As COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, we’ve been able to have some of Ming Ramy’s delightful Khmer food for the first time since early February. We did try our hand at making Khmer food more than a few times during the lockdown but, aside from my Pork stuffed Bitter Melon, we still have a ways…
Tag: Food
New Office Cook – Ramy
The MCC Cambodia office will be reopening for fully vaccinated staff starting next month. That means that I can finally make a personnel announcement that I’ve been holding on to since last year. This is probably of more interest to MCC Cambodia alumni than to other readers. Many alumni have fond memories of So Sopheap,…
Sundried Fish
Last week, Charlotte and I walked out to buy some vegetable and fruit from a local stall. On the way we stopped to look at some cleaned and sliced fish that had been set out to dry in the sun. Since Charlotte found it interesting I thought that you might as well. I’ll see if…
ផ្លែស្វាយ | Mango
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… Ripe mangoes from the Cambodian countryside have started to show up in the market! I was fairly ambivalent to mangoes before traveling to Việt Nam in University. That’s when I discovered that the mangoes that I’d been eating in North America were poor representatives of their species….
Christmas Duck Disaster
We had the YAMEN participants over for Christmas day dinner. We have two volunteers from Kenya and one from Indonesia. I had planned to roast duck (my first) for dinner…but it did not go so well. As I roasted two ducks for dinner one of them began to emit a putrid stench. This became worse…
First Vacation to Kep
We had our first family vacation since joining MCC last week. It was great to get away from the city and be alone together as a family. Kep is a southern province on the border with Vietnam. It was a popular French resort town during the colonial period. There are many gutted and abandoned villas…
Baking Christmas Cookies
There’s a well deserved (but not universally true) stereotype that Mennonites enjoy baking. So, perhaps it’s not too surprising that MCC Cambodia has for many years owned two small gas ovens. I’m not sure of their origins but I know that they are the only household ovens that I’ve seen in Cambodia. All that to…
ផ្លែខ្នុរ | Jackfruit
For the North American readers, have you ever chewed Juicy Fruit gum? Did you ever wonder what the juicy fruit was? It’s Jackfruit – which isn’t that juicy but which has a sticky resin. We have a small Jackfruit tree at the office that recently had some ripe fruits. The office day guard – who…
37th Birthday
I turned thirty seven this week. Crystal baked my traditional birthday cake – Jewish Apple Cake – to celebrate and even found a place that sells hoagies in Phnom Penh. The Jewish Apple Cake was wonderful and the staff were quite impressed by Crystal’s baking skills! During my last term it was next to impossible…
What are you having for Breakfast?
Yesterday, I asked the girls what they were having for breakfast. They were sharing rice and pork, a typical breakfast meal here that I’ll share a bit more about later.