Cooking

Since I left home in September, I have not had a chance to get in the kitchen and I have been sorely missing one of my favorite activities, cooking. Now that I am with my friend in his condo I have access to a kitchen and I have enjoyed making coffee and toast in the mornings. Last night I decided to try my hand at "amok", the coconut based Cambodian food I learned about in my cooking class back in Siem Reap several weeks ago.
With Adil's help at the market, we rounded up everything we needed: lemon grass, ginger, tumeric root (who knew it does not just come ground up in a little jar from McCormick?), kaffir lime leaf, coconut cream, shrimp paste, fish sauce, chicken and rice. There was a lot of chopping when we got home, but cook time was brief and the result was quite tasty. It was so good, in fact, that we decided to make the same thing tonight. How fun to be back in the kitchen!

Kuala Lumpur

Telecom Tower in Kuala Lumpur, said to be modeled after a bamboo shoot.
The old train depot in KL, a lovely colonial Moorish building

Eating at The Banana Leaf

Having been in Kuala Lumpur earlier this year, I have seen most of the top tourist attractions such as Petronas Towers and Chinatown. I am enjoying relaxing in a homey environment and being less a traveler for a spell. As I mentioned before my friend Adil Razali lives here and has hospitably opened his home to me. I am so lucky to have a local show me around, especially when it comes to eating and shopping, two activities which have taken up a lot of my time here. I have had to buy the second bag in as many weeks after my trusty old duffel I have used for years began to fall apart back in Phnom Penh. I bought a cheap suitcase on wheels which began breaking here and there almost immediately, so yesterday i went to a mall in KL and bought an expensive but excellent wheeled duffel/back pack. (After what I spent on the bag it better last me a long, long time.)

In the picture above, Adil and I are having lunch in KL at The Banana Leaf Restaurant. The delicious food is on banana leaves, not plates, and the utensils are your fingers. Too bad for dishwashers seeking work!

Kuala Lumpur is a beautiful city with a lot of stunning architecture, colonial and very modern. The original Malay population slightly outnumbers Chinese and Indian who came here during the British colonial days. There is some racial conflict but mostly everyone seems to coexist rather well.

Chistmas 2010

This was Christmas Dinner. Good as it was I missed the turkey and other stuff at the Renfroes.

I spent Christmas day traveling from Koh Phangan in Thailand to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was expectedly different from any Christmas before. I had a pick up at my place on the island at 0630 and then went to the ferry to the mainland. There I met a South African couple also headed for KL and I enjoyed discussing Christmas traditions with them as we journeyed to Hat Yai, Thailand, near the Malay border. I had a couple of hour layover in Hat Yai and I was sorry that I was not stopping there. It looked like a very lively town and probably would have been an enjoyable place to finish Christmas day in Asia.

However, I had booked a ticket through to Kuala Lumpur and I was pleased when I boarded the most comfy bus so far this trip for the onward journey. I arrived in KL at 5-ish in the morning and took a taxi to the house of my friend, Adil. That was Christmas, 2010.

Christmas Eve

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here. There are lighted trees and some people are sporting Santa hats, so I guess it really is Christmas, Eve. I know I need to get some photos in here and save 100's of words.
I will be travelling all day on Christmas to Kuala Lumpur so once again Merry Christmas to all.

XOXOXO

Christmas Card

Merry Chistmas

One Night in Bangkok

Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, one of the finest airports I know anywhere

I woke up early Sunday morning in Phnom Penh and called my friend in Ho Chi Minh City to see if he had recovered from a sore throat and was still planning to meet me in Phnom Penh. He was still sick so I hopped on the computer, checked flights to Bangkok, found a flight in exactly 2 hours, threw my things into my new suitcase (more on the suitcase later) and dashed to the airport to fly once again on good ole Thai Airways. I felt that I was embodying spontaneity and I liked it.

Now I am in Bangkok in the same hotel I discovered last time I passed through here, The Train Inn, which is just about 2 minutes from Hua Lumphong train station. Still in the mode of spontaneity, I began to plan the next step once here. I have a goal to be in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by 31 December, so I am heading south. I just booked a bus/ferry combo to Koh Phangan at the next door travel agency. Koh Phangan is an island near Surat Thani (for anyone looking at a map) and it is famous for its Full Moon Parties, one of which is tomorrow, December 21. These parties are quite famous and I had to book a hotel for a minimum of 4 days. That will put me out on the street (actually out on the beach) on Christmas Eve. I hope to have a plan by then.

Two More Food Stories

Yesterday I was wandering about the streets of Phnom Penh and I noticed a delicious smell emanating from one of the many sidewalk food vendors. Following my Pavlovian response to an enticing smell I stopped to investigate. It was a stir fry with a lot of veggies but I did not recognize one ingredient. It could have been a bean, it could have been a bean sprout, it could have been a short noodle., it could have been a worm. I was 99% sure it wasn't a worm because it just did not have a meaty texture, so I kept on eating and wondering. Had I thought it was a worm it would have been end of show. (I have my limits.)

Last night I had my first bout of traveler's stomach and as I was regretting what possible steps I could have taken to avoid the problem, it dawned upon me that what I had eaten looked a lot like the larvae you find when you turn over a log in the woods. Grossed out? The good news is I am feeling fine and whatever it was did not kill me. I hope it wasn't larvae but I guess I will never know.

Today I took a bus from Phnom Penh back to Kep on the coast of Cambodia. I had a ticket to go to Kampot, another 20 KM further, but when the bus stopped at this little seaside village I was intrigued and hopped off. That is where I am now.

After checking in to a guest house I wandered along the beach and selected one of the many waterside cafes for lunch where I ordered a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of crab and a bowl of rice all for $4. I really did not know how much a kilo of crab was but when I saw my order I was sure I had over-ordered. I picked and smacked crab for over an hour and I could not finish it all.

