The food inspection service

September 2001

It's afternoon and I'm in the kitchen to prepare a delicious Indonesian dish, Sambal Goreng Daging, or spicy flavoured beef.
First I've mixed the seasoning, an onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, a bit of trassi, two teaspoons full of tamarind and some Spanish peppers, a pinch of salt and sugar.
Here are the ladies entering the kitchen with their little noses up. Guusje and Meis place themselves strategically on my left and on my right side. Guusje on the left and Meis on the other side, both watching me expectantly. "The food inspection service" has set itself up.

Tootsie isn't there, this well-mannered cat thinks it's beneath her dignity to obtain a piece of meat with big pleading eyes.
In the meantime I've started to cut the beef in little pieces, more or less dice-size. Dexterously I cut up the meat and Guusje, for whom it all takes much too long, jumps onto the kitchen's worktop by way of the microwave oven. Now there ensues a little battle between Guus and myself and I try with my left underarm to keep Guusje away from the meat that's just been cut up. Naturally this doesn't work so I clean my hands under the tap whereafter I put Guusje on the kitchen-floor again.
Now Meis too tries to simply with one jump from the floor onto the worktop, but I can just prevent this. Quickly I cut up some little pieces of meat and throw them with mathematic precision to the eager couple of cats on the floor.
Two pieces at once otherwise there'll be a row and I'm not having that. This action repeats itself several times, until I cry "the meat is finished girls". I get some suspicious looks like "you're not cheating us are you" but as soon as I put the meat into the casserole the two of them get busy with other things.
Guusje is in front of the well-known (not yet for you, sorry!) wire gauze door and after cleaning my hands again I let her go outside. Cheerfully I brown the meat, but some moments later I hear a strange sound I don't know yet. There's Meis hanging with her fairly big claws on the, maybe you've guessed, wire gauze door. This action was to be expected, I'm not such a fool and in a nice but nevertheless firm tone I say, "Meis, what are you doing, stop that at once" to proceed to pluck her from the revolving door. In the meantime the meat has been browned and now I mix the seasoning. For those among us who are acquainted with preparing Indonesian food, it may strike them that one should first fry the seasoning and then the meat, but believe me, if you do it the way I describe it you can brown the meat longer without burning the seasoning.
Meis has entered the living-room and in the meantime Guusje crawls inside under the wire gauze door and goes into the living-room as well.
Toots looks around the corner of the kitchen-door, while I add two cups of coconutmilk to the dish, to leave it to simmer for some hours.
Yes, Guusje it's extraordinary nice for us that the meat, the fish and the poultry are first inspected by Meis and you, so that we can rest assured that on our table a high-quality dish is served.