Wine & Tapas Fair: the preparation

For the senior students of the Suriname College of Hospitality and Tourism, it is a hectic period till the end of July. All of them are organizing the very first 'Wine & Tapas Fair' in Suriname for their final project. Of course, the juniors will be a big help in this whole organization.

As a senior student myself, I am assigned to be the Head of the Food&Beverage 'department'. Personally, I love this idea. Yeah,,,who's the genius who came up with this idea ^_~.
We have come a long way with this project. With lots of changes, difficulties to overcome and organizational obstacles, I can say that the event is finally on the right track.

The location is Residence Inn Paramaribo, a hotel renowned for its lush green ambiance and accessibility. The advantages of this location are endless. Not only is it conveniently situated, but when you see the hotel, it is as if you're back in time. The hotel itself has a plantation charm with lots of trees and green. It kinda gave me a feel as if I was back at Royal Plantation in Jamaica. As many colonial style buildings in Suriname, this building must have a rich history. Unfortunately I can't tell you much about.

The photoshoot for the tv commercial had been conducted yesterday and it was fun!! We had a great photo crew and everyone was really giving their utmost to make great pictures. And Tasha made some very appealing tapas. My favorite was the one with spicy fish. And for those of you, who know me a little better, I'm not that fond of fish. But you can always give me 'Iwa Malam' ( spicy smoked fish). More on the photoshoot in my very next blog!

Prelaunch X II: Money in tha bank!!

This morning I checked my Prelaunch X page and this is what I saw:




I started with Prelaunch X on June 20th and within 5 days, my account grew from $100,-, which I got for registering to $1,240,-. It's amazing how fast this thing grows. Only 5 days and I made more than $1000,-?

I can't wait for the launch date on August, 27 to actually see how much I can cash out.
For those of you, who have not check it out yet; this is the site:

http://prelaunchx.com/x/amys

Prelaunch X

Lately I've got an invitation for a to be launched ForEx (Foreign Exchange) site.

They have really done it in such a way that it became a MLM (if you don't know the term,
check my other blog:Pyramid Network). Everyone who becomes a member get his/her own
prelaunch-page.With this page, you should try to motivate others to sign up, so that it becomes
one big network. And for everyone you invited for registration, the invitee gets $100,- and
you get $100,-. Pretty cool huh!

I'm a realist and believe that 'whenever something seems too good to be true, it mostly it'. But on
the other hand, I thought, what's the downside of just registering? I mean, it's not that I have to
pay for anything or that I have to do anything and I got this from an IT-expert,
so it should be legit right?

So I registered and I've read a little about what it's all about and in the site is stated that you get the 1st
$100,- from the launch site itself. You can get commission from everyone you get to register with you and
after the launchdate, you can withdraw that money if you want or use it as investment money in ForEx.

To read more and/or register, please check:
http://prelaunchx.com/x/amys

For the Busy Bee or Lazy Cat

This morning I was talking with a friend about how he only cooks 2-3 times a year. That's awesome if you have that luxury to dine out every day, every meal. For me, I don't cook my every meal either. But since we're trying to cut costs, I'm trying to cook at least every weekend. That is of course not always fun. Especially when you have such a lazy sunday where you'd just like to chillax in front of the TV with an ice cold drink.

For such moments, I mostly check what's in the fridge and make something very easy with the ingredients I can find. But I have to admit,  I make sure there's always eggs and chicken franks in my house, because you can go various ways with it. It's my hungry emergency outcome #1.

Last sunday I made an egg casserole. The advantage of an egg casserole is that it needs very little time to prepare it and the oven does the rest. And if you can't finish it the same day, you can have it for breakfast, lunch or dinner the next day. For fitness go-ers, there's even an extra advantage of getting the proteins in without using any supplements. There are many other great recipes outthere, but for me, I just work with what I can find in my fridge. So this is the recipe:

Ingredients
6 eggs
4 chicken franks ( you can always substitute or add bacon. Who doesn't looove bacon)
a pinch salt
a pinch black pepper
1-2 fresh peppers ( not bell peppers for the spicy lovers)
a pinch parsley
a cup grated cheese ( any kind of cheese)

Preparation
Beat all the eggs. Cut the chicken franks and peppers and add it to the egg mixture in an 8" round pan. Add salt, black pepper and parsley to taste. Spread the grated cheese on top of the mixture.

For some of you who still have stale (still edible) bread at home, remove the crust and cut it in cubes and put it in the mixture before adding the cheese.

Put it in the oven at 180C for 15-20 min until all the cheese is melted and the casserole is golden brown.

That's all it takes for a meal that can be used as breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Bon Apetite!!

