From the left, Iva (married to Ferry on far right), Nualtida, Tom, Dan FitzGerald, Dani Solichin, and Ferry. Iva, Ferry, and Nualtida are Dan's assistants. Dan FitzGerald owns Pacrim Associates that represents USDEC in SE Asia, Dani owns Prambanan Kencana, a baking products company that distributes throughout Indonesia. Both Ferry and Iva have lived in the U.S.
This year's USDEC-sponsored trip to Indonesia involved giving talks to bakery owners and product developers located in three cities: Jakarta (as last year), Bandung, and Yogjakarta. I left on Saturday, June 13, and arrived Sunday afternoon.
The talks were comprised of two parts: 1), introduction to whey, nutritional value, functional properties and substitution of whey for other ingredients; and 2), tasting of 7 products and comparison of textures, color and flavor given what dairy powder was being used: skim milk powder, sweet whey, WPC80 (80% protein whey powder), permeate (lactose plus minerals), and lactose.
MONDAY, JUNE 15
I had the morning free. I spent it working on a lecture about renewable energy and then finally knuckled down and read material about the nutritional properties of whey. Even though one often gives a lecture repetitively, it's always good to upload something new into short-term memory. This bolsters self-confidence, sets a positive internal mood, which then makes old memories more salient. Old trick based on sound principles of cognitive psychology.
Before the talk, we had a lunch prepared by the Four Seasons Hotel. As last year, the food was all Indonesian, my favorite being the soup luscious desserts pictured below.
This is one of the lovely clear Indonesian soups. You ladle out the clear broth to which you've added bits of meat and vegetables.
One of many desserts. These are based on cooked rice starch and come with a great variety of flavors (and colors).
The group I talked to--75 people. The room was full and the audience asked many questions; this is a return gig and people feel more comfortable. I gave the talk from 1 to 5 PM with a half hour break in the middle.

I prepared and photographed 7 items for my talk: a bread, cake, mousse, cookie, croissant, tart and a cheese cracker. I tried to use Indonesian ingredients. Shown above is Sirsak Mousse Cake. Sirsak or Soursop (the Dutch word) is a mild sweet-sour fruit.
Lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel. In Bangkok, I spent 6 hours in the Novotel. Its lobby had so much water in it that I got bitten by 2 mosquitoes just while standing at the desk!
This is one of a dozen or so paintings in the lobby. Dan, who planned the conference, asked, "Tom, if I bought you one of these paintings, would you be permitted to display it in your office?" I answered "No" Interestingly, the painter is a native Indonesian.
Monday evening, we dined at the Oasis Restaurant, considered the best Indonesian restaurant in Jakarta. Pictures of Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, and the king and queen of Spain hung on the walls. The restaurant is housed in an old Dutch estate complete with a stained glass window celebrating the family's history since 1536. The restaurant specialized in the traditional rijstaffel, served by 12 nymphs, each carrying a plate with its own specialty (Eve says I must have been in heaven: food and sex). The clear winner was the gurame (a local fish), but all the food was excellent. We were entertained by the Indonesian equivalent of a mariachi band. They asked us for requests, and I asked for Kurt Weil's Surabaya Johnny which they claimed to know but which turned out to be a song celebrating the resounding defeat of the Dutch at Surabaya in 1945, spelling the end of 350 years of some of the cruelest colonial rule in human history--and the collective guilt for which spelled the opening of Holland to Indonesian immigration (hence the current problems between Muslims and everyone else) and the founding of the Fair Trade Movement, originally called Max Havelar, named after a book that described Dutch atrocities during the colonial period.
TUESDAY, JUNE 16
We left Jakarta by car on the two hour drive to Bandung, a city of a mere 7.4 million located in the mountains south of Jakarta. The Dutch founded this community and dubbed it the "Paris of Java" because culturally it became very rich. Also, being up in the mountains, it made for a fine vacation site.
We checked into a Hyatt. As usual, it had an impressively high atrium.
Before the presentation, we had lunch...

Es Kalapa Muda, a soupy dessert containing green coconut. Tasty and refreshing.

