Sisterhood offered in online cooking club

Sisterhood offered in online cooking club

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The mark of an Indonesian mailing list newbie, demonstrating to all their appalling knowledge of matters culinary, will inevitably be this one question: "What is the difference between tepung (powder) and terigu (flour)?"

This posted message is later acclaimed to be the silliest question ever posted on their Internet mailing list. Here people usually refer to flour as tepung terigu, or just plain tepung.

But when such a question is raised among cooking hobbyists in an online cooking club, it can result in some dreadful responses.

"But don't get us wrong, Ella is now the best cook. She even takes orders (to make cakes and other things)," said Eka Arei Shanti, referring to a person who posted such a question.

Others nodded in agreement.

"So, anyone is welcome to raise a question, even a silly ones about cooking. We encourage people to love their hobby and practice their knowledge," Eka said.

Rita Fauziah said she once brought her experimental Tiramisu to her office and was very surprised when her colleagues started ordering more from her after they finished a plate.

"I was stunned as I never got any orders before and I didn't even know how to give price for my Tiramisu," said Rita who worked for a Japanese company.

Eka added, "As a last resort, I posted a question in our mailing list and other members were ready to share their experience, including on how to answer the question about prices."

Sharing experiences on product pricing; secret ingredients for certain kinds of cake; shops that give big discounts; and where to find certain kinds of leaves for certain kinds of dishes; these are just some of the discussions commonly seen on the mailing list.

And this is only one of the benefit that members get when they subscribe to a mailing list for people who share the same interest. Nowadays, Yahoo! has an abundance of groups on a wide variety of interests from simple hobbies to serious political debate.

With over 200 members at present, the Natural Cooking Club (NCC, naturalcookingclub@yahoogroups.com) was officially founded on Jan. 15, 2005.

"It's for anyone, culinary lovers whether they be experts, amateurs or beginners to share knowledge about cooking and related aspects," founder Fatmah Bahalwan said.

The mailing list is one of the activities run by the Natural Cooking Club, besides baking and cooking courses, food catering and an online shop. Fatmah started the business in 2003 with her husband Wisnu Ali Martono. The idea of having an Internet mailing list was aimed at tightening the network among hobbyists and to give ways to those who want to plunge into the culinary industry.

One gave an example on how a member who happened to work in North Jakarta area actually bought up fish grills at the capital's biggest fish market Muara Karang for other members who wanted to try out a new recipe but did not have the utensils at home.

"The grills were made of metal and I couldn't imagine her struggling to bring them to us. We had not even met her then," another member, Yeni Suryasusanti, recalled.

"I sense there is a growing sisterhood among us with those available helping hands and thoughts," she added.

So from the virtual closeness, the group has initiated real life friendships among them with meetings for trying out new recipes or learning techniques for cake decoration and for shopping for cake ingredients.

One of their meetings took place on Saturday last week. The group took a city tour to a number of places specializing in selling cooking utensils and bakery supplies. And of course, with women making up 99 percent of the group, this tour also became a shopping trip for them.

Their trip, called "Tour D'Toko", started at around 8 a.m. from the group's 'headquarters' in the Matraman area of East Jakarta and headed into Central Jakarta areas.

"The objective of this trip is to introduce to mailing list members the places where they can find anything they need for their cooking activities," said Fatmah who has resigned her 'nine-to-five' job to run a catering and a cooking school.

"And also it is meant to broaden our culinary knowledge as we will learn new things from the places we visit."

At one of the destinations, bakery supplier Rossy, located on Jl. Kaji in Central Jakarta, top chef Yongki Gunawan kindly gave a lecture on various products and gave a cooking demonstration during which a number of 'wows' and 'aahs' were heard among the tourists.

From starkies, gellamix, chocolate spread, butter cream, tiramisu dough, to tricks using hand mixers; all these were shared during the visit.

Other places that the group visited included Resto Mart in Gajah Mada Plaza, Ani Shop, Mira Shop, Titan Bogasari Baking Center and also Tigerson Philti, who offered cake decoration using high-tech touches: edible scanned images on cakes.

"It gives me an idea to make a nice Sponge Bob cake for my son's upcoming birthday. He would love it, images of Sponge Bob and his scanned photo on his birthday cake," said an inspired mother.