Kep was developed by the French as a resort and there are numerous abandoned villas built on the hill overlooking the sea. Because of the link with colonialism Kep was particularly despised by the Khmer Rouge consequently the villas and other remnants of that legacy were mostly destroyed. At the moment I am debating to stay here omorrow or go over to Rabbit Island.

Another Bizarro Event

I am writing this in the lobby of my hotel in Phnom Penh. A few minutes ago I was writing an email to my sister Rena and I was telling her that I am anticipating one of my few Christmases away from home and what to my wondering ear should I hear but "Jingle Bells" playing on the hotel background music. I get pretty sentimental about family and home at this time of year. Frosty the Snowman would not last long here. It is hot!

No News Good News

These are lotus roots and the seeds which are enclosed in the small round circles are popular snacks, not unlike peanuts. The lotus is considered the perfect plant because it rises from the water to produce a beautiful flower. A lot of Buddhist allegory is connected with the lotus.

This stretch of sand and rocks is the quarter mile road connecting the highway to the beach in Sihanoukville. There is a lot of pedestrian, motorbike and construction traffic. That is my hotel on the left. I have declared that this is the worst road I have seen anywhere in the world. The saving grace is that it leads to such a delightful beach.

So long since I have written and a lot to catch up. I have been moving around a bit so not always able to get on the internet. That's my story and I am sticking to it.

I left Siem Reap a week ago and headed for Phnom Penh where I met a friend from Viet Nam who had business here. We spent a couple of days in PP seeing sights including the horrific Toul Sleng Detention Center, the site of torture, interrogations and killings of thousands of Cambodians during the years of genocide when the Red Khmers ran things back in the 80's and 90's. It was the goal of the Khmer Rouge to eliminate everything from the past and begin a new agrarian culture. All lawyers, teachers, politicians were interrogated, tortured and eventually killed, as were their wives and children, the latter to prevent reprisals after the children were grown. It was madness and so inconsistent with the gentle nature of the Cambodians I have met. Visiting Toul Sleng is depressing but enlightening, not in a very good way, when you see how low humanity can fall. I hired a guide who gave a vivid and horrible description of what took place there. She was about 45 years old and explained that she was living with her family in PP when Pol Pot took power. There are photos on display of celebration in the streets of Phnom Penh as the people welcomed the KR and photos 3 hours later of firing squad executions on the same streets. As the Khmer Rouge took over the city, residents either joined the party or fled to the country. She left with her family and walked 30 days to the north. Even there they did not escape and her father and brother who were teachers were killed by the Khmer Rouge. She told this story very emotionlessly as have all Cambodians with whom I have discussed the bad old days. I guess it is a defense mechanism.

From PP I traveled south to Sihanoukville, a wonderful beach town 4 hours away. I spent my first night in a pretty awful hotel but moved the next day to a much nicer place with a great balcony and view. The room was on the fourth floor and that is a lot of steps to schlep a heavy bag. There are few elevators in this country, so a room with a view usually means a lot of steps. In Sihnaoukville I enjoyed a lot of really good food. At night the beach is lined with food hawkers and you can sit at a table a few feet from the water and wiggle your toes in the sand as you are eating your grilled red snapper.

Now I am back in Phnom Penh and I will stay here a few more days. The main reason I am staying is to have some dental work done. I had a temporary crown put in a few months ago in Viet Nam so I was fitted yesterday for a permanent. It should be ready in a couple of days so I will rest and relax here in Phnom Penh while I wait..

Three Food Stories

Mandarins

When I was in Vietnam a shop keeper gave me a tasty little fruit which I have been seeking ever since. Only upon arriving in Cambodia did some one call it a name I recognized. This is a mandarin which I have only had in little cans from Goya when it is on sale at Walgreeens 3 for a dollar. There is so little similarity between the taste of fresh and canned that I had not made the connection. It is kind of like the difference between canned and fresh asparagus. I wonder if Florida grows mandarins. If so I have never seen them.

Running Amok

Yesterday I took a cooking class at Temple Bar which is really more restaurant than bar, but a very popular tourist spot with good food, pool tables, a nightly Aspara dance show and also cooking school. If I have not stressed it before, Cambodian food is the best I know in Asia and I hope that I learned enough to recreate a few Khmer dishes in my own kitchen.

I was able to select three items from a list so I chose green mango salad because it sounds good, green pea desert because it sounds intriguing and amok because it is one of the best things I have ever eaten, moving into my top three foods ever, the other two being my sister Eve's ratatouille and my Argentine friend Monada's lasagna. The mango salad was mostly a matter of chopping (julianne) mango, carrot, onion and basil. The sauce is made of fish sauce, palm sugar, white sugar, salt chili, garlic and lime. The green pea desert is a soup ("Soup for desert?", you may ask.) The amok is made with coconut cream, fish, chicken or beef, eggs,onion, shallot and yummy spices. If anyone cares to take a chance on how I can cook this when I get home, let me know. I will need guinea pigs.

Dixie, Georgia

How does Dixie figure into one of my 3 food stories from Asia? A few weeks ago I was in Surin, Thailand, for their annual elephant roundup. During my afternoon siesta one day I was flipping through channels on the TV seeking something in English. I had a choice of tennis, football (theirs, not ours) or the Asian Food Network. I alternated between tennis and food until I was captured by a voice I heard on the Asian Food Network. Someone was speaking South Georgia English!!!!!!!! Completely on the opposite side of the world there on television was a TV chef named Lynn Crawford doing a show on barbeque from Dixie. My thoughts were how bizarre is this and what a small world. I enjoyed hearing some "non accented" English and I was as a little nostalgic seeing a place so close to home.