The Birdwoman's Palate Read online

  Not surprisingly, everyone around the table began whispering. A lot of us didn’t know what a Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica was. The official flower of Denmark? A type of flower having something to do with the gorgeous race car driver Danica Patrick?

  Addressing us as if we’d come from another planet, the woman went on to explain that it was tableware, the best and most prestigious porcelain tableware in the world—much higher in quality and much more expensive than mere Wedgwood. By this time the general incredulity had given way to plain disgust. I was especially irritated at her husband’s dismissal of Indonesian cuisine. “Not elegant enough!” What gave him, Mr. Snooty Englishman, any right to pooh-pooh the cuisine of an entire archipelago?

  The woman sighed. “The main problem probably lies with our cook. The food tastes fine, but its presentation is really just—how do I say this?—not beautiful enough. Or interesting enough. What’s the point of having exquisite dishes if the food itself looks so . . . uninspiring.”

  A cough was heard from the across the table.

  “But nowadays,” a respectful voice ventured, “most Westerners know how to handle spicy food. Some even prefer it that way.”

  “I know. But that’s not really my point.” Now the woman looked a bit embarrassed. She knew she had made a faux pas and would now be forced to cover it up somehow.

  Suddenly, from across the table, Bono’s voice boomed, rich and confident. “Here’s my take, for what it’s worth. Buy your favorite pickled vegetable dish from whatever place you deem best. And if possible, buy a variety that uses clear spicy sauce, not peanut sauce. Peanut sauce is stunning if you know how to make it and can guarantee it’ll be a hit. But in most cases it’s just messy. Arrange the pickles on a round platter with a single slice of freshwater scampi or lobster, grilled flaming red. Do the same with rendang: buy the beef curry from your favorite Padang-style restaurant, and don’t buy one that’s too spicy. To hell with charges of authenticity. You can’t expect Western palates to appreciate a flavor fully if the first impression is of overwhelming heat. Anyway. Serve it on an elegant platter, sprinkled with slivers of fried onions, and top it all off with a single enormous red chili, sliced lengthwise.

  “Then find a good lamb curry and decorate it with coriander leaves. Buy some skewers of sweet Balinese-style Sate Bali, or perhaps Sate Buntel—the main thing, as with the pickled vegetables, is to avoid drenching them in thick peanut sauce and kecap. Prepare pickles, fried onions, shrimp-paste sambal, mango sambal, and sweet sambal in beautiful little bowls. Last, but not least, don’t forget to fry up some fresh prawn crackers and melinjo crisps and serve them in one of those quaint oversized glass jars.”

  The boss’s wife fell silent. And there he was, Bono, my Bono, looking around proudly, such a performer, such a beautiful show-off, as if the other guests were showering him with wild applause.

  Later, when he went out for a smoke, I followed him.

  “Well, so much for your job,” I said. Like Bono, I never saw the point of making small talk. Certainly not with him.

  “I don’t really like working in this industry anyway,” he said airily. “In August, I’m heading back to the States to study again.”

  “You are a true chef, aren’t you?”

  “And you,” he said. “You’re welcome to correct me if I’m wrong. But you’re not really an outbreak expert. You’re a person who finds joy in doing whatever, as long as it involves food.”

  Four years later, when he returned from New York, he wasn’t the same person—the guy with the thick glasses and a middle name that people loved to make fun of because they couldn’t help it. He’d become more than Johannes Bonafide Natalegawa; he was a brand. Like Rihanna. Like Shakira. And like them, he knew how to market himself, and at the right moment, too. Within a few months of his arrival in Jakarta, he built up his reputation as a personal chef. At the time, Jakarta high society had wearied of dining out. Restaurant standards were becoming more inconsistent. “Fine dining” was less “fine” by the day. The traffic was getting worse. Increasingly, people longed for privacy, and also exclusivity—dining experiences beyond the spending capacity of the hoi polloi.

  Bono met their needs.

