Greyish Still Life

Just wanted to pop-in a bit from food post. One day in the afternoon I ran away from my overload-brain-works and played along with my wrist watch. Catching an afternoon light and grey wall I heart in my office, design book and a bottle of Dr.Vranjes as a prop. I could say like I learned instant Still-Life study that noon.

I love the grey all over these pictures, from the wall, the watch, and the dark grey of that paper!

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Rainbows

Omg it is February already and found that I just had four posts in January and it is bad though. I think I lost the track to keep this blog moving. Pardon for that. Here I’m trying to share some snaps while I’m gathering my spirit and memory to remind how was Bali (for part II!, I promise I’ll post it soon!).

When I saw these rainbows a week ago in my office I took my iPhone and snapped them immediately. At my first sight I couldn’t believe their colors and how they are growing. Fortunately I brought my baby apart of my iPhone and took some angles. Those rainbows were so enticing, didn’t they? Yet I agree with what was my Boss said when she saw them, pretty yet looked like a toy.

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Breakfasts

I’m terrible lately for this blog due to my January seems like December still. You can see how I jumped to this day to publish another post. Gah.

Well, this is a simply post I tried to share some pictures from my breakfast days ago. I won’t say that pictures here are perfect to be included as my food-photography portfolio (I should start, though), it seems more like I learned more how to capture simply foods and played with different background. I hope I do not make you h(a)ngry :). Oh last picture was my breakfast this morning, club sandwiches.

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So many food photographers outside there amazed me with their work, creativity and technique but if you ask me what kind of style for food photography I love the most, I’ll answer clean and moody. I do not think that too-colorful background and props are mine :)

RED

When I saw a big buded red rose that had beautiful swirl my eyes captured some beauties on it. I admire how petals of a rose groovy arranged. Here, some snaps from a fresh rose. Red, bold, mesmerizing. Taken by NEX.

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Sometimes I feel there is a beauty shines brighter from shriveled ones.

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The last one I attached one of beautiful quote from Kahlil Gibran.

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Just Garlic

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I’ve mentioned quite often on this blog that working in event industry is challenging. Time flies too fast, so many instant jobs can come quickly, deadlines everyday, working over night. All of that can make you such a loser if you can not keep your life balance. It happens in me, until now I still struggling to keep my life balance. If I have to work overnight for two days (average time is 16 hours without sleep :| times two! Yes, I’ve done so many times!) I have to make sure that I have enough energy from food such an example, if not, I will collapse (God for bit! :|). Sadly, I have no choice if I have to eat junk food among my endless job. It isn’t easy for me that I have to fill energy, in the other hand I realize that they aren’t good if I take too much. By the time I’m on ‘me-time’ at home, cooking is such a way to pay my bill from those junk. Excuse for this long and tacky preface :P.

On this post I will share a simply light soup (or broth?) that I love to cook. Believe me this is so much better and easier than instant noodles if I have to compare with. A part of how simply it is, I love the main ingredient ; Garlic!.

I just love garlic so much either the pungent flavor or the health benefits. It isn’t a secret that Garlic may help improve our iron metabolism so for me, this garlic soup is the one of the simpliest-lightest-and fastest-recipe of soup I heart. This soup is such a DIY recipe, you just need 8 gloves of garlic (I always put more! slice them), pinch of salt and white ground pepper, margarine, vegetable oil, as a spice. Surely you’ll need chicken fillet as basic broth, carrot and leek for a flavour.

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First step, boil water and put chicken fillet in it, prepare your frying pan and heat vegetable oil. Put garlic and add margarine. Then add pinch of salt and pepper, wait a second until you can smell the flavor. The spice is ready, move it to your boil chicken, add carrot and leek (sliced). You just need to wait for 15 until 20 minutes. The garlic soup is ready to be played with another ingredient!

Mixing with another ingredient is another thing I love from this soup. You just need to make it once and mix with pasta, vermicelli, or veggies. On that day when I cooked for lunch, I mixed with spinach pasta, broccoli, tofu and chinese lettuce. I wanted the pasta a bit dry so I wasn’t put too much soup in my bowl. The taste was so light.

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I was enjoying this garlic soup with vermicelli such an early dinner kind of. I just added slices of tofu, fresh lettuce, and sprinkled minced red pepper. Oh I always make sure my garlic soup isn’t too salty, it’s easier to make it saltier by adding salt separately.

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The following day I had the same garlic soup for breakfast. Little spinach and poached egg were inside my bowl, and  little chilli and soya sauce to make the flavor tastier (chilli and soya sauce such a perfect mate, inspired by Bakso. I’m craving Bakso right now, gah! :()

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That’s it. Garlic soup is become one of my fav food from now, and do you think there is no food as simply as easy as quick as junk food? You should try this garlic soup! :)

P.S I just realized that these pictures on this post are quite Cereal-ish, clean and fresh, excuse for this confidence yet Cereal is so damn beautiful! :)

Muesli

Oh I’m living in December already, most hectic month on my (work) life. That means probably I have to struggle to keep updating this blog which is I know its gonna be quite challenging. This kind of job I’m working in isn’t easy if I can’t manage my time, among of overload-deadlines-as-always and upcoming briefs in this peak season I’m struggling to keep my life balance. As much as I could, though.