Culture 2: The Indonesian Cuisine pt. 1

The Indonesian cuisine has so many specialties that I think I will need to separate the food and the snacks. In other countries, clubbers will go to a 24h fast food chain to grab a bite after partying, here in Suriname, we only have 3 choices: Shell On the Run, Golden Wings and .........last but not least, the Javanese Warungs. They have become such a common eatery and everybody knows exactly where they should go for a hot, spicy saoto soup.

In Suriname, we have a street, mostly known as 'Blauwgrond', where you have about a dozen of warungs to choose from. Everyone has their own favorite warung and mostly people won't change their choice until something went really wrong. The eateries are very simple. Mostly it's in front of their house, where they have created like a big wooden patio with simple handmade benches and tables. As a hospitality student, I can see how low their operation costs are and how much profit they can make everyday.

When you go to the warung, please don't expect exceptional service. They are doing their best to serve you the correct way, but they have not been trained to do it the right way. So if you don't get a smile from the lady, who's taking your order, just try to understand. My personal favorites are Warung Renah and Warung Ursi.

And now finally, the delicious meals you really should try out some time:

Saoto: this is a kind of a chicken soup filled with beansprouts, baked potato and sliced chicken. Additionally you can add an egg to it. On the side,  you can choose rice, pepper and ketjap sambel.

Personally I make this at home, because it's just so much cheaper to do that. But I think the reason is also that I can buy all the ingredients nearby. This is my recipe:

1.5 L water
2 Chicken Legs
5-6 Lontai (Pimento)
3 Salamblad ( Indonesian Bay Leaf)
1 pc Laos ( Indonesian ginger)
2 Maggie cubes
2 Pepper ( Madame Jeannette preferably)
black pepper

Put all the ingredients in a pot and let it cook for 90 minutes.
When the chicken leg is already in the pot for nearly an hour, take it out and you can choose to fry it first or to cut it in slices in this state.

Additional ingredients:
Baked potato - Here we buy it in the store, but if you don't have the choice than to make it yourself, here's how you do it: Grate about 4 mediumsized potatoes into small strings. Put a deep pan with oil, let it reach a level where you can hardly hold your hand above it (at a safe distance) and put in the potato strings to fry. When it turns golden brown, take it out and put it in a bowl covered with kitchen paper.

Egg - I am an egglover, so whenever I eat Saoto soup I definitely will take it with an egg. Just any hardboiled egg.

Ketjap Sambel - this is also readily available in stores for me. Yeah, I know....we're blessed in this country. But for those of you who would like to make it yourself, I have these sites:

english: http://dutchfood.about.com/od/mainmeals/r/BabiKetjap.htm
dutch: http://www.mijnreceptenboek.nl/recept/sambals/ketjap-sambal-13777.html

For spicy lovers: put several peppers in a chopper, chop until mushy and add salt to taste.

Wow, this became a long blog. Uhm....I think it will take more than 2 parts to finish the Indonesian Cuisine after all.

Deception or Perception?

Lately I have been doing some research on wholesale websites and I have to say it is very upsetting and confusing. I get a list of all those interesting sites with those appealing pictures with clothes that look sooo cute and for really low prices. But then I got a cold shower when I googled for reviews on that particular site and read words like 'SCAM' or ' AWFUL SERVICE'. And you know what the most confusing part is? Every reviewsite has a customer who had an awful experience at one of those sites and recommend you to one that they believe is better. According to that, I check that recommended site out and end up with the same negative results.


Then I thought about the whole idea for a long time. I came to the conclusion that the so-called better sites are not that much better. Maybe the main difference is their customer service. How often haven't you ordered something from a book or online and it end up looking totally different. Some while ago I even ordered from forever21, a site that is supposed to sell quality products, and my sweater sleeve was not stitched correctly and a product came out not that cute as I thought it would. So, should I send them a complaint letter about how bad their stuff is? What will I gain from it? I live in Suriname. It's just not that cheap or easy to send the products back as it would've if I'm from the USA. It would be cheaper for me to use a needle and some thread to sow it back as it should've been done in the first place.


Even with this experience, I don't think forever21 is a bad site. I mean, it can happen. Should that experience scare me off from buying from them? No.....because even when you buy stuff yourself in stores, it might end up a bad bargain.


Of course, we all hope to get the cute dress as it's posted on the site, but reality shows that it's just never that cute or doesn't need to look as sexy on you as on the model. And for those who would think I'm paid by any site, I'm not. I'm just being realistic.


Making a purchase based on a book or a picture has its risks, but that's with everything in life. So, I took that risk and I'm crossing my fingers that everything will come as expected.

