A Holiday in the Homeland

Good things about being back in New Zealand:

cheese
chocolate milk
the supermarket
seeing family and friends
being on holiday

Bad things about being back in New Zealand:

it's COLD
I'm allergic to the cat and sneeze a lot
I'll probably get fat from so much cheese
it's COLD

Making OJ

My mum grow LOTS of fruit. It's awesome, I love going to visit and eating all the fruit... feijoas, passionfruit, strawberries, macademia nuts, tomatoes, persimmons, figs, all kinds of citrus.... yum.

Anyway, last time I visited it was well and truly citrus season. I think the fruit we used here was actually grapefruit and tangelo. We gathered up a big bucketful and set to work. Mum has an electric citrus juicer so it wasn't actually that much hard work, but I did have to wash all the fruit, and cut it, and hold it on the juicer while it did it's thing so it was rather time consuming. And I had to fish a few pips out of the juice.

Anyway, writing about juicing is not really very interesting! But I'm out of practice and I really like the photos so I've done it anyway! Hopefully my next offering will be somewhat more exciting :-P

Seaside Delights

Head Lobster!! This is probably the biggest food-risk I've ever taken (in terms of food poisoning risk!) When you are trying to relax on Serendipity Beach in Sihanoukville there are about a million kind people offering goods and/or services. Food, drink, beauty treatments, books, friendship bracelets, and then the beggars who just want money, and aren't offering anything in return.

Well, I was on holiday so I couldn't resist buying a few treats to make my beach visit even more enjoyable. My favourite was the fresh lobster that several ladies were carrying around in baskets on their heads... (in the 20 degree heat...) but it must have been FRESH because not only was it delicious, served with fresh lime, salt and pepper, but none of us got sick from eating it (phew).

I also enjoyed fresh pineapple, and the clever way it was cut to remove all of the spikey bits, and still look fancy. I wish I had a photo but I don't.

This is another beachy treat.. barbequed octopus. Tasty but a little too octopussy shaped for my liking.

And this is a truly delicious meal I enjoyed on one of the islands. It was included in a boat day trip and snorkelling, the trip was super cheap and super fun, and eating freshly bbq'd fish on the beach of an island was pretty much amazing :)

A Goodbye Feast

BIG cola

On my last day in Siem Reap my students organised a farewell party for me. It was awesome. I really appreciated the enthusiasm of the students even though it was pouring with rain and we had to alter the original plan. To eat they brought a plastic shopping bag of cooked rice, several grilled chickens, litres land litres of cola, and the very interesting 'prahok', commonly known as Cambodian fish cheese. It actually has nothing to do with cheese, but everthing to do with fish... it is salted and fermented fish paste. Yup, it tastes as good as it sounds! :P

That's the fish-cheese in the top left corner

The chicken is actually pretty tasty though, I look forward to eating it when I get back to Cambodia. They (very kindly) provided me with a fork and a spoon for eating the rice, but then went on to tell me that I wasn't allowed to use them! I didn't mind though, I like eating with my hands.

Rude Icecream

This is a cookie crunch sundae from NYDC in Siem Reap... Or for those with a dirty mind, boob icecream.

Here is a really terrible dirty icecream joke: (I wanted to find a good icecream joke, but it seems there aren't any )

A penguin is driving thru Nevada. His car breaks down in a small town off the highway. The Penguin stops in at a body shop.

Mechanic " well it's going to take an hour for me to figure out the problem, take a look around the town and come back in about an hour"

Penguin " Ok"

He walks around the town, and notices it is real blistering hot out. Walking along he discovers and ice cream shop. He stops in and orders a large bowl of vanilla ice cream. His flippers are unable to hold the fork, so he just starts shoveling ice cream into his mouth. He makes an enormous mess.

He heads back to the body shop and the mechanic turns to him and says

" looks like you blew a seal"

Penguin " NO it's just ice cream" !

Ha ha ha. Actually no, I'm sorry.

  

Cambodian BBQ

This is Cambodian BBQ... it is one of my favourite meals ever.

You get served up a plate of raw vegies, some raw meat of your choice, some dipping sauce, and a selection of noodles. You also get a gas cooker, a pan for cooking it in, and some stock.

The first time, when all this stuff got put in front of us, I had no idea what we were supposed to do. But now I'm a pro :)

The pan is shaped similar to a manual citrus juicer. On the lumpy bit in the middle you put the sliced meat. In the dish around the perimeter you put some stock. In the stock you cook the vegies and noodles.

 

YUM!

My Bicycle

 

This is my bicycle. I love it. It's funny that I love it, I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was nine, and I only did it then because I realised I was the only kid I knew who couldn't ride a bike and I was embarrassed. Once I finally learned how I dodn't particularly like it much, I was worried about falling of, thought I looked like a dork with a helmet on.
I discovered my new love for bikes while in Cambodia where everyone rides a bike. I was too terrified of the traffic to actually go anywhere by bike but I spent many evenings on a quiet street having a go on a friend's bike and finding it to be fantastic!

This is me having a go on a particularly cool bike on the backstreets of Siem Reap.

