For the last few years, my partner has escaped the south west winter and headed to Indonesia. He has a great love for all things Indo, especially food and returns with new recipes, vanilla pods, candlenuts and wonderful curry pastes for me to play with.
I thought a new Indonesian cookbook would be a great present, inspiring him to cook on the days I am not here. It was to become a little more involved than that. A fabulous chapter on how to make tempeh sent him to the computer. Within days he had ordered the innoculant, checking first with customs that it was alright to import little packets of white powder from overseas.
Within weeks, an old freezer has been converted to heat rather than cool, organic, non GM soybeans have been sourced and a stall booked at the next growers market. A whirlwind of activity that included nervous 4 am checks on the beans, debates over the best type of bags, weights and labels to use. Experimenting with new recipes, we eat tempeh at nearly every meal while discussing transport and costings. He wakes early and lies in bed inventing a tempeh factory.
I should tell you that my man is a cabinet maker by trade. Food has always been my department. This has not stopped him wholeheartedly diving in head first to some thing new with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
It is this childlike curiosity in us that allows us to discover new horizons, that takes us beyond the boundaries of who we are and what we think we can achieve. It is this courage to go ahead and risk failure that results in something new. It is a sense of wonder and discovery we would all do well to remember.
I've never been a great fan of tempeh, perhaps because it's never 'fresh', but the pate recipe look like a good one to try.
ReplyDelete