounding out the kit. The idea is simple: whenever I'm ready to cook something more ambitious down the road, I won't be stuck. The tools will already be sitting there, ready to go.
A Table Full of Harmony
What I love most now is honestly pretty simple. I just like watching my new family dig into all these different flavors, one dish after another, each one a little different from the last.
And that's really what all of this turned into. A way of bringing a little harmony into our home, one tasty bite at a time.