My full name is Raden Nganten Ina Kristyanti Mualim. My friends and family just call me Ina.  My family comes from the ancient Majapahit Kingdom, which continues to this day in the city of Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is located in the center of the Island of Java, one of 17,508 islands in the Indonesian archipelago. There are over 3500 distinct culinary menus from over 6000 different inhabited Indonesia islands, each with their own food culture.  Once Indonesia gained its independence in 1945, the sharing of these very different cuisines began to spread all over the massive archipelago.  

My grandmother, who was an amazing cook, enthusiastically started including all of these new and wonderful menu items into her cooking. When I was just a toddler, I would watch my grandmother cook the most delicious meals.   Her love of cooking rubbed off on me, and by the time I was 10 years old, I was eager for her to teach me.   The first task she gave me was making Sambal, Indonesian chili sauce.  I used a cobek, which is a traditional stone, to manually grind together the ingredients for the Sambal.   She said she would not teach me how to cook until I successfully made the Sambal.   Once I was able to make the sambal to her approval, she began to teach me how to cook.