 This is Gayl's bike. It's pretty cool too. We got our bikes from CERES Bike Shed in Brunswick. It's this really cool operation where they collect heaps of old bikes through donations and you can go and fix yourself up a bike for a very reasonable price (Gayl and I paid $35 each for our bikes) and for $5 you can become a member and go and use their tools for free.

http://www.thebikeshed.org.au/ 

 

They're so cute together! :)

Anyway, I was inspired to write about my wonderful bike today because she is unwell, one of the pedals has come loose, which essentially means I can only pedal with one foot. I am a little concerned about getting one mega-muscly bike leg.

I think it is fixable, the only problem is finding time to get down to the bike shed to suss out a new part and get some help fixing it, the Shed is only open Fri, Sat, Sun, and at the moment I keep on working on those days.

Well, wish me luck with getting her fixed, and I'll update with the progress ( even though I'm pretty sure no-one is actually interested :-P)

That weird feeling on the roof of your mouth...

Banana is my least favourite food in the whole world. I'm quite unhappy about that, I really WANT to like banana, it's such a convenient fruit, naturally packaged, filling, healthy, versatile...

But I think it tastes awful. And feels disgusting in your mouth. (food texture is very important)

Apparently you can train yourself to like foods. I keep meaning to try out the theory, but I just can't bring myself to spend money on yucky old bananas.

Anyway, if there is one thing worse than eating a banana (the traditional way), it's eating green banana with the skin still on. The skin just sucks all the moisture out of your mouth which is a very bizarre feeling.

Happy Pizza

This is happy pizza. But the green stuff you can see on top is spinach. Yuck, wayyy too much spinach.
It was dinnertime, we got pizza, I was hungry, I ate lots, and then I was high to the point of being unable to move or speak. It was an experience that I guess I'm glad I had, but I don't plan on repeating!
(this particular pizza place actually made really nice drug-free pizzas which I did eat several times)

Presentation is Key

This is my dinner IN A COCONUT! It's amok, a traditional Khmer dish with an awesome name.
(it didn't actually taste very exciting, but gets a lot of points for presentation!)

The Joys of Insects

And here is the sequal to ant-candy..... Ant rice!!!

Nothing like a bit of extra protein, not to mention the lovely flavour and texture that the addition of ants will bring to your meal...

making palm sugar!

This is part of a very interesting process to create palm sugar from palm sap. The sap has to be boiled and thickened, we got to taste it when it was the consistency of fudge, and it was as sweet and delicious.

The little old ladies stirring the sap were intrigued and entertained by my white calves and ankles, they were grabbing on to them and cackling away.

it's not vomit...

oh no! my noodles ended up on the floor :(

Milky, Murky, Toxic.

 

 Personalised cocktails. At $2 apiece. What more could you possibly ask for? And the perfect rememdy to a stressful week of ESL teaching. Not to mention refreshing in the Siem Reap heat... just look at the condensation on the glasses.

Friday nights at the Crazy Bamboo bar, that has to be my favourite time and place in the whole world :)

Thai Treats

 

this is a DELICIOUS meal I had at May Kaidees in Bangkok, Thailand. I forget exactly what it was, I think maybe the panang curry. But maybe not. Anyway, it was SOOO tasty, and it was served in a banana leaf bowl! I'm a sucker for food served creatively.

An interesting fact I learnt while eating this meal: In Thailand brown rice is considered almost unfit for human consumption, to be fed to dogs and prisoners!

May Kaidees is a chain of vegetarian restaurants in Thailand offering flavoursome and healthy vegetarian and vegan dishes, started by May, who started out as a poor village girl, catching frogs for her family's dinner. She was offered and opportunity to work as a dishwasher for her aunt in Bangkok and is now a successful businesswoman with 4 restaurants bearing her name!

If you would like to know more, here is the website : 

http://www.maykaidee.com/who-is-may-kaidee

Ant Candy!

 

While in Siem Reap I bought myself a bag of lollies as a special treat. I was super well-behaved and self-controlled and didn't eat them all at once, but put some away in my drawer as a treat for another day...

(and I'm not silly, I did fasten the top of a bag with a rubber band)

BUT the next day I decided to reward myself with a treat, I open my drawer, take out the bag of lollies, go to put my hand in to take one, AND THEN see that the bag is full of a million ants. No treat for me :( plenty of treats for the sneaky little ants!

Delicious Dumplings

I love dumplings. Chinese dumplings, Japanese dumplings, English dumplings.... you get the idea!
I recently tried Russian dumplings, and they were good too!
Sooo last timre I visited Mum we had a go at making them. I THINK that Japanese dumplings are me favourite (otherwise known as gyoza).
We used this recipe....
http://visualrecipes.com/recipe-details/recipe_id/88/Gyoza-%28Japanese-Dumplings%29/

We even made the wrappers from scratch!!! wow!!
Anyway... they were delicious and definitely worth the effort :)

Two for Tea and Tea for Two

I love tea. I especially love to share a pot of tea with someone. In the sunshine. This is the remains of tea for two and a BROWNIE from Ironic Cafe in Dunedin, NZ. It was at least 6 months ago now, but from what I remember it was a delicious brownie and I shared a pot of Earl Grey with my friend Andrea.