100 days of student meal

Who will be the next generation of farmers?

PS: my laptop crashed. I don’t know what went wrong. I am transferring my files to a safer place, and I found an old publication. To break the silence of this blog, and to celebrate weekend (ha! gotta be kidding), I upload this piece here. It’s chapter 6 of this book:

Nelles, Wayne, Annop Kunavongkrit, and Surichai Wun’gaeo Eds. (2014) ASEAN Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture in a Green…

WUR and the Great Ape

Blogger Nadya Karimasari read the history report in Resource magazine on the reputation gained by WUR scientists in Indonesia during the colonial era. There is also the lesser-known historical role of Wageningen in the establishment of conservation projects in Indonesia. Little did people know that scientists of our very own Wageningen were crucial figures in the establishment of conservation…

A Christian village in Aceh

An elderly woman was screaming on the street. She ran, stopped, and screamed again. She preached in local language that I didn’t comprehend. “She’s drunk,” said my ‘brother’, “watch it while it last.” I didn’t quite understand the expression on his face. He was having a slight smile. As if it was completely normal at any given day to watch an elderly woman got drunk on the street. I was reluctant…

Away from the ivory tower

‘You will only know about your research once you’re in the field.’ ‘We can only know very little before we’ve actually been there.’ ‘You can never be really prepared for your fieldwork.’ ‘Be prepared to be surprised.’ These were words of wisdom that I’ve heard from experienced anthropologists in my department whom I look up to a lot. Sounds daunting for a novice researcher like me, but here lies…

Hari ini aku diajak belanja sama mama. Ngga terasa, ngga sampe 2 minggu lagi aku sudah pergi dari Indonesia 😥 Rasanya campur aduk banget, meski aku berusaha biasa aja. Aku pengen bawa adik bungsuku ke sana, jadiin dia gantungan kunci, tapi dia ga mau. Barang-barang yang ga usah dibeli: Sarung tangan, karena mamaku udah beliin sarung tangan imut garis-garis gradasi ungu hitam. Plus, aku sendiri…

Aku punya rahasia kecil yang belum pernah kuceritakan pada siapapun sampai detik ini. Rahasia ini tentang satu cerpen paling berkesan yang pernah aku baca semasa anak-anak. Aku tak ingat detailnya. Yang jelas, ada seorang anak yang dimusuhi seantero sekolah. Si “aku” mengikuti ke rumah anak itu, ingin memberi pelajaran. Ternyata … anak itu tinggal di dekat rel. Si “aku” membandingkan perbedaan di…

Many new international students say Dutch food is tasteless, cold, with super quick preparation time. Blogger Nadya Karimasari reminisces of her last Dutch dinner with her landlords, which confirmed that not all Dutch dishes are the same. The Dutch might be good at cycling, but cooking is not their forte. Most of my international friends would confess that they are not a big fan of Dutch food.…

The Annual Introduction Days start this week. Blogger Nadya welcomes the new students to the best university of the Netherlands. I have been doing some thorough cleaning in my lovely attic studio to welcome new master’s students, who are going to crash this week for the AID on 18-23 August 2017. During the AID they’ll probably cycle around Wageningen and its surroundings to get a proper…

Things to remind blogger Nadya Karimasari and other PhD candidates to be aware of unplanned research expenses lurking behind every moment of carelessness. Unbelievable! When I was about to take a picture of my beautiful and fast-growing garden to show to my husband and son back home, the camera shutter failed to click. What’s wrong? Apparently there’s no battery inside my camera. How come? I…

Should I blog-move? (I mean, making a new blog or moving to a new address). I am a bit hesitant to continue blogging and uploading post here in wordpress.com because mine is almost full (97%). It shouldn’t be so surprising. I have been blogging here since the very first time wordpress.com was available for free, more than a decade ago. Of course, eventually it will be full. Hfffttt, I’m supposed…

Blogger Nadya Karimasari has just come back to the Netherlands after some intense physical and mental travel. It’s good to be back in the Netherlands. My landlords are still as lovely, my 125-year-old home is still as charming and cosy, the cat is still fat, the sheep are still smelly, the birds are still chirping cheerfully and the rooster is still crowing. The plants in my small patch of garden…

Good morning!

It’s nice to be back. I was in Toronto for two weeks, (transit) for a week in Holland, and then I went to my hometown in Indonesia for my brother’s wedding. I’ve also spent a day transit at Dubai airport on my way to Indonesia. 

I really enjoyed my trip, but I am also very glad to be back to my attic studio in the idyllic Dutch countryside. I arrived two days ago. Yesterday I went to the Saturday open market and bought octopus. I made a very spicy octopus curry and grilled veggies. No pics because I left my camera’s battery in Indonesia.

It was the first time I tried habanero, because the regular chili was not available. I pride myself as the chili girl because chili is my staple food, but habanero was at a completely different level. Have I told you that my curry was very spicy? It’s the habanero, and I’ve only put 4 of it into my homemade curry paste. Normally i would put at least 10 regular chili for the paste.

When I ate my octopus curry, my head was steaming and sweat started to drip drop by drop to my neck. Another type of “liquid” also came out of my nose (I don’t know what it’s called in English). I almost cried but I just tried to eat as speediest as I could, put rice on my tongue to reduce the super spicy sensation (but unluckily I’ve spread a generous amount of the curry sauce on my rice - I was over-confident that I could handle the spiciness). After the speediest eating time of my life I immediately drank water and ate banana. It really helped.

Is chili eater a masochist? The hotness of habanero was an unforgiving sting, but it felt really good. It made me feel alive and brought me back to my senses. I must say that I quite enjoyed the slight pain of my tongue. But of course I could only say this after the spicy sensation was over. A bit of cockiness on my side, as if I’ve conquered something and came out as a heroic winner.