Klapertoort, a Dutch-Indonesian dessert containing a coconut soup with cubes of cake.
My presentation lasted from 1 to 5. About 35 people came and they asked a few questions.
After the presentation, we drove one hour to Kampung Daun (Village Leaf) restaurant. It's a community of small businesses, including a theater stage for dance and music, craftspeople, and small dining rooms. The community follows a cliff, whose walls tower over the traditional buildings.
We occupied half of a small building. People pictured: Eva on the left who lived in the U.S. for years, Rudy on the left who is Sales Manager of Prambanan, the ingredients company that distributes to all of Indonesia (Puratos, which manufactures our chocolate, is a direct competitor) and on the right is Woon (aka Nualtida), Dan's assistant.
In the foreground is the best thing I tasted, a tall glass of Durian. This is either the worst fruit on the planet or the best, depending on the assessor. Some have likened this fruit to dog excrement. It is smelly, but I have grown to appreciate it. And this beverage was terrific. My other beverage (not pictured) was Coke with condensed milk, which was less tasty. The Indonesians love to mix beverages with condensed milk.
Some of the foods we enjoyed: chicken sate, goat sate (excellent), fried fish with hot sauce, chicken soup (fantastic).
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17
This morning, I woke to strains of music penetrating my window. I looked out and below were lined up military and a military band. I was too lazy to descend 14 floors and walk across the street. It might have been a graduation ceremony. The military group has major political power, and no president of Indonesia has successfully remained in office without its support (according to Dan.)
We drove back to Jakarta and took a plane to our third destination, Yogjakarta. We flew over the volcanic backbone of Java. Seem peaks towered over 10,000 feet in height. Everywhere you looked, the trees were gone--cut down hundreds of years ago. Every flat area was occupied by rice paddies.
We arrived in Yogjakarta around 4 PM. It was easily 95 degrees F.
THURSDAY, JUNE 18
I had an entire morning ahead of me with no responsibilities! I ate an early breakfast, then visited the gifts store on the first floor. There, among other things, I found some local chocolates. I took the chocolate bars to the hotel front desk and asked them where the factory was. Within 10 minutes I was off across Yogjakarta in search of Monggo Chocolates. I found it in the old part of town, in the silver district known as Kotagede.
Although I had not phoned ahead, Thierry Detournay, the founder, was there. His official title is "Production Manager" and he co-owns the business with an Indonesian. At the time I arrived, there were probably 20 staff working in an old but clean house next to a charming courtyard. Thierry has learned to specialize; their major products are bars, made from chocolate manufactured in Indonesia, from Forastero beans grown in Indonesia. Indonesia is #3 in production worldwide, and of that, the vast majority of beans are grown on Sulawesi, a large island that looks like a "K".
Thierry mostly sells his bars to hotels and other tourist venues, as chocolate bars are unaffordable to the average Indonesian who earns $2 per day.
He has yet to mechanize, finding that it's far cheaper to use lots of labor than to purchase machinery that has to be shipped halfway around the world. Shelving and tables are all stainless steel, so he has invested in state-of-the art tools.
Tubes of chocolate truffle filling. They stay molten because the room is 85 °F.
Thierry has worked out an astonishingly successful technique for tempering chocolate. The room they work in is kept about 85 degrees F, so when they fill the molds, there is no streaking caused by the formation of unstable beta crystals. Also, because there is no machinery, he has worked out a continuous system rather than batch system, keeping the chocolate freshly tempered and producing optimal shine. Chocolate is tempered in stainless steel pots.
We visited a couple of packaging rooms.
Thierry is either an accomplished artist or he knows someone who is, because his posters are superb, as are his chocolate bar wrappers.
I found Thierry to be extremely helpful and friendly. We spent a little time speaking French (Thierry is Walloon or French Belgian), but his English was excellent and, not wanting to miss details, I suggested we speak English most of the time.
I gave my third talk (from 2-5) that afternoon.
In the evening, we went to see the Ramayana story enacted in dance in front of the Prembanan temple, a Hindu shrine dating from the 9th century. The dance is worth the wait and the cost.
FRIDAY, JUNE 19
We left Yogyakarta at 5 AM and drove to Borobudur, a Buddhist monument built in the 9th century AD. It is essentially a mandala of stone with many stupas comprising one giant stupa. There are over 500 statues of Buddha and thousands of bas reliefs depicting the enlightenment of Sudhana, a disabled boy who proved his mettle.
After watching the sunrise and the play of light and shadow on this Chartres of the Far East, we ate breakfast at a 7-star hotel that resembles a Roman Villa. The food was not proportionate to the exquisite architecture. Rooms in this hotel (whose name I forget) go for $900 per night. You get a small villa and swimming pool for the $900.
Entryway to the hotel.
Iva (left) and Nualtida (right) sitting at our breakfast table in the dining room.
For $900 you get your own swimming pool!
Inside view of your mini villa.
Our last meal together was spent in a seafood restaurant. I was fortunate to be able to order my second tall glass of Durian juice. We also had green beans in an exquisitely flavored sauce, grilled shrimp, and some very flavorful local scallops.
That afternoon (Friday), I still had a few hours to kill. So I paid $30 for a tour company to supply me with a driver who spoke minimal English. Fortunately, Iva and Dani (president of the company that hosted my talks) came along, so communication was not an issue. We drove around in the Yogyakarta area, where there are mostly smallholders growing a variety of crops: vanilla, cloves, cocoa, rice, and bananas.
Cloves drying. They are green, unopened flowers, that are spread out to dry for 3 days. The first day, they're green, the second day, tan, and the third day dark brown.
Vanilla vine. It's in the orchid family. The woman who is growing the vine right alongside the road had just picked all the vanilla beans the day before.
A cocoa grower standing next to her pickings. She had a small grove of trees. In Indonesia, they don't bother to ferment the beans. That and the fact that they are Forastero, produces a very mild-tasting chocolate.
Closeup of drying beans. One has been split open and you can see that it's purple on the inside--a characteristic of the Forastero beans.
Right next door was a small cocoa depot. There are no locks on any doors, as people are completely honest and would never steal each others' crops or products.
Our driver shows how farmers get their beans to the depot.
We drove on farther and our driver found this woman and her daughter to pick a pod for us...
The girl tries to pull a pod out of the tree but proves unable to split one open. She ran across the street to get her mother...
Her mother took a long stick outfitted with a knife at the end and cut a pod down.
Her mother split the pod open with a knife to show the seeds. Typically, there are 30-40 seeds in a pod.
Well, that's all folks, as the bunny says. Eat your carrots! And here's, munch munch, to a world without borders, a world of human beings who value each other and not to countries, military, and weapons of mass destruction and state secrets.
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