  After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, he worked at two famous kitchens in New York. That was in 2010. As with all the other ambitious young kids who dreamed of becoming chefs, he knew that tossing salad in a world-class restaurant would help his career far more than learning how to make lobster thermidor in a middling establishment.

  Getting work at a prestigious restaurant certainly didn’t mean financial success; a lot of kids took up positions as stagiaire—unpaid apprentices. But competition was fierce, and Bono was all too aware he was one of the lucky ones, even though it meant pushing himself to work harder and longer so that he could catch the attention of whatever god ruled the kitchen of whatever restaurant he worked in. The chance to meet those deities in person—Daniel Boulud, Dan Barber, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, David Chang—wasn’t something that just fell into your lap.

  The first kitchen Bono worked in operated according to a system very different from the traditional French brigade de cuisine. He didn’t have the opportunity to rotate through different stations and tasks. The emphasis was on specialization. All the kitchen staff had to hone their skills in specific areas: plucking poultry, whipping up sauces, and shaping fluffy white steamed buns until they were blue in the face, until they were considered masters of their craft. Bono’s fate was to be the master of slicing onions and peeling potatoes. And he worked at it around the clock, like a man possessed.

  But he was diligent and he was patient, and the opportunity to speak face-to-face with David fucking Chang himself finally came, after he’d spent five months and six days working himself to the bone at Momofuku Ssäm Bar.

  Their interaction was brief. But on the strength of those few words, Bono’s heart blossomed, just so, like the heart of an artichoke.

  After two years working for David Chang at Momofuku and Andrew Carmellini at Locanda Verde, followed by six months at Jason Atherton’s Pollen Street Social in London—peeling vegetables, frying eggs, sautéing carrots, grilling steak, perfecting the art of browning butter—only then did Bono feel that it was time to return to the motherland.

  Why return? Three reasons, he said. First, the competition in New York and London was too steep. Second, if you wanted to survive as a chef in a city like New York or London, you basically had to reconcile yourself to a life of slavery, of abuse, at the hands of a godlike maha-chef for at least two years—the minimum amount of time required to improve your abilities, train your palate, deepen your knowledge, heighten your perception. Bono was willing. He was willing all right. But he was also young and hungry, and he didn’t want to waste any more time. Third, and perhaps most compelling, it would be much easier to become a culinary superstar in Jakarta.

  Furthermore, his years in New York and London had done much for him.

  He could converse with ease about the latest trends, from molecular gastronomy and new experiments in winemaking to the philosophies behind the raw- and slow-food movements. He knew how to play up his international credentials while simultaneously reminding his audience about his local roots. He knew when to mention his experiences dining at Noma in Copenhagen and El Celler de Can Roca in Spain and when to sing the praises of local fare—a bowl of Pontianak-style shredded-crab noodles or Ternate’s signature rica-rica chicken.

  He knew which aspects of his personal life were appropriate for sharing with an Indonesian audience—definitely not squabbles with other young chefs or drunken episodes at gele parties or one-night stands with near-strangers. In Indonesia, he spoke passionately, as though he meant it, about the importance of family, about treasured memories and valuable life lessons.

  Life in New York had also made him a skilled storyteller. At the end of the day, in that city, everybody had to know how to tell his or her story, because life was stranger, larger, f
iercer than fiction. To succeed, you couldn’t just float along like a leaf in a lake; you had to swim across the sea. And everyone had to be able to tell stories about small triumphs, coolly, humbly, as if other, more impressive, more meaningful triumphs lay ahead that would carry them still farther to distant shores of success.

  He knew how to tell stories in a down-to-earth manner—of his three-month trip to Italy with Andrew Carmellini to deepen his knowledge in the arts of making pasta, bread, cheese, and prosciutto, and how they went truffle hunting in Alba. And also how to mention his many brunches at Prune, where Gabrielle Hamilton herself would be weaving in and out of the weekend crowd, as if he, too, was part of her world.

  And most importantly, he knew how to navigate the ins and outs of Jakarta high society. In fact, he was impressively canny this way. He could assess personalities almost instinctively. He knew when to put on airs and when to affect humility, when to act outrageous and outraged, when to act conservatively. He knew when to be himself and when not to be himself, something I never could get the hang of. And for all this, I had to take my hat off to him.

