In the United States we usually bought our food at a supermarket. Almost everything was pre-cut and packaged. It was easy to forget where food came from.

Not here. Everything is fresh!

Chicken, beef and fish are butchered and sold on the same day.

You buy your meat at the meat market...

and your fruit & vegetables at a fruit and vegetable stand.

It is a lot less expensive to buy fresh food here than at home.

We buy a lot of watermelon and bananas and pineapples.

Indonesia used to be called the "Spice Islands", for good reason. There are all kinds of them grown here, cinamon, nutmeg, ginger; almost every kind we can think of.

Here people really like hot spices, like red and green chile peppers.

We have learned to say, "tidak pedas", Indoneisan for not spicy, when we order food from a street vendor.

Rice is the most important part of any meal here. It is usually steamed or fried and it's really good. Most of the time we eat the steamed rice with our hands.

It is a lot of work to grow rice though, Water buffalo are used to plow the fields. Rice kernals from a good harvest are seeded. Then when the seedlings reach about six inches, they are replanted one-by-one by hand. Imagine how long it took to plant this field!

Preparing fresh food can take a long time. It has to be thoroughly washed and cut up, but this is fun to do with our helpers, Ita and Lena.

When we have a party Ita asked her sisters-in-law to help too.

Most people cook with a double gas burner, like a camp stove, but we have a regular gas oven.

It is always fun to go out to eat. At night we go to Penyung Pesar. We check out all the stalls and decide what we want. There is plenty to choose from, fried rice or noodles, goat, beef or chicken satay with peanut sauce, fried crab ...

After deciding we sit at a low table and someone takes our order. Each vendor brings us his particular food. We always get some kind of Satay!