It is a shame that there are so few Indonesian restaurants in North America, as it is a delicious cuisine. As I was growing up, we had many Dutch friends, and so got to sample a lot of Indonesian cuisine. My dad, when he traveled to the Netherlands for business, would always go for rijstaffel, and I have introduced many friends travelling there to its wonders. We really need an Indonesian cookbook to rock the cooking world -- still waiting for that to happen!

I am 5 years late here. I am an indonesia. And i love indobesian food so much. I xan share some great recipes if u would like to contact me. Otherwise heinz von holzen book called bali unveilled has really delicious food,eventhough only focusing in bali cuisine. Indobesian best region cuisine is padang food, east java food, menado food, central java food, madura food and batak food. Rick stein far eastern odyssey also includes some great i donesian food

also, i would ask him what he would suggest and then look it up on youtube. don't forget this invaluable resource. you can put in the search something like "indonesian pork grilled recipe" and you can sort them by number of views to see which might be the most useful. i always look at several however. i hope the ingredients are available.

I really enjoyed "Indonesian Cooking" by Dina Yuen.

http://indonesiancookbook.com

Alford and Duguid (sp?)

Kristen's suggestion of James Oseland's book is very good. One of the real strengths of the book is the amount of cultural context he provides for the recipes, potentially helping you avoid the kind of funny situation that might arise with your father-in-law that would be comparable to his proudly serving you french toast as the main course at dinner.

Another author who has written a number of strong books about Indonesian food is Sri Owen, a Sumata-born writer whose recipes are always accompanied by a lot of very enlightening detail. Her newest book is "The Indonesian Kitchen," which is handsomely photographed and meticulously written. There's even a chapter on common techniques, such as steaming in banana leaves and pan frying.

I recommend the web site Rasa Malaysia for Easy Asian recipes. She specializes in Indonesian, Singaporean & Malyasian recipes.
http://rasamalaysia.com/

Though admittedly I've only cooked one recipe from it (a delicious chicken satay), I'd recommend James Oseland's Cradle of Flavor, which covers Indonesia, Singapore & Malaysia. It's written with lots of visual cues and other helpful descriptions to make unfamiliar cooking techniques & ingredients easy to work with: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393054772/