Bali Cooking Class

On our last day in Bali, Drew and I started the day by getting a $10 massage in our bungalow. As there was only one massage lady, we went one at a time. While one person was getting a massage, the other was out cuddling with Little Lisa or reading a book. What a nice and relaxing way to finish our vacation. After our massages, we went on a walk with Agust, the eldest of Wayan's two sons. He took us through the rice paddy maze, then through side streets down to the river that separates his village's hillside from the town of Ubud. At one point there was a bridge that crossed the river, but it was on a Westerner's property, and he didn't like everyone trooping through his backyard, so he dismantled the bridge. What was once a 15 min walk into the main town is now a 30min drive by scooter.

We saw a gang of local boys playing in the river, totally buck naked. Not a care in the world. We also saw a gaggle of river rafters going down the river, having to avoid the naked boys. One raft was full of Asians, and they were the worst paddlers I have ever seen. Most likely they couldn't understand the instructions being given to them, so they were going all over the place; no one was in sync. Funny to watch though.

After our walk, we went back to the house and had a cooking class from Ayu. She told us about all of the ingredients she uses to make the two most popular dishes in Bali, nasi goreng which is fried rice (you can also have mei goreng which is fried noodles) and lilith satay. Below are the ingredients for lilith satay. Basically it's a bunch of spices ground up with meat, then squished into a ball around a bamboo skewer. Imagine a savory chicken meatball on a stick then grilled. Delicious!

Here we are putting the chicken meat on the skewers. 

Grilling the satay over a fire fueled by the brown husks of coconuts. 

Us making the nasi goreng in a giant wok. It was amazing the quality of meals this lady could make from such a simple kitchen. Puts people with gourmet kitchens who don't use them to shame. As you can see, there is actually alot of veggies in nasi goreng, and we used coconut oil to fry everything. 

For dessert, we had crepes dyed green from a plant extract Ayu has in her garden. Inside the crepe was a mix of grated coconut (which I am doing in the pic below) mixed with palm sugar. Palm sugar basically looks like syrup, and it's incredibly sweet. 

A lot of times for breakfast, Ayu would make us these banana pancakes. Green again from the same plant extract, bananas that grow around the house, and covered in palm sugar. Too good to be true. 

The table below is the final result of our labor. Not too shabby! But, Ayu helped us the whole way. 

Below is a pic of us with Wayan's family. We will be back one day! 

There is lane very near to Wayan's house that we drove on several times. It was the exact lane used by Julia Roberts in the movie Eat, Pray, Love. And it looked just like that!

We discovered a fruit in Bali I've never seen or heard of before, the jack fruit. It looks like a durian, but it's even bigger, the spikes on the outside aren't as large, and it doesn't smell as bad!

A lot of people use scooters not only for personal transportation in Bali, but also for transportation of goods. They were essentially small trucks. Granted, this lady was selling stuff directly off of her scooter, but you get the idea. Must take incredible balance! In flip flops no less!

All of Wayan's family dogs! Two kind of poofy ones, smaller than Zoey, and Little Lisa who was playing with the older dog's tail.

 Overall, we had a great time in Bali. I would suggest to anyone who goes there to get outside of the main towns of Kuta, Depensar, and Semiyak to really see the real Bali. Canggu and Wayan's house outside of Ubud were both good choices for us. Pedang Bai was also a nice small town on the beach.