DA DA DAAAA~

Hey guys!

I noticed all the photos on my blog are gone. (oh no!) ._.
My bad. I deleted all my google account's photo albums because it syncs with my S3. I know I can un-sync it somehow, but I was too lazy (yep, this is my top deadly sin). I deleted all my photo albums on google and I guess my blog's photos are included. I might be too lazy to re-upload all the photos, so... you can throw rotten eggs at me now.
Anyways, I am kind of glad that they are gone. There are some pictures in the past that I hope not to see again.
I am not going to delete this blog and start a new one because I know some of my readers have been here from the start. And if I start a new blog, it means that I'm leaving my past, leaving all the stories that I have written here and start a new journey. I won't do that, because all the things that are written here are a reminder of how I became the person I am today. Even though some of the posts are stupid, embarrassing, crazy, and inappropriate.  Well, the past is the past, but I can't just forget about the things that made me this way.

Enough about the past.

Let's go back to "NOW".

I'm back in Wellington. So happy to be back. School started today. It was okay... I guess.
I got patisserie class this semester (wheee!). I hope that I don't do anything stupid in class. I don't know... I have a feeling that I might do stupid things in class.

An old friend of mine is joining me here in Wellington. She is taking a master's degree in Massey University. She was a childhood friend. We haven't seen each other in years, until two days ago. Spent an awesome weekend with her. Showed her around town and went to Oriental Bay. Took a dip in the water (or more like stepping into the water and got out as soon as possible because it was cold for us Asians).

Anyways, I have to tell you guys something.

I have a Deviantart page. I post all my food shots in there. High quality, you can download them if you like it. And I also write a little review about the food on the description. That is why I rarely update this blog (Sorry, guys!!).

My Deviantart page is here.

P.S: all the food shots that I post are made, plated, and photographed by myself. I have a policy to not post photos of food that are not made by myself.

Lava of Chocolate

Another week of baking!

Didn't bake much, though.
No macaron, no mint chocolate chips.

Why no macaron? Well, first, I still don't have the hazelnuts (i'm gonna make nutella macarons). And second, It has been raining all week, it even flooded! Yes, there is an epic flood in Jakarta right now. The air is too humid, I don't think it will be good for the macaron. I do not want to waste ingredients (and money), so I postponed it until it is sunny again in Jakarta.

Haven't found any good mint leaves. I've been looking from supermarkets to supermarkets. They are all... ugly. Seriously, the leaves are all black. Nope. I do not use shitty, cheap, funny looking ingredients. I'll make them as soon as i  find some good mint leaves.

I did some mini fruit tarts. Took me half a day to finish them. It was frustrating. Even though it was raining, the temperature here is still hot. It was 25 C and my pastry just wouldn't roll.
I used my school's recipe. I used it because it is PERFECT. I made my very first PERFECT tart at school and the process was fun cuz the pastry rolled out perfectly.
But here it was just too hot. Even though I already put the dough in the fridge, it melted in minutes as soon as I got them out. Frustrating, I tell you. Frustrating!


So, I ended up making this yesterday:

I couldn't go anywhere because of the flood. I have always wanted to make this, but I actually don't like chocolate that much. They are okay, but not okay for me if I eat too much chocolate. 

After I made this, I'm forever in love with chocolate!

This cake was YUM. My mom told me it was a little too sweet. Maybe it was because of the chocolate I used. I don't really know how many % it was. It should be 70% dark chocolate. But, the baking chocolates here don't have any information of how many percent cocoa it contains. It would've been perfect if it was 70% dark chocolate.

But, anyway, it was yum. Thank you for Kak Asya for helping me out. :)

I got the recipe from Nigella Lawson's website here.

