The thought of cooking in college can seem overwhelming, with little time to make small amounts of food, let alone an entire meal. For many global students, this includes the added longing for food from their home country. Melissa Sugeng, freshman philosophy major, grew up in Indonesia and has had this experience.

LONGING TO WRITE

Sugeng worked to solve the longing by writing her own cookbook filled with Indonesian recipes, all made with ingredients from common stores. The idea formed out of a required project in her sophomore year of high school.

“I wanted to make a cookbook that is beneficial for Indonesian students who go to college abroad and [do] not have the time, ingredients and budget to make a normal Indonesian dish which usually [requires] a lot of spices and [uses] slow cooking techniques,” Sugeng said.

Sugeng ended up writing and publishing “The College Cookbook.” The summer after her graduation, Sugeng intentionally started the project again and documented her progress on a blog called Indonesian College Cookbook Project.

“I first did a survey to a lot of Indonesian students around the world … to make them rate the recipes that they missed the most, and from that survey I [got] the statistics of what recipes they [wanted] the most,” Sugeng said.

COMPLETING THE SURVEY

When Sugeng completed the survey, she began working on the 29 most popular recipes to put in her new cookbook, with the goal of making each recipe on a low budget with easily accessible ingredients.

“I did a lot of experiments back home, so during the summer I [cooked] every Tuesday and [invited] friends to come over, and there [were] always different group of friends to insure fair testing,” Sugeng said.

Each Tuesday, Sugeng’s friends tasted and commented on her food. If the recipe worked, then it would be added to the new cookbook and if not the recipe would be modified. One of the dishes, called sate, is normally cooked on a barbeque but instead Sugeng pan sears the chicken for only five minutes.

In her first semester at Biola, Sugeng tested the recipes as a college student and bought only ingredients from Walmart.

“I used to live in Stewart last semester, so I cook there a couple of times and I made the kitchen … smell like Indonesian food,” Sugeng said.

REVISED EDITION

During interterm, Sugeng used the revised edition of her cookbook, called “Rasa Rumah,” to pitch the idea to Indonesian publishers. One of the publishers accepted her offer and Sugeng continues to work with them. The book is currently in the beginning stages and a publishing date has yet to be made.

With the cookbook Sugeng hopes to alleviate the issue of students not having the time, money or ingredients to cook Indonesian food.

“I want to try solve [the] issue and teach Indonesian students to cook Indonesian food no matter where they are and no matter what kind of resources they have,” Sugeng said.