  But I only really became aware of the depth and breadth of his self-education when I’d been invited to a dinner party at the house of a young architect who specialized in restaurant design. The architect was completely besotted with Bono and had begged him to put together a special menu for his friends.

  That night, I saw how much Bono had changed. He looked tall and commanding in his white chef’s uniform. His team comprised five people: two to help him in the kitchen, two to wait on the long table—beautifully set for eighteen guests—and a sommelier. They were practically kids, but they moved with intense speed, energy, agility. Kids used to hard work and being in competition with those around them, who’d made their own way in the world and, in doing so, relied on their self-discipline, knowledge, or social skills to ensure their success. Kids who were strong, smart, hungry.

  I waited a few minutes before waving at him from a distance. He was standing behind the island in the open kitchen. When he saw me, he darted over to greet me: “Run! Oh, Run! I’m so happy you could make it.”

  And then he embraced me tightly, almost gratefully—something he’d never done in our whole history together.

  The rest of the night was like a dream.

  DINNER

  Hosted by Aditya Bari

  December 5, 2011

  Jala in a roasted squid consommé

  (inspired by Jason Atherton’s signature dish at Pollen Street Social, with slight modifications)

  Quail, cereal, bread, and tea

  Burrata, scallions, and truffle

  Spaghetti—black

  Duck agrodolce

  Olive oil torte and poached pears

  Ice cream and sorbet

  Courtesy of Chef Bono

  3

  CAULIFLOWER AND SQUID

  I have this recurring dream. I am sitting in an open-air kitchen the size of a soccer field, watching my grandmother in her backyard. A battalion of ravenous turkeys trails after her. The clay pot she carries contains not bird feed, but rose and jasmine petals—the flowers of the dead. “It’s for the spirits,” she says. “Help me spread them around the yard.”

  My grandmother cuts an impressive figure. Although she’s eighty-seven, her stride is quick and sure, her spine is straight and strong, and like her son—my father—in his older years, she likes to wear a plain, unpatterned kimono. To this day I’ve never fully understood their relationship—between my father, who rarely spoke, and his mother, so brave, so tough.

  My mother would always say that the similarities between them didn’t stop at their habit of wearing kimonos. “They both love chili, garlic, and everything to do with birds. Their temperament and thought processes are the same too—linear, unbending, stubborn, easily angered, self-centered.”

  But the only characteristic my dream reveals of my grandmother is her excessive love for her turkeys.

  I remember my father and his own birds: how his eyes would light up when he’d talk to his beloved parakeet, how his lips would coo soundlessly when he’d stroke his little magpie-robin. For a brief moment, in the contortions of his face, one caught a glimpse of the likeness between mother and son.

  “But turkeys need food, and spirits won’t show themselves as long as we’re here,” I protest, feeling a little sorry for the turkeys, who are being forced to eat flowers.

  My grandmother shakes her head. “Just scatter them around,” she says. “You’ll see. Those turkeys will want for nothing.”

  It scares me to imagine the yard filled with spirits. You can’t order what kind of spirits you want. What if they had gaping wounds in their backs like the dreaded sundel bolong? What if they were violent, or smelly, or evil? What if they were allergic to poultry? What if they stole the turkey eggs, so large and tasty, and devoured them all—I mean, how could anyone resist? Or even worse, what if they slaughtered all the turkeys, destroying my grandmother’s source of income?

  Still, I’m even more frightened of what my grandmother will do if I disobey.

  I begin scattering the flowers on the grass. Five minutes later my grandmother and I go inside the house. The turkeys don’t follow us for some reason, but they also show no interest in the flower petals blanketing the ground. Instead, they mill around near their coop, as if waiting for something—instructions from above, perhaps, or rain, or music.

  My grandmother busies herself in the kitchen. I make as if I’m working on my homework, but actually I peer through the window at the backyard shrouded in darkness and the beating of wings.

  Night falls.

