Wednesdays = Cooking Class!

"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers." - Laurie Colwin

"Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need." - Julia Child

Carrying on from previous volunteers, to keep continuity, and because we thought it was a great idea and the kids love it; we do cooking classes on Wednesdays.  We cook a variety of dishes and sometimes the kids are unsure of the ingredients to start with.  With pesto pasta they smelled the jar of pesto and thought it was horrible, but once they cooked and tried it they all loved it! It was good to introduce them to new ingredients.  

We write a recipe with ingredients and a method out for them and they all have to copy it which is a long process in itself!  Some of them struggle so much just copying the letters and words I feel sorry for them as I can see how difficult they find it, but how hard they are trying.  With the kids who find it most difficult and who are always last to finish we have to sit next to them and help with the letters.  A couple of them seem almost dyslexic mixing d's and b's and still doing it even when you correct them.  I have since highlighted to the directors children who I feel need eye tests. 

After the (boring) writing of the recipe comes the fun part... COOKING! 

Below is a list of the things we made each week.  Some of the ingredients like honey or chocolate we had to buy in Phnom Penh city, but most ingredients could be bought cheap at the local market.

1. Pesto pasta
2. Spanish omelette
3. Chocolate cornflake nests
4. Fruit salad with yogurt and honey
5. Tomato pasta
6. Thai green curry
7. Pancakes

All set up for cooking prep

Chopping the onion - requires concentration!

They work in pairs and take it in turns to chop!

Helping in the kitchen...

Writing the recipe...

Working hard!

The best part... EATING! 

Fruit salad day

Dragon Fruit is a new one for me, but so sweet and tasty!

Pineapple telephone!

Yum!

Eating is a messy business!

"Smile!"

Eating the finished fruit salad

On my last week at the orphanage we compiled all the kids' recipes and made their very own recipe books - they each designed their own front cover.  It was a success although they all wanted to be cooking again! 

A Traditional Cambodian Market: Kompong Speu Province.

In the Kompong Speu province the orphanage is situated in the village of Treng Trayeung - it has a local market where you can get just about anything done from sewing, to hair washing, nails painted, and of course buy local produce and clothing as well as visit my favourite little coffee shop!

I still remember my very first visit to the market - I think it's impossible to forget! - the smell, well, stench of meat, rubbish and all sorts of foods.  There's flies everywhere, and the ladies perch on their stalls with sticks and plastic bags tied to the end of them swatting the flies away (a somewhat futile task, but they persist anyway.)

However, once you get used to it, you can actually see a very interesting and colourful array of foods; including herbs, spices, lentils, meats, fish, eggs, rice, corn plus a whole host of other foods a lot of which I had no idea what they were!

There's also local dishes pre-made and ready to take away and eat; things like curries, fish stews, rice pancakes with beansprouts and warm corn on the cob.  One of the Khmer 'delicacies' which as a Westerner I found difficult to even look at is Balut; a fertilized egg.  In Cambodia it's eaten as a street food just with a little salt and lime!

Vegetable stall

The chicken's which look like rubber dog toys!

Rooster tied to a stall

Fish parts in a bucket...

More chicken parts

The fruit stall where I bought bananas for breakfast

The green spiky fruit is a Durian and they smell so bad hotels have signs saying 'No Durian Allowed'

Shrimp and cockle buckets

Cutting the fish

Hairdressers

I never did find out what these squares are that look like soap - lard maybe?

The vegetable stall I always went to - the lady here loved giving me lots of free chilli's and spring onions! 

Coconut's

Lots of spices and grains, also the black fermented eggs!

More spices, lentils and garlic.

The good eggs I used for making omelette's!

The day the rotisserie chicken's came! So delicious!

Grilled fish

The rotisserie chickens

Mushrooms

More lentils, beans and spices!

Sticky coconut dessert treats the kids loved!

Chickens tied and awaiting their fate...

Colourful Spices!

No part of the animal goes to waste in Khmer culture.

Chopping the pig trotters!

All parts of the cow

Took a strong stomach to take this photo!

Khmer lady at the meat stall. 

Golden Money Tree at the market.

Back to the Coffee Shop...

After shopping at the local market, it's always nice to head to the little oasis among the mayhem which is the coffee house - despite Treng Trayeung being a very poor rural village the family who own the coffee house were always so generous with us: giving us free coffee's and tea (or iced tea if we asked) and one day the mother even cut us up an unripe mango (this is the way the Khmer eat Mango) with salt sugar chilli dip. 

Iced coffee with sweet milk

Cute pot of loose leaf tea

The whole coffee shop family!

The daughter and little brother

I will definitely miss my morning trips to the local market; there was always something new and interesting to discover.  For these local Khmer people of Treng Trayeung this market is where they grow up, where they play, where they learn the skills from their parents and finally where they will take over the market stall from them.  Most children of the families in the market will live here all their lives carrying on the business.  I'm glad I got to experience a local market and ultimately grow to really like it.