My Dad & I… the Slowest Cooks in the World Every time my dad comes to Los Angeles for a visit, he always flies the 2-day flight from Surabaya (where I was born) to LA, by way of Japan. I’m sort of a brat, I never really appreciate how much work flying half-way across the world is. Until not too long ago, I’ve always taken for granted the fact that I really have the most supportive parents of anyone I know. Anything I, or my brother and sister, want to do, they’ll back us up. Not so much in words, our family is not big on talking, but they’re there for us in other ways, in more “practical” ways, namely financially. We never discuss money, all my life I’ve always made to believe that we’re poor, not in a we-can’t-afford-to-buy-food sort of way, but they just want to make sure I know that money don’t grow on trees. But somehow, every time I want to do something, like say, go to college, they always have the means to help me.   As a kid I never gave these things a second thought, I felt like it was my right to be taken care of by my parents. Sometimes I even felt like they don’t support me enough, especially because for most of my life, I was apart from them. I moved to Los Angeles when I was 12 while my parents stayed back home, and that’s how we’ve been living since. Sometimes I felt like they’re not there for me, the way other kids’ parents are. But I’m realizing now that even though they weren’t here in person to take care of me, they were taking care of me in other ways. So here I am, 12 years after I moved away from my parents. And my dad still brings me goodies from home when he comes to visit me. Not only that, when he was here last month, on his last night here, we cooked a meal together.  On his first day of visit, on the drive back to my house from the airport he was telling me about this fried snack that’s really popular right now back in Indo, it’s called Resoles Mayo. The way he described it to me was, they take hard boiled eggs, and they mash up the yolk with some mayo and mustard and seasonings, and then dice up the egg whites, along with some ham and carrots, then they add cheese, and mix it all together. Then they put the filling in a lumpia (Indonesian egg roll) wrapper (it’s thin and round like a crepe, but not sweet). You roll it up and deep fry it. “Enak!” he said, “delicious” in Indonesian. My dad is a picky eater, he only likes Indonesian and Chinese food, so for him to say he likes something, that must mean it’s really good. He really wanted me to know what he was talking about, so we spent his last night in LA dicing, slicing, frying, for 5 hours, to make resoles mayo.  He never made it before, only ordered it from restaurants, so he could only guess what really goes into this resoles. But we just made it up as we go along. We never really measured anything, we eye balled and played it by ear. And 5 hours later, after we took turns frying the little bundles of resoles, we were finally done and ready to eat. I thought it came out really good, considering we didn’t follow any recipe, and we made the wrappers from scratch! Though, I wouldn’t care if it tasted good or not, I’m so grateful to have a dad who wants to spend 5 hours in the kitchen trying to figure out a recipe with me, just so I can have a taste of something he likes. I know, I’m something special, well to him at least.  ——————————— » Get the Recipe: Indonesian Deviled Egg Rolls (Resoles Mayo)

My Dad & I… the Slowest Cooks in the World

Every time my dad comes to Los Angeles for a visit, he always flies the 2-day flight from Surabaya (where I was born) to LA, by way of Japan.

I’m sort of a brat, I never really appreciate how much work flying half-way across the world is. Until not too long ago, I’ve always taken for granted the fact that I really have the most supportive parents of anyone I know. Anything I, or my brother and sister, want to do, they’ll back us up. Not so much in words, our family is not big on talking, but they’re there for us in other ways, in more “practical” ways, namely financially. We never discuss money, all my life I’ve always made to believe that we’re poor, not in a we-can’t-afford-to-buy-food sort of way, but they just want to make sure I know that money don’t grow on trees. But somehow, every time I want to do something, like say, go to college, they always have the means to help me.  

As a kid I never gave these things a second thought, I felt like it was my right to be taken care of by my parents. Sometimes I even felt like they don’t support me enough, especially because for most of my life, I was apart from them. I moved to Los Angeles when I was 12 while my parents stayed back home, and that’s how we’ve been living since. Sometimes I felt like they’re not there for me, the way other kids’ parents are. But I’m realizing now that even though they weren’t here in person to take care of me, they were taking care of me in other ways.

So here I am, 12 years after I moved away from my parents. And my dad still brings me goodies from home when he comes to visit me. Not only that, when he was here last month, on his last night here, we cooked a meal together. 

On his first day of visit, on the drive back to my house from the airport he was telling me about this fried snack that’s really popular right now back in Indo, it’s called Resoles Mayo. The way he described it to me was, they take hard boiled eggs, and they mash up the yolk with some mayo and mustard and seasonings, and then dice up the egg whites, along with some ham and carrots, then they add cheese, and mix it all together. Then they put the filling in a lumpia (Indonesian egg roll) wrapper (it’s thin and round like a crepe, but not sweet). You roll it up and deep fry it. “Enak!” he said, “delicious” in Indonesian.

My dad is a picky eater, he only likes Indonesian and Chinese food, so for him to say he likes something, that must mean it’s really good. He really wanted me to know what he was talking about, so we spent his last night in LA dicing, slicing, frying, for 5 hours, to make resoles mayo. 

He never made it before, only ordered it from restaurants, so he could only guess what really goes into this resoles. But we just made it up as we go along. We never really measured anything, we eye balled and played it by ear. And 5 hours later, after we took turns frying the little bundles of resoles, we were finally done and ready to eat. I thought it came out really good, considering we didn’t follow any recipe, and we made the wrappers from scratch!

Though, I wouldn’t care if it tasted good or not, I’m so grateful to have a dad who wants to spend 5 hours in the kitchen trying to figure out a recipe with me, just so I can have a taste of something he likes. I know, I’m something special, well to him at least. 

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» Get the Recipe: Indonesian Deviled Egg Rolls (Resoles Mayo)