Culture 1: The Indian Cuisine

One of the main benefits of living in a multi-cultural country is that you learn each other's cultures, which of course includes food. Growing up in a quite traditional chinese family, I've been taught that I am supposed to prefer Chinese cuisine above all others. Unfortunately for my parents, I have always been a strong character and chose my own ways especially when it comes to food.

Today I am going to blog about the very first ethnic cuisine I learned about in Suriname: ROTI. I still remember how it happened. It was within a year when we arrived in Suriname that we had to move to a new neighbourhood. On that very first day, our Indian neighbours brought a newcomer's gift for us. My parents accepted as a nice gesture of course, but after that, traditionally as they were, looked at it and surprisingly tasted it, but they didn't like it back then. And I think, my neighbours were not such good cooks either. The only thing I remembered from that scene was that the food smelled really strong and it smelled like nothing that I knew of back then.

Now, more than 20 years later, the roti is an indispensible food choice in Suriname. As easy as you can grab a burger at Mac Donald's or Burger King, so easy is it for us to grab a roti at Roopram or Chris. Without a doubt, if you talk about Indian cuisine, you can't leave out their snacks. Some of my favorite snacks are:

Bara : It is like a very soft and savoury doughnut. The dough is made with spices like Oerdi, Cumin and Curry. I like this best with potato chutney. Chutney is a kind of pepper sauce mostly made with fruits.
 
Jalebi : It is like a very crispy pretzel, filled with lots of syrup. This is one of those snacks you can't stop eating. Every time you want to stop and there is still some left, you'll continue till it's finished.

Last but not least, the samosa. This is the definition wikipedia gave me: "A Samosa is a fried or baked pastry with a savory filling such as spiced potatoes, onions, peas, lentils, ground lamb or chicken." and I think that's the best explanation I can give of a samosa.

However I do cook Indian food, but all recipes are taken from the net. So for those of you who would like to try out some of these snacks, I chose these websites:

For these Indian recipes in dutch:
http://www.sranangkukru.net/skphp/start.php?menu=recepten&categorie=hartig&naam_recept=Samosa&id=247
For these Indian recipes in english:
http://apickyeatersquest.blogspot.com/2010/05/bara-surinamese-savoury-doughnuts.html
http://indianfood.about.com/od/specialoccassionrecipes/r/jalebi.htm
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/samosas/detail.aspx

 

Sandals Royal Plantation

Two years ago I did my international internship at Royal Plantation (now Sandals Royal Plantation). The placement put my colleague student Tasha and I at this resort. I still remember our first impression. After a 9 hour flight and 2 hour busdrive, we finally arrived at the resort. The first thing that got my attention was how romantic it looks. Lots of green, peacock statue, roman pillars. I was sold! We got welcomed by O'Brian and he must really thought that we acted strange when he asked " What can I bring for you ladies to drink? Juice, wine or champagne?" I think our looks must have been one that said "uhm, excuse me, you are offering me champagne? Is that normal?". For me, champagne is popped when you have a celebration, not as a welcoming drink. As funny as it sounds, we were in love with their restroom. It looked all glamorous with the gold color framed mirrors, nice fixtures and even a basket with rolled-up linen napkins to dry your hands. I felt like a royalty. At the end I still used paper napkins though, because I didn't want to dirty up a linen napkin.

We were brought to our suite and it had an amazing view on the beach. One surprise after another, someone knocked on our door. Jason, the guy in front of the door introduced himself as our personal butler. We even got a butlerphone to call him in case we need anything. He even told us that he already made reservations for us at the restaurant. Since we heard about our appointed ressort at the airport before departure, we never could've guessed that we would be put in such a highclass ressort and we didn't packed accordingly. We dressed in our best clothes we could find and went to the restaurant. It had such a romantic ambiance that I even thought it was a pity I was not with my boyfriend instead. Another funny thing was when we got the menu. We looked at the prices and were wondering if we need to pay for it. Since we're interns and haven't received anything about our rights and obligations, it was a big question mark what will happen. So we both really only ordered a main course and after some suggestive selling of the waiter, we chose to share a dessert. The waiter must have thought that we were on a diet or so. The first day felt like a dream, especially since we didn't expect such generosity and hospitality as interns.

My internship was awesome!!  I had the privilege of a guest, but also the at-work benefits as a staff. The 3 months flew by so fast. We were brought to several places to see Ochi ( that's how locals call Ocho Rios) and have a feel of the daily life of the locals. The guys reminded me again of what it is to be treated as a lady. I got the opportunity to learn how to play golf and enjoy their famous jerk chicken at Scotchies. In these 3 months, I even grew an interest in pastry making, all the 'fault' of Mr. Smith and Ms. Keneisha.

It was a wonderful time for me and a time I will never forget. My gratitude for some of the staff members in RP can't simply be expressed in  words. They made my internship a memorable one.