Tim's colleagues held a lovely going-away lunch for us this week. The main dish at the lunch was tumpeng, a traditional Javanese ceremonial/celebratory dish featuring a large cone-shaped mountain of rice surrounded by a variety of meat and veggie dishes (tempe, stuffed chilis, sambal eggs, and omelette, among many other things in our case). The cone can be regular white rice (nasi putih), but more often it's more fancily prepared with coconut milk for richness and turmeric for the pretty yellow color, like we had:
(please note that it is also decorated with shrimp and quail eggs)
The cone of rice mimics Indonesia's mountains and is usually served at ceremonies/events to show gratitude.
The guest of honor gets the top slice of the cone, and from what I've seen, a VIP also typically cuts the top off ceremonially. Tim got cutting duties (although he was instructed to hand over the precious top slice to me, along with a full plate of food, mwa ha ha!):
Here we are, in front of the tumpeng and other goodies (and yes, this is an iPhone photo of a Polaroid, well, Fuji, photo):
And here is Tim and I with his colleagues, who are an awesome bunch. They have been nothing but welcoming, helpful, friendly and sweet to us, making our 2 years here go pretty smoothly! Thank you guys!!
(we thought this looked a bit like a wedding photo, but they insisted that we be front and center, which required us sitting)
That looks really sweet! I'm sure Tim's office mates will certainly miss all of your delicious baked goods!
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