Avigayil Damm

Lasagna is one of my favorite dish, and although I have often made it, I just realized that I have never posted about it, so here it is. The recipe is from my mom, so don’t ask me where she got it from. I love my mom’s cooking a lot, so I am going by her recipe for this one.

White (Bechamel) Sauce:

• 50 gr margarine/butter
• 50 gr all purpose flour
• 400 ml evaporated milk
• 1/4 tsp (or to taste) ground pepper
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
• 100 ml beef stock
• 125 gr grated cheddar cheese

Melt the butter and add flour, whisk vigorously until fragrant. Add milk and stock gradually and stir to mix. Add grated cheese, pepper and nutmeg powder. Let simmer, stirring constantly, until it slightly thickens.

Meat Sauce:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 large onion, minced
• 500 gr minced meat
• 400 gr tomatoes, peeled and minced or crushed
• 100 gr tomato sauce
• 100 ml beef stock
• 2 tsp dried oregano (or Italian seasoning)
• salt to taste
• sugar to taste if desired (or add one grated carrot)

Melt the butter, cook the onion and garlic until soft and fragrant. Add the minced meat, stir to mix, cook until slightly browned. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce and beef stock. Cook and stir until the sauce has slightly reduced. Add oregano, salt and sugar to taste. If you use grated carrot, add it together with the crushed tomatoes.

The rest is just to stack them up in an oven dish (I used a 20×20 cm dish and had some leftover sauce). If you’re using instant lasagna plates, make sure you put some sauce on the bottom before you add the plates so it doesn’t dry in the oven. Otherwise, cook them as directed. Layer the lasagna plates alternately with the white and the meat sauce, with the meat sauce being the top layer. Add 125 gr of mozzarella (or more, depending on how much you like mozzarella) on top. Cook at 180 degrees (Celsius) for 35-40 minutes. Bon appétit!

Since 2005, I have converted from being a Windows user to being a Mac user, although not entirely, as I still use Windows at work. I have been very satisfied with Mac, it has proven itself as more ‘superior’ many times. For example, when I just joined my previous office, as it was still being set up, I did not get a laptop immediately. I had to work using my private laptop (an iBook G4) for a few weeks. When I typed in the wireless network key, not only did it connect to the internet, but it immediately detected every available network printers, and I could print with no problems at all.

My iBook became fuller and fuller (it only had 40GB of hard disk space), as I have accumulated more and more files, pictures and songs (I have up to 8 days of songs at the moment, back then it was probably about 4 days of songs, a total of almost 10GB). I decided to get another one with a larger hard drive space and higher specification (plus, Leopard and Intel-based Macs just came out). What also intrigued me to getting a new one was the fact that I could also install Windows on the Intel-based Mac, because some applications that I do like can unfortunately only run on Windows (a small example being the Windows Live Writer, with which I update my blog or the computer aided translation tool, SDL Trados). So after careful consideration, I got myself an iMac with 300GB hard disk space and 2GB of RAM. That was more than a year ago.

After having bought that iMac, I looked up all sorts of articles, reviews and whatnot about installing Windows as a virtual machine on a Mac, and what application I should use to do this. After careful consideration, I decided to use Parallels Desktop, and I don’t regret it at all! It took me quite a while to actually install this (I bought Parallels Desktop beginning of June) since I had to muster up my courage, but now I am really happy that I finally did it this weekend.

Installing Parallels Desktop on the Mac was of course quite easy, but the installation of Windows and subsequently Office and some other Windows-based application was what worried me. And it turned out that I worried for nothing at all! The setup process was so easy, as easy as one two three. It was just a matter of following the step-by-step guide from Parallels, and voila! Windows was installed, and installing everything else after that is just as easy as installing it on a ‘real’ Windows computer. Here is a screenshot of my desktop now.

When I just arrived in the office yesterday morning, I did my usual routine: unlocking my mobile drawer, plugged in my portable speaker, set up my iPod and pressed ‘start’. The iPod started to play songs, picking up where it left off on my departure yesterday. The first song that came on was ‘Scarborough Fair’ which is one of my favourite songs.

While I set up my laptop, I listened carefully to the song’s lyrics:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
For once she was a true love of mine

I wondered what the song meant, especially the ‘parsley, sage rosemary and thyme’ part since I thought it looked a bit out of topic.

When I did a Google search on ‘parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme meaning’, many results came up but I liked this explanation the most. According to that article, parsley represents something that takes away the bitterness, sage symbolizes strength, rosemary represents faithfulness, love and remembrance, and thyme symbolizes courage.

So, if something that happened in your past leaves you with bitterness, make some parsley soup. If you are facing some challenges in your life, strengthen yourself with a turkey sage chowder. On your wedding anniversary, whip up some mini rack of lamb with nutty beluga lentils and sauteed garlic spinach (yes there is at least 1 tablespoon of rosemary required to make the dish). And when you must do something which the whole world seems to be against, equip yourself with braised lamb shoulder with carrots and fennel.

In Denmark, as in many western cultured countries, it is quite normal for a woman to adopt the husband’s family name. In Indonesia, this is not the case, mainly because Indonesians rarely have any family name at all to give to their wives. But it so happens that my father inherited my grandfather’s family name, which was actually some sort of a title of honour given to people who have worked for the government during a specific period in the past.

I am quite happy with the name, not only because it’s a title of honour but also because it’s a very unique name which is difficult to spell (especially for foreigners that I work with) which for some strange reason brings a certain funny (and happy) tingle in my stomach. Don’t ask me why, all you need to know is that I am a very unique person (stopping short of saying ‘weirdo’).

Getting my last name acknowledged by the Indonesian government and system was already challenging enough. In 2005, I finally managed to convince the local government to add my last name in my Indonesian ID card (Kartu Tanda Penduduk/KTP) which then helped me change everything else: my frequent flyer card, my credit card, my passport, and my driver’s license.

Then, in 2008, I got married to a Dane. Needless to say, when we wanted to register our intended marriage to the Danish kommune (the municipality), they asked what name I was going to go by once married. Being the typical old-fashioned guy (sorry babe, love you anyway! :*) my hubby insisted that I take his name. And so I did. At least on papers, in Denmark. It’s a totally different story here, as the process of changing a name is not as easy as 1-2-3, proven by the almost long-life struggle to get my own family name registered! But anyway, such is life. I guess I shall try to start the process and see how it goes.

Last Sunday my hubby was cooking his favourite Danish meal, boller i karry. As usual, he was cooking it all by himself in the kitchen because I can’t stand the smell of the raw version

Not that I was ungrateful and don’t appreciate my hubby’s cooking, but I was thinking whether there is a webpage with a real Danish recipe of boller i karry for us to try out. So I typed ‘boller i karry recipe’ on a search engine’s page and stumbled upon this website http://www.copenhagenet.dk/CPH-Eating.htm. It didn’t really have the recipe but I was psyched about it because it listed all types of Danish food which I could try find a recipe for to serve for my hubby (and of course, to write about here). At least for now, my eyes can indulge in the pictures.