Laksmi Pamuntjak

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 05/23/2008 5:37 PM  |  Firm Favourites

Two of Laksmi Pamuntjak’s great loves are food and writing, and so her ground-breaking Jakarta Good Food Guide series was a delicious marriage of convenience. After a four-year break, she released in March the fourth in the series, dishing on culinary hits and misses in everything from street food to fine dining. “Of course, it’s not just about the food, but also the social experience of it,” the mother of Nadia, 12, says. “The reviews took me to parts of Jakarta that I had never been before.” Laksmi is also an accomplished poet and is currently writing a novel set on Buru Island.

My cat Isabella Queen of Spain
All the love, beauty and trust in the world in one creature.

Red wine
Got to have it in the house. It’s the only thing that keeps me awake (and writing.) I’m also a lover of French wine bars, and, generally, of situations where people gather merrily around copious bottles of red wine (regardless of the outcome).

 

 

My iPod
My solitude, my “lifeline.” From Radiohead, The Blue Nile and Joni Mitchell to Madredeus, Arvo Pärt and Rachmaninoff (because there is something in me that is fiercely classical), and the requisite ethno lounge for when I want to chill.

Lemon and cut chillies
They enliven even the most banal and unappetizing food.

My humungous brown bag
So I can carry around as many as five to six books at a time and survive anything from an airplane hijack to being stranded on an island.

My double happiness key ring
A key ring is like having a body of feelings for both ends of the loop, and to have a double dose of happiness, you need to have someone special carry the same key ring.

 

My red exercise rope

Because when you go out and eat at 440 restaurants and have no time for the gym, this is your only defense against saggy arms and flabby tummy!

20^th century Modern art

I have particular soft spots for Picasso, Max Beckmann and Yves Tanguy — because they are ultimately about “ways of seeing,” and Louise Bourgeois — by no means an artist without flaws, but there’s something about her notion of “rooms” as spaces both of confinement and of imaginary worlds that speaks to my inner child.

One poem a day
The best antidote to stress. Currently been going back to Neruda and Wallace Stevens, and absolutely loving Jessica Fisher and Nirwan Dewanto’s new poems.

 

Movie nights at home
Nothing like them. Latest loves include Europa by Lars von Trier, for its rich and strange hypnotic ability to transport us into a subconscious dream-reality, and Wim Wenders’ Lisbon Story, for its endearing unaffectedness and that magical fado scene.

+Bruce Emond
Photos: Adi Wahono

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