25th March (2020)

 

25th March

Today I eat breakfast of Kellogg's Cornflakes with milk and two sugar cubes, in my room, instead of roaming the streets. The cubed sugar was a mistake, I admit. But I bought it as it is so easy to add to tea or coffee. Not so handy on cornflakes, however, with practice I have devised a method of melting those cubes. When I discovered that the sugar cubes were difficult to crush, I decided to put them on top of the cornflakes in the Dong Jin white bowl that I found in the room. Then I squeeze the 200ml tetra pack of Australian  (Cowhead pure) milk onto each of the cubes. It is enough for them to dissolve. After breakfast I gather herbs and spices from Thai Huot Market, totalling $14.95. With the pork and paying for my washing ($2) today I have spent $21.95.

I am cooking lunch for those at Colors of Cambodia. I wanted to let them try Pork Adobo, a dish from the Philippines. Some say that Adobo, as a style of cooking, is ancient, and has been adapted of the years from a vinegar and salt dish to being a soya sauce and white vinegar dish. That combination not only gives flavour, but is also a preservative.

Filipino vinegar is wonderful, but sadly I cannot get it in Siem Reap, nor annatto seeds for colour. Instead I add whole garlic, dried chilli, bay leaves, star anise, whole black peppers and sugar to the pot (to offset the vinegar and soya sauce), and let the whole thing simmer and reduce for about 2 hours, to become thick. This we shall have with rice. Thank you Phany for helping me buy the pork which looks very fresh. If I bought it, I would pay skin tax ($7per kilo in supermarket, $5 per kilo at the Old Market).

I am sitting in the Colors of Cambodia gallery, waiting to attend to the pork, and looking out through the thick glass doors. I see a woman wrapped in clothes that perhaps were once colourful, but now look as they need a good wash. Momentarily she looks as if she is just passing by, but stops. Quickly she bends down, and scoops up the Char Kway (meant for the spirits) and eats it quickly. This is followed by her drinking the liquid also meant for the spirits then, before I could really register what is happening, she is on her way. She moved deftly, as though she were an eddy of wind swirling on the pavement. Perhaps she is a spirit. Perhaps all street people are really spirits.

I am relishing my time, in fact my first time, cooking in Siem Reap. Finally I feel useful again. Cooking for other people not only acts as a form of meditation, but also connects us together. It is a form of Dāna (Pali language) of giving (freely, with no expectation), of giving back to society/mankind in a small, but meaningful, way.

The dish is cooked. Phany too has cooked, rice in the rice cooker, and prepared chicken and vegetables too. As Phany has fetched her sister, we sit down, a group of five, to eat. The whole thing is a most satisfying experience. A Colors of Cambodia family, in my mind there is a call for John Boy.?