A DIFFERENT SMELL

My apartment mate, when giving the old Indonesian lady downstairs some groceries, was treated to a disquisition on cucumbers. Marvelous things, cucumbers! So good for preventing high cholesterol. As the mean grouchy Dutchman -- an "orang belanda", and we all know how cruel and potentially brutal those people can be -- this is not something to which I have been subjected. I bring her fruits or vegetables occasionally, but am not someone to whom one can confide about cucumbers.
This pleases me.

Something I remembered from Valkenswaard was cucumbers with shrimp paste and mashed chilies. At the house of friends of part-Indonesian heritage. Part of a laplap platter. Laplap are raw or blanched vegetables of various sorts served with sambal, called lalab in Sunda, where it usually consists of sliced or chopped tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, long beans (katjang pandjang), with a bowl of freshly made sambal petis and sometimes a squeeze of lime juice or a serving of grilled meat with peanut sauce. Fun and refreshing.

The weather in San Francisco at times reminds me of Valkenswaard. Fog.
Foggy streets and alleyways.

The aromas are different, though. The autumn air there is more tannic.

There more leaves there. Drifts of them sometimes blocking sidewalks.
Deep and wide obstacles you have to go around.
A colder and wetter place.



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