A NIGHT FOR DUTCH SOUL FOOD

Seeing as it's Armistice Day, we left work relatively early, and I got home sooner than normal. The smell of wildfires, strong in Marin, was only slightly less so in San Francisco. It was still pervasive and omni-present.
Which reminded me of my uncle Jan's youth in Java.
Cooking fires long after darkness fell.

His Tempo Doeloe, not mine.

Perhaps I need to point out that uncle Jan was the father of a classmate. We lived in the Netherlands for a while, but I was born in the United States, and family on both sides have been here for centuries. We sold bad ale to Director General Peter Stuyvesant. So none of my actual bloodkin were in the Indies. But an East India sepia-tint suffused our cultural environment, because of our neighbors, my father's colleagues, and my classmates.
Very many had a connection to that time and that place.
Dutch, English, Malay were common tongues.
Often in semi-perfect amity.


German and French too, but without any amity.


FRIED NOODLES

So naturally I decided to have bami goreng for dinner. A handful of wheat noodles barely cooked, then drained. A small shallot, sliced. Scallion, ditto. Slivered ginger. Fresh green chili. Some chunked chicken meat marinating in beaten eggwhite, cornflour, and a drop of sherry, like the Cantonese would do. Blanched and coarsely sliced gaai lan. Plus an egg.
Small dollop of oyster sauce.
Half a cup hot water.
Sambal oelek.
Oil.

And a rather large wok.

Fry the shallot, add the scallion, ginger, and chili. Decant when well cooked, fragrant, darkened. Turn up the flame. Noodles into the pan, stir around a bit till starting to crust, then push to the side. Drain the chicken and toss it into the open area to frazzle briefly, add everything except the egg.
Stirfry with a lot of noise.

Scoop onto a plate. Beat, fry, and break up the egg, dump it on top.

If you have some perkedel on the side, so much the better.


One reason to cook assertive food like this is that it disguises the smell of the cheroot I am smoking, and another good reason is that when there is chili in the process, my apartment mate will stay out of the kitchen.
Where, as I mentioned, I am smoking a cheroot.

She is a fervent non-smoker.

Years ago I was making a big batch of sambal tjabe bakar, the fumes of which sent her coughing and spluttering into the living room, and she didn't venture into the kitchen again for at least a good two or three hours.
Frying chili makes everything magical.


The entire apartment now has that wonderful boemboe smell.


First some coffee, then a stroll with pipe and tobacco.


Whisky and a small dog at my destination.




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