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.