Hello Everyone!
We stayed in Bali overnight last night, and today (22 Feb 2026) I spent most of the day attending a Balinese cooking class at the home of a local woman in Ubud, Bali. The school was called Paon Bali Cooking Class.
We boarded a small bus and departed from the ship at about 8:00am. There was very heavy rain today, properly qualifying as "monsoonal", so I was glad to be setting out on an excursion which would be almost exclusively indoors. I didn't really know what to expect, as I'm quite unfamiliar with Balinese food in particular and Indonesian food in general. But I don't have very many bright lines when it comes to food and I'm willing to try almost anything, once. I may not seek it out again, but at least I can say I've tried it.
The drive to Ubud took about an hour and fifteen minutes, not so much due to distance as to typical Indonesian traffic. We arrived at a very nice home, owned by Puspa and her husband. She showed us around the house before taking us back to the kitchen area where she gives the classes.
Puspa's home is far from typical. While it shares the common element of being mostly open to the outdoors, it is clear that she and her husband are well-to-do and enjoy many luxuries compared to the average family. The house (compound, really) was very nicely appointed.
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| Entrance to Cooking School (Puspa's Home) |
Most parts of the house are open to the outdoors. This area is in the main courtyard and is used for special occasions like weddings, birthdays, birth celebrations, funerals, and naming ceremonies.
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| Ceremonial Pavilion |
Just to the left of the ceremonial area are steps leading to Puspa's private room and bedroom. The narrow steps in the middle of the picture lead to their temple. In most homes, the temple is just a modest area set aside in the northeast corner. Here, it is a grand area occupying a large area.
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| Courtyard Area and Entrance to Temple |
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| Bedroom Entrance |
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Self Explanatory Sign Outside Temple
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Directly across the courtyard is what could best be described as the "living room", complete with a large screen TV. The entrance to the kitchen is to the left of the living room.
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| The Living Room |
Puspa showed us some special bowls and platters used for entertaining and offerings. Many of these are heirlooms, and the one she is holding is made from real silver.
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| Puspa with Ceremonial Bowl |
After the tour of the house, we went to the back of the compound to her teaching kitchen. It was nicely appointed and well suited for instructional use.
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| The Teaching Kitchen |
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| Seating Area |
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| Seating Area |
We used these large cleavers for cutting and chopping, similar to how you'd use a chef's knife. They were quite sharp and easy to handle.
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| Cleavers and Cutting Blocks |
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| They Trusted Me with a Knife! |
We used a steamer like this to make the rice, as well as to steam various foods wrapped in banana leaves.
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| Steamer |
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| Tomatoes, Peppers, Potatoes, and Greens |
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| Garlic, Shallots, Lemon Grass, Turmeric, and Candle Nuts |
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| Limes, Ginger, Galangal and Lesser Galangal |
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| White Pepper, Salt, Shrimp Paste, and Candle Nuts |
We made a peanut sauce from scratch by grinding up fried peanuts with galangal (similar to ginger), candle nuts (like macadamia nuts), and garlic until it formed a smooth paste.
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| Fried Peanuts with Chili, Garlic and Candlenuts |
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| Bean Sprouts |
We incorporated tofu and tempeh in the recipes we made. Everyone's probably familiar with tofu, but tempeh (hard tofu) is a firmer compound made from fermented soybeans. There are small pieces of sliced/diced soybeans mixed in with a tofu base, then formed into cakes and dried.
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| Tofu and Tempeh |
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| Coriander Seeds, Cloves, Nutmeg and Black Peppercorns |
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| Lettuce and Long (Snake) Beans |
When we made the yellow sauce, we had to grind the ingredients to form a paste using this large mortar and pestle. Puspa called it the "Bali blender". We used a handheld stone on a large piece of volcanic rock to grind the peanuts for the peanut sauce.
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| Bali Blender |
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| Cooking the Yellow Sauce |
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| Cooking the Yellow Sauce Base |
We made small packets called Pepes Tofu which were portions of tofu, tomato, basil, and yellow sauce wrapped in banana leaves, then steamed for about ten minutes.
We returned to the ship in mid-afternoon, satiated and happy. After another nice dinner, we went to an amazing and mystifying magic show by Andrew Lee, a winner on Britain's Got Talent. He was truly mindboggling. He did one trick where a card changed from a three of hearts to a nine of hearts right before our eyes while he held it in his hand. He did this trick standing in the audience, very near my seat, and I have no idea how he did it. Great fun.
On to Java
We set our clocks back another hour tonight (we're now exactly 12 hours ahead of all you on the east coast) and set sail across the Java Sea toward Semarang, on the island of Java, our next stop in Indonesia. We'll have a sea day tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to getting my laundry done and taking part in some of the many activities aboard ship.
Until Next Time,
Jim
Ben here,
ReplyDeleteThat cooking class looked like great fun. And the dishes were very photogenic which nowadays is more important than how they taste. No mention of beverages. Is this a "dry" island ?
How long is this trip ?
Keep posting and living well .
Hi Ben! Yes, presentation is a major part of these foods, and is something I need a lot of help with. I'm not very creative that way!
DeleteNo the island isn't dry - there are plenty of drinks and alcoholic beverages available. I guess the cooking classes tend to focus on the food though, although when we have classes on the ship, the finished dinner is usually paired with wines.
Oh, I forgot to answer your question about the length of the cruise - it will be four months (121 days) total. We're just under halfway as of today.
Delete