Spaghetti

The family from my church who normally hosts Wednesday night small group Bible study was out of town this week, so they asked me (Wednesday at 11 AM) if I would be willing to host it. I can host about 5 people comfortably in my house, so I asked another friend (and the only other white person in my Bible study) if we could host it together at her house which is much larger than mine. Hosting Bible study usually involves providing dinner as well. We had two options - we could go buy a bunch of pre-made food and serve it, or we could cook. We decided to do spaghetti. Indonesians wouldn't usually cook it, but it is served at most restaurants. We figured it would be something quick and easy to cook lots of and it wouldn't be completely foreign to our Indonesian friends.

So we went and bought all the necessary ingredients. My friend was in charge of the spaghetti and I got all the fixins for sides - an all organic salad + 2 loaves of french bread. I headed over to her house and we cooked everything up and had fun doing it! We even had time to make chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

My friend has a counter that separates the kitchen and dining room in her house, so we set all the food out with that. I set out bowls for the salad and plates for the spaghetti and bread. Along with the salad, I set out three dressings I had procured - thousand island, Italian, and French.

After everyone arrived (30 minutes late) and the food had been blessed, we started eating. A few people went through the line, dishing up their food, then heading into the dining room to sit. Then our friend Jon went. Jon is a bit of a food snob. He likes to cook, and he likes to critique things that others have cooked. Sometimes I make cookies to bring to Bible study, and he always suggests other ingredients I should add to the recipe that would make my cookies more delicious. So him being no stranger to food, I was completely shocked when he grabbed a plate, piled it with salad, dropped a bunch of spaghetti noodles in the middle of the pile, then topped it all off with a generous helping of spaghetti sauce. Rudy, who had never eaten spaghetti before was in line behind Jon and started to do the exact same thing, assuming that Jon knew how to eat this food. So I quickly explained to Rudy that spaghetti is typically not eaten on TOP of a salad, but so as to not embarrass Jon, I added that he could try it that way if he liked because maybe it is more delicious and I just don't know it. He decided to use a bowl for salad and a plate for spaghetti. By then, Jon was complaining that the spaghetti was not spicy enough - it needed a kick. So I found some hot sauce, which he promptly doused his plate of spaghetti salad with. I turned from Jon to find Rudy sniffing all the salad dressings one by one to find which one was spiciest. He settled on Italian and nearly drowned his salad in it.  I noticed a few others looking unsure about how to assemble their meal, so I made sure to help them. Jon came up for seconds, and this time he skipped the salad altogether and went straight for the spaghetti noodles. But this time, he poured French dressing and hot sauce all over them - no sauce necessary.

I heard gagging noises and turned to see Rudy coughing and rubbing his throat and asking what is in that salad dressing. Apparently it was too "asin" (salty) for his taste, so he added hot sauce to water it down.

It was somewhere around that point that I just gave up and sat down to eat my own salad and spaghetti. I couldn't believe the things they were eating! And how could anyone not know how to eat spaghetti and a salad?! But then I thought of all the times I've been ushered to the front of a food line only to feel sheepish because I have no idea what goes with what and what the proper way to eat what is set before me is.

I'm sure that there have been times when Indonesians have thought the same thing about me that I thought of my guests. But I think if I host Bible study again, I'll serve fried rice.