Source: Pinterest.

After 14 times of trying hard, I finally success in baking my own macarons. HAHAHA.
As silly as it seems, after the span of few years I tried to re-create recipes from Youtube, and failed. Finally successful when I went to baking class. It's not about the recipe, in fact they are pretty similar with the recipes I saw from Youtube, but I learnt some techniques from the class. The cookie should be dry enough before it's baked. This is the main problem that I had in my earlier attempts, also, different trials have different problems. So, glad, I finally found the secret of baking one. Mind you, it's really seriously finicky cookies, and you need to spent a lot of effort in making one, so I think 2 to 3 Dollars per piece is really because it's hard to make. The funny thing is, I don't really like this cookie because it's too sweet, it just looks cute (especially in pastel colors, or cartoony shapes).
 
Every time I failed in doing something, in the end I want to think that I will be able to do it, I just need to learn from the mistakes and try again. :)
 

Wow. It's end of the year. I literally just wrote 4 posts this year, talking about lazy.
Things that I'm grateful for:

1. It's been more than 8 months working from home, I'm grateful to have a new job just before covid hits. 
2. It's been more than 10 months of not travelling at all. I miss my family back home in Jakarta, also other holiday plans. Thank God for Whatsapp/Zoom, so we all can stay connected.
3. I dropped 3 kg, maybe because I can cook and prepare healthier food when at home, but now at a point of bored with home cooking and wanting to eat outside. (but regretted after, because it feels like food outside a lot of msg/salt/oil, and it makes my throat a bit itchy at times. Although, I also tried different dishes which are more complicated that what I normally do, such as, roast pork, seasoned pork ribs, rendang (which is the most time consuming ever), siomay Bandung with home cooked peanut sauce, bakmi ayam (chicken noodle), jajjangmyeon, mapo tofu, carrot cake, fried kwetiaw.  
4. Not drawing as much as I wanted to, feel that I have creative block. Sometimes I will draw Giphy stickers for holiday events and upload them. I have more than 510 million views and more, so grateful for this! 
5. I played a lot of games this year. Previous years, I would try not to play games so much, because sometimes it takes long time to play, and it makes me not focus on things that I should be working on. But this year, we stayed at home a lot, so, I bought a Nintendo Switch, animal crossing edition, plus the game. It's been one of my favorite game all time, and it's worth every penny. I've been playing this game since 20 March 2020, every single day. Ok, I missed one day or two at some point, but I'm still playing until now. Just 2 weeks ago, I bought a new game because it was on sale. Zelda, Link's awakening. It's RPG game, that I'm still playing leisurely, so no time target or anything, it's enjoyable to see cute graphics also to be able to solve puzzles. 
6. Spending more time with housemates.
7. Taking leave days on random time. Previously when taking time off, I would go back to Jkt, or going for holiday, these days, I would just go out and chill. Sometimes I'm also ok to be at home, I'm a homebody :).

So, looking forward for a better year, 2021. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. Hope everyone is safe, and happy. 

Went for a trial class in abc cooking school, this month they have special trial class, which is stumped by Santa. Basically a log cake. It's a 13 cm chiffon cake base with chocolate ganache and some fruits as decoration. It looks pretty also it tasted great, it's not too sweet and the cake itself is airy. Good recipe. I decided to register as a member and enrolled in 6 cake classes. More cakes to come!

I know it's already end of January already, I just have some time to update my blog. 

2020 has been harsh but:

1. I'm in Jakarta for Chinese New Year celebration, some chance of meeting with cousins and relatives.
2. Also, meeting my sister and baby niece.
3. I have some time off and I created set of GIFs for Chinese New Year. They are pretty popular! My friend one day asked if I created the GIFs because it looks like my drawing!  
4. Next plan: to work on recipe for contest, other recipes that I made recently, comics about work/management, recent stuff I found at botanic garden, a friend asked me to draw Lakhsmi (God of prosperity) - so, I thought I want to create famous Hindu Gods as well, and to work on GIFs for other special days. There are a lot of things I need to do to keep myself busy.

Until next post.

Theydrawandcook has a handpicked design challenge, it's about Global Cuisine, where we create a food illustration or illustrated recipe of favorite foods, flavors or dishes from around the world. I submitted three (2 is still pending as for today). Here's the one approved. 

Do you need a custom Christmas Card?  I'm opening commissions up to 15 Dec 2019. Samples and rules below. Contact for sending your request, or DM through my Instagram account.

Below are the samples

This is something that I drew few years ago, using pen and watercolor.

Second exhibition that I went to is Wonderland. It's more of interactive exhibition and it feels more interesting that floating utopias. Although I think some of this installation are dedicated for children, still it's very interesting to see one. Everybody was given a map, that you can plug in to a screen, and it will give you different stories of different views (Mad hatter or Alice or Heart Queen? - I can't remember). Sadly, I only found 1 screen where you can put the map. I'm not sure if I missed others though. The most interesting part, is when you put the map and take the picture of your face, you would see yourself as a card soldier on the screen. I think it's quite cute. The last one is an interactive video where everybody were seated as if they are in tea party. How do I feel about this? It's normal. Maybe because it's too short :). Here's some of the photos, and one video.

I went to this exhibition in Art and Science Museum in Marina Bay Sands. It's basically art installation with inflatable objects. You can say big, giant balloons in different shapes. The exhibition shows a lot of information on how different inflatable objects were used. Here's some of the photos in the exhibition