Food Market and Cooking Class



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Spice Girls - Naomi and Stephanie



At the market to select ingredients

Boy finally gets a bike

  We had to be up early today and on the bus early to hit the village market with Socheat's husband, Porum. He is a trained cordon blue chef! We followed him around the various streets and alleys and watched as he bought vegetables and fruits, spices, fresh chicken, flopping fish and...frogs! We all helped carry the supplies. At one point, I was surrounded by fresh meat, including a pig's head complete with eyeballs and  ladies who were cooking donuts over a charcoal fire. It was stifling and overwhelming and I had to make a quick exit to find some "fresh air". Once Porum had completed his purchases, we walked a short distance and down a little lane to a house that Pauline rents for $60 per month. Pauline is an Australian lady who works with Lisa at Banyon Learning Centre. Porum gave us all jobs to use our purchases to make our lunch. Ron roasted peanuts, Peter cooked eggplants over a charcoal grill, Linda, Dave and Jan were in the spice preparation area, many people chopped all assortment of fresh fruit and vegetables, Susan chopped limes and Donna and Walter had the best jobs...Walter cleaned the fish and Donna, the biology teacher, cleaned the frogs! Lunch consisted of a cabbage salad with shredded chicken and khmer lime dressing, fried pumpkin, eggplant, fish soup with tomatoes and pineapple that everyone raved about, and curried froglegs - yum! Linda was the most unadventurous one and stuck to rice and pumpkin. After the lunch and cleanup, we walked out to the bus for a short ride back to the school to give away 11 bicycles.  Everyone was really happy to see the little boy with the Cambodian t shirt who didn't get a bike yesterday finally get a bike today! A few of us had tears over that one. On the way back to the guesthouse we stopped for a great supply of Asian WD 40. It was called RP 40 and WD 80. We also had our usual ice cream stop. Some went out on a river boat ride and I will let Dave fill you in on that wild ride! Posted by Linda