My dad at IPTN Nurtanio Aircraft Industry

Friday 25th February 2011

I got a text message from my dad. He said, “Hi darling, I am in Bandung now, after Tanjung Pinang. Back home tomorrow, then back to Bandung again to continue the investigation of the engines. Love you and big hug to all of you.”

I am amazed. My dad was born in 1936, he will be 75 in May this year, and he is still flying around the 13,700 islands of Indonesia investigating air accidents. Last week he went to Tanjung Pinang, a small island off the cost of Sumatera, to investigate the crash of a Casa 212-100. The twin turbo propeller belonging to Sabang Merauke Air Charter (SMAC) was on its flight test with two pilots, two crew members and a flight inspector when it crashed in Bintan island, killing everyone on board.

My dad led the Indonesian National Transport Safety Commission (NTSC or KNKT, Komisi Nasional Keselamatan Transpor) investigation team. Like a forensic scientist, he would analyse every single part of the engine they found to determine the cause of the accident. When on a mission like this, my dad is always a young man.

Today’s text message from dad took me back to the days of my childhood, when he took me from hangar to hangar, showing me aircrafts, their engines and all the beautiful complicated parts. The smell of avgas and oil combined with the background noise of aeroplanes taking off and landing was the happiest smell and sound for me.

I remember my first visit to the hangar of Nurtanio Aircraft Industry where my dad is currently working to analyse the Casa 212 engines. Nurtanio – renamed as IPTN then renamed again as PT Dirgantara – was the pride and joy of the nation back in 1980s. It was also my dad’s pride and joy, with his “baby” the Casa-Nurtanio CN-235 was born. Seeing CN-235 flying later when I was an aviation journalist always took me back to the days when my dad talked passionately about this new design, about his opinion on its fly-by-wire system, then his weeks in Bandung testing it.

In the 1980s, Nurtanio cooperated with Spanish Casa and together designed and manufactured the Casa-Nurtanio CN-235. For this project, during early 1980s, my dad often went to Casa in Spain, MBB in Germany and Aerospatiale in France. As an 8-year-old girl then, all I knew was that my dad was tending his baby.

While I am writing this, my dad is back in the hangars of his youth, the home of his baby CN-235. My thought is there with him. He will be dissecting the engines of the Casa 212 with precision of a forensic scientist. He will be reconstructing the last flight and analysing the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder – the orange box known as the Black Box; then in the next few days, he will be sitting in front of his lap top with charts, animation, calculation and colourful diagram that represent the last flight of SMAC’s Casa 212.

My mum said, he always looks like a teenager getting ready to go on exciting mountain expedition whenever he received a call to go on an air accident investigation. He is always healthy on the busiest days. He climbed mountains in Papua and lifting heavy parts of a wrecked aircraft in his 70s. Then when the investigation is concluded, my dad will be fast asleep on his comfortable sofa, looking like a sweet old man.

My dad is the aviator hero that I am proud to know of. There might be Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Eddie Rickenbaker, Howard Hughes and other famous names in the world, but there is only one Joseph Tumenggung who is – until today – the only internationally certified air accident investigator in Indonesia, whose stories made me fell in love with the roaring sound of an iron bird. There is only one sweet dad who took me in his Volkswagen Beetle to the end of the runway at sunset, watching aeroplanes taking off and landing.

I miss you dad….

Mac at Dunham Massey

“Ikan Bakar Colo-Colo” (Grilled Fish with Colo-colo dip)

For this simple dish, any fish will do. Originally from the Mollucas or Maluku islands in Eastern Indonesia, Colo-colo is a spicy and sour dip that goes with any grilled fish and rice. People in the Mollucas islands – with its capital Ambon, hence they are called Ambonese – live in harmony with the sea for centuries. Staple food there are sago and seafood.

This dish was very special for me as a child. Introduced by my father who was born in Saparua – a tiny little dot in the map about 74 km east of Ambon.

Fresh catche from the sea, brought straight to the market (Saparua, Indonesia)

Ingredients
1. For the fish, any seawater fish will do. The amount is depending on how many people and how much each can eat (my father can finish one whole big tuna alone!)

2. For the Colo-colo dip:
4-5 small shallots (or 2 bigger banana shallots)
1 tomato
1-2 lime
Red chillies or bird eye chillies depending on how spicy you like your food

3. Any rice will do. I love Thai Jasmine rice, but I also like this dish with brown or red rice (yes, red!). You can also try organic wild rice. The amount? As much or as little as you like.

Preparing the fish

The best (and healthiest) is grilled or barbequed. I think barbeque fish in summer would be a nice “exotic” alternative to burgers and hot dogs.



Any fresh fish will be delicious grilled with colo-colo



Brush the fish with lime juice, then season with salt and pepper, grill or barbeque it until done (I don’t give the time or temperature as this will vary for different sizes of fish. Also, imagine living a natural live in the days before thermometer and electric oven….)

You can also have the fish fried. Shallow fry on both sides and check that all the flesh are cooked.

How to make the dip
Chop the shallots, tomato and chilli; put them together in a bowl. Squeeze the juice of one lime, add another one if it’s a small one. Add warm water (about 50 ml).