take me home~

I haven't posted any decent post lately...
Sorry, guys, I was too lazy... Haha~
Going back to Indonesia has driven me crazy. Everything makes me crazy here; the traffic, the people, the HEAT.
I have to re-adapt myself when I came back. Everything is so different from New Zealand here. Most of them are different in a bad way.
A few weeks ago, I went with my sister to the most complete shopping mall in town. It's not really big, but it has everything in there. You can find everything from underwear to computer motherboard. I don't even know how they managed to put each and every store in that mall there.
The mall is called Mangga Dua. It is really famous. People come to Jakarta to shop there because everything is way cheaper than anywhere else.
The funny thing is, there are a lot of Chinese tourists that come to shop here. Chinese people shopping, what's the funny thing about that? Well, the funny thing is that MOST OF THE THINGS SOLD THERE WERE MADE IN CHINA. They went all the way to Jakarta to buy things that were made in their country. *double facepalm*
Anyways, back to the story about me and my sister shopping. We went there to buy some decoration properties for a new year's event. There was nothing wrong until... I walked through a wide corridor filled with merchandise on the sides so there was only one path for people to go back and forth and I was walking behind a woman that walks really.... really.... re... a.... ll...y.... s.....l....o....w....
I do not like to walk slow. I always walk fast, really fast! If I had lost my mind back then, I could have choked that lady to death on the spot for walking like a snail.
Another thing that frustrated me was when I was waiting for people in front of me to move because it was really crowded and suddenly there was this guy that slipped right in front of me. I was like WHAT THE F#%&?! I swore to you that I almost pushed him to his death right there. Almost.
Traffic. Yes, the traffic in Jakarta is just the best. In the best days, you can get from the western part of Jakarta to the Central Business District in 3.5 hours! Don't you think it's lovely? And it's not even more than 50 km (I guess).
Yes it was a sarcasm.
Living in Jakarta, you get old on the road. You'll spend half your life in traffic jams. Why, oh why??!!
I can't go outside when I am bored to have a little nice walk and come back when I'm tired here because the crime rate is really high here. All I do everyday is eat and sleep. I'm getting fat.
Sometimes my mom would ask me to go to the mall, but i refuse. I don't really like to go to malls, especially with mom cuz we'll be browsing old lady's clothing and other boring stuff. Shopping is not my stuff (except shopping for computers, camera, kitchen equipments, or games).
I wanted to go out with my friends but they all live outside town (cuz my high school was outside of town). My dad still won't let me drive by myself. So, here I am everyday rotting alone in my room.
I wanna go homeeeee~ soon!!
But I can't cuz my parents won't allow me.
And I'm currently waiting for a game that I ordered online that I can't find anywhere here. Geez... everything is hard to find here!

It's done... It's over...

It's over! Exam is over! I have finished one semester!

Well, I haven't actually get the exam result yet... so I don't really know if I passed the first semester's exams or not... hopefully yes, but....

I don't even want to talk about it anymore. I messed up so many things on exam! Especially Cuisine exams...
I don't know why, but just can't get anything right for Cuisine Fundamental. The theory exam was shit! Fuck it don't care anymore! I spent the whole day before trying to put all of the information about Cuisine Fundamental in my head with no luck. I decided to do all the quizzes on moodle. They were ridiculously EASY! I got 100% in almost every week's quiz. I thought to myself: "this is bullshit! This is far too easy!!"
I decided to call it a day after doing all the quizzes cuz I know I will not get anything from staying up late trying to remember everything when I know I can't.
Andddd.... morning came.
Woke up not so early, as usual. Got up with a headache and body ache which I had been suffering for the past week. I ate breakfast, took a shower, and went to school. It was quite a beautiful day.
At school I met all of my classmates and I asked them about the super easy quizzes on moodle. They all tried it and they got 100% too. They do not look worried cuz they thought that the exam is not gonna be far away from those quizzes. I was worried.
We went to the exam room, picked a seat, and we were allowed to start. I turned the paper, turned and read all of the questions from every pages. Anndddd.... my reactions after 30 seconds reading it were: WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE?? I DIDN'T REMEMBER THIS?? WAS DOES THIS QUESTION EVEN MEAN??? FOUR QUESTIONS FOR ESSAY?! WHAT THE FUCK! I CAN'T WRITE FAST!! I DO NOT FUCKING KNOW WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT THIS!!!!!
Andddd.... the next two hours in that exam room was hell.
The multiple choice was okay. Some of the questions from the quizzes were there, they weren't very stressful. The short answer questions are not short answered AT ALL! Each one of them could be 5-6 lines long and they took ages to write. The essays were torture. I just made things up if I don't know about the questions. I hope I still get marks for trying... I hope...

The practical exam was the one that I am so scared about. I really enjoy practical, I do not mind not being allowed to talk to my friends for 4 hours and having to serve 4 dishes at the same time. What I am nervous about is that we were marked for food hygiene and safety too. And there is a person, my lecturer (who is sometimes, and especially on the exam time, IS VERY SCARY) who patrol around the room to look at our work and our food preparation practice.
All of my life, I CANNOT WORK PROPERLY IF SOMEONE IS STARING AT MY WORK FROM MY BACK!! I CAN FEEL THEIR EYES AND I WILL START SHAKING LIKE CRAZY AND I JUST CAN'T DO ANYTHING!!! FUCK MY LIFE!! THIS IS JUST WHO I AM AND THIS IS CRAZY FOR SITUATIONS LIKE THESE!!
So, you can guess how I did in the kitchen....
It was a whole mess...
And she kept staring at me with those scary eyes...
I can feel those eyes stabbing me...
I didn't do anything right...
I was late to present...
I just messed up and I don't want to know what I got for those messy dishes I created.... I just don't want to know anymore... My life is ruined because I can't fucking control myself when I am nervous.
I wanna cry.... :'(

And I still wanna cry when I think about it... I might fail... I might not... But I will definitely get very bad marks....