For an example, like this time, I’m in front of my Macbook, just finished editing some of the pictures for this post after I spent 30 minutes inside my kitchen cooking my dinner. Tomorrow I can’t guarantee myself can stay quietly on top of my bed and enjoy freeze KitKat while I’m writing because of unpredictable things always come up in this industry. Therefore I always enjoy every second of my leisure time to do something I love. And I always do for my food as well. When I had no proper food for my ritual breakfast like what I had last Thursday cause I worked day and night, I did enjoy myself with simply yummy breakfast kind of in following day.

Muesli was my choice. What I love from Muesli apart of how easy to prepare it as a breakfast is I can mix it with any fruits that I want. Just added yogurt and chopped fresh fruits, strawberry, kiwi, orange, apple, banana and oh I had almonds on my plate either. All of them just made my two-days breakfast such a little heavenly meal. Pardon for the iPhone in some of these pictures, I couldn’t help myself to drop my NEX and capture my breakfast for Instagram instead :P.

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Oh hi Alice Gao!

Aw, Alice Gao just made my day. It was a little (I’m lying), a little surprise for me. Six hours ago when I saw a notification on my iPhone screen that ” @alice_gao liked your photo“, and two second later I had another notification, oh I will say it wasn’t a little, it was a BIG BIG surprise that my role-model on photography a.k.a Queen of Instagram liked my pictures. I had no words to express my feeling (sounds garish huh? sorry :P), but that’s fine, I felt spring of joy for that. Seriously.

If you ever read my write-ups about Alice Gao, either in Bahasa Indonesia or in English, or if you’re a reader or a lurker of this blog, I’ve mentioned her for quite often that she inspired me a lot in photography. By reading her over-stunning blog (damn! I just opened hers to get the link and found she posted a new post, what a beautiful content Alice!), her journey when she decided to quit her job in two companies (hope my retention is right :P) then she emptied her bank account and chose to be a professional photographer specialized in Food and Lifestyle. For me it was awesome, it needs brave to struggle on the first time she became a freelancer and now we can see who Alice Gao is.

You know what? I think I will do the same!

These are the two (whole version) that I took from my iPhone 1. Cheese cake and Americano. After Work and 2.This morning. An apple and a glass of wine.

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I couldn’t remember when exactly I found Alice’s feed on Instagram, she wowed me on the first time and I followed her along. By then, I always remember from her how to post picture in Instagram (once again, hope my retention isn’t wrong, hehe) ; don’t put fifty hastags in one picture (yikes! I agree Alice!), post thoughtful and deliberate pictures as much as you can and feel happy for it”. From Alice, now, I always try to snap better and better through learning by doing. And I think I deserve for this dream kit.

Hey Alice Gao, if you read this post, I would like to say ; I would be super happy if I could spend coffee time and shot gorgeous spaces + mouthwatering foods with you, even just an hour, in NYC. Oh someday.

Another angles of Cheese cake and Americano.

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Oh iPhone

Recently I mostly taking a picture through my iPhone, its simpler and faster. I ADORE how the camera on my iPhone works, I mean, from a cellphone?. Capturing accidental moment through iPhone is quite interesting and challenging, I could imagine in some case, when I don’t bring my mirrorless and I see well-plated colorful dessert on my table, I just grab my iPhone and snap it. More than a thousand pictures have been taken by iPhone, some are precious moment.

These are some of them taken by iPhone 5. Oh, I heard that the 5S camera is something else, iPhone addict must have it, for me, wait for a moment :P I beg.

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The Gorgeous Winda

Yesterday was a small reunion for me with Ruli and Winda after a year. It was such a perfect accidental time for three of us to share our time together. We agreed to eat out and watched movie Monday next week but our plan had changed immediately yesterday. I’ll upload our eat-out pictures on different post later, this post will tell you more about Winda.

Winda lives in Jakarta where she works for multi-national company. Winda is a smart young lady who loves food, traveling, manga and sketching as well. She was graduated from the same school with me and Ruli, Sepuluh November Institute of Technology but she took Chemical Engineering, we were started at the same year. I met Winda two years ago at Grand Indonesia in Jakarta when Ruli asked me to eat out there. It was our first time went out together and Winda was so humble at the first impression. After then we went together for a quick trip to Bandung, hiking to Ranukumbolo last year with Maya and Ayos, and yeah Maya and Winda came to meet me twice to the airport at my last night in Jakarta before I went to Africa. The first time they came that night was raining (at 10 pm!!!) and it was so touchy :P. I will always remember that moment.

Lets get back to Winda yesterday. She looked so gorgeous on her genuine style (Ayos, you are so lucky for having her! :P). She wore a simply vintagish knitwear on top, English flowery skirt, and her coffee brown flat shoes were so perfect on her. I requested personally to Winda to look a bit different like what was we discussed before, and tarra! Look at her, I was so lucky could find a match set for Winda inside the mall where we spent almost five ‘quality’ hours. Thank you Winda for being indulgent to me!

Now, Keep your eyes on Winda (!!!) :)

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I had no idea I could get this rustic set before :P Here I attached some details of the set last night

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I will be so HAPPY if we have time to hang out together again, seriously lets orchestrated! :))

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Gerbera

Gerbera, that I found yesterday at my office, accidentally looked perfect when I laid it on two different papers inside coffee table book. Captured with iPhone.

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I let myself to find perfect time to gather my thought about what I’ve been thinking recently. I want to post them on this blog but sadly I’m too slow (and lazy) to gather those thought.