Sharing a Love of Street Food at Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) 2014

It took me by a complete surprise when Ibu Janet De Neefe offered the chance to participate in Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2014. I read her invitation email several times to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting her message, and I was so excited I don't think I've sent her a proper thank you yet!

To better explain the magnitude of Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF), it brings together no less than 150 writers from around Indonesia and 25 other countries, sharing their view on global issues, big ideas and extraordinary stories. With this magnitude, UWRF might be the most important annual International event in Ubud, hence feeling thrilled and dwarfed at the same time is a bit normal reaction I guess.

As a foodie, I find UWRF becomes even more interesting when it begun to incorporate culinary topics and workshops performing national renowned hosts like William Wongso, Bondan Winarno, and Chef Wan from our neighboring country Malaysia.

The Event

Representing Bali food bloggers, I will be doing a blogger sharing session on the first day of Kitchen Sessions, side by side with Ibu Amanda Katili Niode from Omar Niode Foundation.

Ibu Amanda herself is Chair of Omar Niode Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Indonesia working to raise awareness on the quality of education and human resources in the field of agriculture, food, and culinary arts. She's also Indonesia’s First Certified Culinary Travel Professional of The World Food Travel Association, as well as member of National Council on Climate Change, and Manager of The Climate Reality Project Indonesia. We've met before on one of the event she sponsored in Bali about creative cuisine and sustainable tourism.

As the topic, we settled on sharing our stories about Street Foods. Yes, those good ol' culinary treats you enjoy side by side with the bustling traffic!

Why does it matters? Because beside of its yummy and cheap price, they often act as the front runners in promoting the local cuisine culture, as well as becoming inseparable part of a traveling experience.

This feat will be in line with my contributions into the writing of Makansutra Indonesia 2013 Guide book last year, and series of article writings I've done for in-flight and food magazines outlining the beauty of Bali's street foods.

To accompany the street food experience, I will also bring variety of street food satays for the audience to sample.

Should you're in Ubud for the festival, don't forget to stop by. It's free and there's 20 seats only! (byms)

More information about The Kitchen Program.
More information about UWRF
More information about Omar Niode Foundation.

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