Well, now that everything is over, I just want to relax. I want to forget everything.
I am cleaning up my room. I am going to put all my notes for the first semester away in the storage room in my apartment. I do not want to see them anymore. I'm just hoping for the best for myself...


Fuck my life... can somebody erase my memory of the exam week, please???




p.s: sorry for all those curse words I used in this post. Cursing just made me feel better... a little...

Some Boring Post About the End of My Semester

So it has come to this, the end of my first semester at Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand. Three and a half months. It felt like three weeks to me!
It is the middle of my exam week. Just finished the first exam. Totally screwed up the case study!!! FML!!!! *still depressed about that*
That was quite a writing I did for the exam today. I have never written so many words in such a short time. Especially in English. Nope... this was the first time. There might be some grammar and spelling errors since my hand started trembling and I always missed the last letter of every word I wrote! That was ridiculously crazy!!
Anyways, where have I been the past three (or four) weeks???
Well, I was kinda busy (riiiggghhh... busyyy...). Well, I was!! I was busy moving apartments, I was busy buying things for my new apartment, I was busy finishing all my assingnments WITHOUT INTERNET, and I was busy being lazy! Okay... that last one was unecessary...
ANYWAYS!!! Likewise, all my inspiration come when I am suppose to study or finish all my assingnments. Well, here I am writing a boring post on my blog which noboy would read when I am supposed to do some ironing cuz I do not have anything left to wear.
Yes, this is a boring post.

New Identity

Hey guys!
I decided to change my blog name and address. I am not that poetic anymore and I rarely write short stories anymore. Soooo, I decided to change it to Orange Strawberriess (yes, double S) because I love orange and strawberries! *most random reason ever*
Anyways, I am too lazy to start a new blog. I've been writing this blog since junior high (though most of them are in Indonesian). Lots of memories, lots of stupid posts, lots of craziness!
So, I hope people don't get lost when trying to find my blog.

akudiatasawan.blogspot.com changed to orangestrawberriess.blogspot.com

Remember... Double S at the end. :D

Deep Fried Starfish!!!!!

Another Thursday, another beautiful day to spend in the kitchen..... not....

Okay, today was not as exciting as the classes before. We started at 11 am, 2 hours later than we usually do. Me and four other people were late. I was late because I was watching cooking videos on Youtube and I lost track of time. I don't know why others were late. One of my friend, Jay, was super late. He set his alarm clock wrong. He set it to ring at 4 pm!!
Anyways, today's class was about food hygene and cross contamination. Our ingredients were things that can go bad quickly if not handled right. We made Chicken Coleslaw, Fish Salad, and Sushi. All those things has raw ingredient in them that will go bad quickly if not handled or stored in the proper way.

The coleslaw was a good practice for julienne cuts. I did fine with the cabbage, but the carrots was not very good. My knive is a little dull. I have to sharpen it with the stone (haven't had time to do that). So, it took me quite a long time to julienne the carrot, and the cuts were not really tidy (though it got better at the end). The chiken was poached, cooled, and deep fried. I also made the mayonaise myself. And here's what my Chicken Coleslaw looked like:

deep fried starfish
Chiken Coleslaw

After I uploaded this photo to Instagram, I realised something: the chicken strips arrangement totally looks like a deep fried starfish. Look at the one at the back, it looks like Patrick Star's head!!! omg lol~

After lunch we made fish salad, Salmon Salad. I did not do well. I am always the worst with salads. I always don't know what to make, I don't know how to make a good dressing, I don't know anything about salads!!! I'm terrible!!!

The last dish we made is my favorite! SUSHI!
I don't really remember if I ever made sushi before. My mom used to make them for my lunch at school. Maybe I've seen her made one and tried to make it, but failed.
One of the reason why I was late today was because I was watching videos of how to make sushi. I wanted to make the one that looks like a cone.
Without any sushi making skill, I tried to make the cone sushi right away. Aaaaandddd the result was....

Total fail.

I spread too much rice and it looked horrible! I tried to fix it, but I made it worse. So, I decided to make a simple sushi roll filled with salmon, cream cheese, avocado, and cucumber. Cream cheese, yes! It is an odd thing to add to a sushi, but in Indonesia, there is a sushi restaurant that sells sushi with cream cheese and it taste amazing!

I already plated my sushi, but I still want to make a sushi cone. I still have some rice left, so I decided to make a mini sushi cone which ended up as a normal sized sushi cone. I was so happy that I finally made one.

Sushi!

 I'm gonna have coleslaw for dinner tonight and for tomorrow's brunch (or lunch) and dinner and maybe I'll be eating coleslaw all weekend.