  Not a sound. Not even the wind blowing or the frogs croaking or the crickets chirping.

  In the morning, through the layer of dew on the window glass, I see that the yard is green and spotless. The turkeys are in their coop. Not a single flower petal remains.

  “What happened?” I ask my grandmother, who is busy making breakfast.

  “What do you think?” she asks in return.

  What is it that dictates perception? Why do we see something one way and not another? Perhaps it is this that they call the “mind’s eye”—the eye that perceives the grass is green because the color green calms the heart, that perceives the ocean is blue because the ocean is where we set sail our hopes and dreams, that perceives blood is red because the color red will prepare us for the dead body we may discover next.

  But the yard is, really and truly, immaculate.

  “It’s impossible. The turkeys couldn’t have eaten all those petals,” I half whisper.

  “They didn’t,” says my grandmother. “The spirits were happy we took the trouble to pay our respects to them. In return, they transformed our offering into food for the turkeys. If you don’t believe me, go look inside the coop. All the turkeys are fast asleep because they’re so full and content.”

  It was decided that I would leave in three days’ time, on Sunday. The decision was made at a meeting between my bosses and my colleagues, who arranged my travel schedule. The office needed one and a half more days—Friday and Saturday—to book flights and hotels, to contact the Ministry branch offices in each location, and to arrange travel funds.

  And now I return to my apartment on Jalan Pangeran Antasari. It’s around nine o’clock.

  Bono is bustling about in the kitchen, absorbed in a culinary experiment of some sort. He’s recently stopped his work as a personal chef to take up the position of head chef at Siria. It’s the hottest, most innovative restaurant in Jakarta at the moment—and he almost never has time to rest. Today is the first day of his two-week leave. Without him saying a word, I know that he’s transferred a fair amount of ingredients from the restaurant’s kitchen to my apartment: all kinds of meats and fish, creams and sauces, soup stocks, and several bottles of expensive wine. Not so much as to be conspicuous, but enough, at any rate, to play around with. He acts as if he owns the place—my place. He doesn’t even bother to greet me when I com
e in.

  Still, I’m happy to see him. I’m always happy when he’s in the apartment, cooking, watching DVDs, sometimes crashing on the sofa for a night or two, which he often does on weekends especially. We’re like an older sister and younger brother. Or a pair of twins. What’s that term he once used? “Twin solitudes,” which sounds much more fitting and much more appropriate than “soul mates.” We know how to lead our own separate lives, and because we aren’t romantically involved, we rarely use silence as evidence of something lacking or an excuse to pick a fight. And when food appears, simmering in woks, adorning platters, filling the apartment, there will be only good conversation.

  I lean in and study the wok’s contents. Fried rice and . . . what is that? “Leftover steak from the restaurant?”

  “Wagyu,” he says, not bothering to look up. “And a bit of leftover green sambal from the itik lado mudo I found in your fridge. It’ll be delish. I promise.”

  A friend of mine who’s crazy about Padang food has just sent me a duck curry smothered in green chili from Batusangkar. As usual, Bono has rooted through the contents of my refrigerator and found something that set his brain going. And also as usual, he hasn’t asked permission. But I never protest, because I get to enjoy the results. Wagyu-beef-fried rice. Foie gras noodles. Spicy stir-fried bitter beans atop a sliver of fried tuna belly.

  And now he begins to pontificate: “Don’t you find it ironic that these days the combinations of such words—‘fried rice’ and ‘Wagyu,’ ‘noodles’ and ‘foie gras’—make so-called seasoned diners raise their eyebrows and titter because they willfully, deliberately misunderstand them, taking them for ‘fusion’ of the most uncreative kind? Like, huh? As if true creativity consisted only of combining a minimum of ten elements, all unconventional, all incompatible! Or else they regard such dishes as prime examples of fusion in confusion, as if the mere act of combining anything from the ‘West’ with anything from the ‘East’ were somehow risible in itself. I can’t stand such people.” Then he adds, as if somehow I were the object of his frustration, “You’ve been living in Indonesia for too long.”