Birthday dinner at Armando’s

I was invited today to a birthday dinner at the house of one of our directors (they head up the two units of SEPI and sit directly below the Secretary of State). I share an office with Armando (and three others), so I have had the pleasure of getting to know him a bit. He’s an ex-brother, like my counterpart (they went through the Salesians religious order training together).

Dinner was lovely and it was the first time I’ve been invited to a Timorese person’s house for a meal, which was a nice feeling.

Something about Timorese food has finally clicked for me, though. When you go travelling, one of the basic things that you get warned about with food is ‘don’t eat any hot food that’s been left to sit at room temperature’. Well, that gets a bit tricky when people in the country you’re in leave hot food to sit out for hours *on purpose*. I don’t know why, but they seem to think it’s best to eat cooked food at room temperature. Maybe it's similar to the Chinese idea of not eating food that is too hot or too cold?