Two days ago, I baked oatmeal cookies on our little beloved toaster oven. I modified the recipe by adding more butter (about 50gr. more) and add one more teaspoon of cinnamon. Plus I add about 2tbs of honey. The result was fantastic. My mother is very fond of it. Even my brother who is threatened by his imaginary diabetes loves it. My little sister on the other hand, found it too soft. So next time I should lessen the oatmeal.

The thing about my house is, nobody knows how to bake. My mother is an excellent cook. But she doesn't know how to turn on the oven. My brother likes to eat. He's a great food critic. My little sister is aspiring to be a professional chef. Yes we need to start saving for her Le Cordon Bleu diploma! But only my grandmother knew how to bake.

She used to come to our house when she was alive. She would bake spekkoek and soes because our family loves those two dishes so much! She would bake away all our birthday cakes. And she fed her 13 children by baking cakes! My grandfather passed away when my mother was 6 yo. So my grandmother raised all her children by her self. My grandmother was a woman with an iron fist. Which I think from whom my mother inherited hers.

Yet my grandmother was a woman of manners and traditions. She didn't remarry. She was loyal to her husband to her very end. She would show us our grandfather's picture although it had been 30 years after his death. When she was little, my grandmother wore kebaya nyonya and learned to cook in the kitchen, with my greatgrandmother. My greatgrandmother, according to my mother, smoked pipe in her kebaya. Both my greatgrandmother and grandmother knit their own babies' socks and hold their babies in batik. My greatgrandmother, grandmother and mother drink jamu for their health. Bedong their babies foot and use gurita with spices to wrap their stomach after they give birth.

Spices. It is from them my mother learned about spices. She knew how these spices taste exactly. My mother is not fond of sushi or steak. She likes Indonesian food. She likes the taste of cinnamon and ketumbar (not sure what is the english word). As far as I know, no food in the world taste like Indonesian food.

So when I heard my brother said he hates Jakarta, and planning to be a German citizen, I can't help myself to feel pity. My maternal family practices peranakan tradition for a long time. I pity if they were to die in my generation. But how can I preserve my own tradition when I'm away from home? If only I can get a hold of my grandmother's recipe book. But the book fell to my wicked aunt (my mother's sister in law). She would grip to the book even if that's my dying wish.

Yes I'm proud being an Indonesian. I call this land home. Yet my country treats me as a second class citizen. Worse, they even hate our existence. My country thinks my tradition is foreign. You see, we make our sambal with stone grinder, with our two hands. I use jamu to mask my hair. Are we not Indonesian enough? ...