How can I possibly sum up a decade in one post? I can sure try!
After this wild year of travel and staging at the best restaurants in the Asia Pacific, I couldn’t shake off my life abroad so easily. I ended up going back to Indonesia and working with the first chef I staged with – Will Goldfarb. After one year at Room4Dessert, I stayed in Indonesia to explore and learn about the country’s ingredients and cuisine and founded Asli Food Project ft. Indonesia.
It was a beautiful year or so of exhaustive travel, meeting strangers and learning so much about Indonesia in general. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sustain myself financially so I headed back to the United States when I ran out of money to start all over again.
Over the past eight years, I finally worked my way to becoming a pastry chef – the goal I had when I started this whole journey! It was the achievement I had sought since the very beginning, but now…my priorities changed.
Along the way, when I thought about when I was most content with life, it was when I was in Indonesia, traveling to the most rugged parts of the country, using food as my icebreaker and showing those experiences to the world. So that became my new dream.
Now, I’m back at it. But this time, my destinations go beyond Indonesia (though I’ll go back one day!) and I’m capturing every single step of the way for you all to see. It’s definitely a new challenge at 42 years old, but I’m ready for it.
Come check out my adventures on my YouTube Channel @arealcrystal and subscribe! Thanks for following along all these years. I’m excited for the ones to come.
-C
