Last day

Our last day in Ubud was a free day and I took a cooking class! Yes, ME. Yes, a cooking class, you heard me right. Actually, it was called an "Appetite Class." Love that. The very first thing we learned was how to make Balinese Spice. When I heard this term throughout our stay, I did not realize it referred to a distinct mixture of spices, just thought it meant one spice or another. Apparently, the women (of course) make this up every three days or so and they use it in everything. You can spice it to taste and I made mine spicy.

the ingredients

this is how it looks all done

Here is what is in it:  Shallot, garlic kencur (aromatic ginger), ginger, galangal (sort of a cousin of ginger), tumeric, red chili, lemongrass, candle nut (like macadamia), white pepper, nutmeg, salam leaf (like bay leaf), coriander seed, grilled shrimp paste, oil, salt.

The first thing we made was jukut ares which is a soup from young banana trunk, chicken and Balinese spice (of course). The banana trunk is sliced and salted to soften it. After ten or so minutes, it is immersed and then wrung out. Crazy. 

While the ares simmered, we made tum udang misi nyuh, which is steamed prawn with coconut. We made a mixture of prawns, grated coconut, coconut milk, kefir lime leaf, salt, salam leaf and Balinese spice (of course). Then the mixture is spooned in to a banana leaf that has been steamed and formed into a packet as above. I was not so good at that.

we got to keep these cute aprons

The last thing we made was Balinese pork skewer. We used cubed pork, tomato sauce and, guess what? Balinese spice! (of course) Then we got to eat what we cooked - there were three of us - and it was FABULOUS!

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After lunch, I took a walk down the street to the Monkey Forest. 

flowers outside of a shop

Ganesha, my favorite

These little thieves wait until the women put out an offering (more on that later) and then they're all over it, picking out whatever is edible.

They are everywhere and I saw one try to take a little Japanese girls camera; he did  get her sunglasses.

I heard an Aussie accent ask, is it a girl or a boy? Really?!

Here is Agung, our one-eyed driver(!), me, Suppi, and Rei, the jump-out guy. Really special people.

So, our last night and we went to dinner at the Cafe Lotus. My flash did not work for any of the pictures so the quality of these is not good. You sit in the restaurant and there is this amazing lotus garden between you and this ornate stage. It was fantastic.

The show we were supposed to be watching was sort of an operetta - just went to look for the info pamphlet but can't find it. I can't tell you anything about it really because we stayed at our table, talking the evening away. There were chairs for us on the stage and it looked quite impressive. Maybe next time . . .

We were presented with our Bali pops from Hoffman - woohoo!! I got the Key Lime which is exactly the one I wanted. Also, a silk scarf and a little bag. Thank you Deb Roberts Tours and Juanelle for those! Then, Suppi presented us with these wooden masks he made himself - takes him three days for each one. We were stunned at how beautiful they were. He even wrapped each one in paper with hearts on it.

And, we got our dyed batiks back. Here is mine. Needs to be ironed but you get the picture. I'm going to make a little quilted runner so I'll get back to you on that.

And, this is the bag that Toro made for me the very first day in Denpesar - batiked and dyed red.