How to boil the rice
Quite straight forward. Most types of rice will cooked nicely with one part rice and two part water. Boil, but keep your eye on it as rice tends to stick on the pan. The Oriental way of boiling rice is to invest on a rice cooker (available in most Oriental or Asian supermarkets, price varies between £5 to £40).

How to enjoy Ikan bakar colo-colo
All together on a plate or bowl, dig in with your hand. Fish out the caveman/woman inside you and enjoy…!

Eating fish with your hand also helps in your fight against the bones. Knives and forks would not help you finding the tricky little bones, but your fingers will sense them.

Note:
* I found another version of colo-colo with additional basil (I prefer sweet basil) leaves. For this recipe, read Tony Wu's blog http://www.tonywublog.com/20101125/delicious-colo-colo-sauce-in-ambon.html

Fresh fish sold in Saparua's traditional market

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Adeline Tumenggung-Cooke
http://adelinemt.wordpress.com/
http://adeline-andy.blogspot.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adelinecooke/

The Fish Fight, Sustainable Fishing and us

If you think that the media is just for entertainment, think again. Britain’s welll known TV chef Hugh Fernly-Whittingstall started a campaign against discarding fish on a Channel 4 programme “Fish Fight” on 11th-13th January. Since then, over 600,000 people signed up to support the campaign (http://www.fishfight.net/), sales on alternative fish has soared (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/17/sustainable-seafood-supermarkets-fish-fight?CMP=twt_fd), and in my household, we are all converted to mackerel for our Friday fish dinner.

In the first episode, Hugh showed that, “Half of all fish caught in the North Sea are thrown back overboard DEAD.” The most significant footage that ended up played in the European Parliament, online and everywhere showed how tonnes of already dead fish are thrown back into the sea. This is because all fishermen in EU countries have to oblige by the quota system.

In my limited knowledge of the EU common fishery law, I am sure that this law was (once) well-intended to preserve a few too popular species that were overfished. British people love Cod and Haddock, and the popularity of Tuna is worldwide. Still, the impact of this quota – that fishermen can only land a certain amount of certain species – is that many fish that were caught had to be thrown back. Once caught by the net and pulled up to the boat, they are already dead.

The discard, in my humble opinion, is disgustingly reflecting the greed of modern human civilisation – the greed that has been part of our everyday lives. The discarded dead fish reminds me of the amount of good food that we throw into our bins everyday. The “buy-one-get-one-free” loaf of breads that could not be eaten by the expiry date and ended up in the bin. The amount of cheap clothes that we bought – on expense of some cheap child labour in sweat shops somewhere thousands of miles away – wore once, then throw to the bin.

In the same week of Hugh’s Fish Fight programmes, BBC’s Human Planet showed some jaw-dropping images of how indigenous people hunt for shark and whales in the open sea. Then in the weekend, Bruce Parry’s Arctic adventure opened our eyes about whaling within the Inupiat community in Alaska. Whaling sounds evil. We all cringed just saying the word “whaling” – killing an endangered sea mammal. Our modern (western) world condemned this action.

But who are we to judge the indigenous people who hunt for not more than three whales a year in order to feed the whole village? The whaler of Lembata (Flores, Indonesia) and Inupiat (Alaska) do not waste anything from their catch. The Inupiat people even feed and conserve the polar bears by doing so. Can we say that they are wrong whaling while we discard tons of dead fish (and food and clothes and mobile phones and our modern electronic “toys” and so on)?

As part of this anti discard campaign, other TV chefs are presenting cookery programmes on alternative fish like Dab (no, I never heard that before), Coley, Sardines and Mackerel. There is also a map of chip shops across the UK who sell mackerel. We went to our local chippy but saw that mackerel is not on the menu. What a shame. So last Friday, we decided to make our own fish and chip. Of course, we use frozen oven baked chips and tinned mushy peas, but we fried fresh mackerel in a batter. The result? Wow…! My husband Andy, my son Jacques and I are now mackerel converts. I am not good at describing taste, but it was so delicious, scrumptious, lovely!

There is more to this: the price for one kilo of mackerel was about £2.50 while the price of one portion of cod/haddock is over £3. If we go to the chippy and bought three fish, we would have to pay about £10 – not included the chips and mushy peas.

We are very pleased for our mackerel converts. I don’t think we’ll ever buy cod from the chippy again.

For this Mackerel & Chips, we used Hugh’s beer batter recipe to dip the fish into: http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/beer_battered_fish_p_1.html

Other fish dish that we have done in the past is the classic Kedgeree (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/11/allegra-mcevedy-kipper-kedgeree). Instead of Kipper or Haddock, we used mackerel – either fresh or smoked. They are delicious!

Next entry, I will be sharing some spicy Indonesian-style fish dishes that can use any kind of fish. In Indonesia we are not too fussy about the type of fish and about bones. There is even a special “fish head curry” that people from Sumatra are crazy about. To cure everyone’s phobia of fish bones, here is a picture of my dad enjoying his fish until the last bit on the bones.