How to Recognize Snakefruit, Transport Piglets, and Catch Crickets: Food in Cambodia

Traveling helps me realize how much I don't know.  Here are a few food-related sights and sounds that were new to me in Cambodia.

FRUIT

Just me and some local "durian" fruit.  It's heavy.

DRAGON FRUIT.  The inside is polka-dotted

Dragon fruit on the outside

See the polka dots!  Fruit salad for breakfast every morning.  

My mouth is watering just writing about the mangos!  Delicious.

Snake fruit - scaly on the outside; sweet on the inside

Before cutting

After cutting

The biggest grapes I have ever seen!

CARBS:  Rice and Noodles

Just one example:  rice sweetened with coconut milk and a few red beans.  Cooked in a piece of bamboo.  Yummy!

 Bought at a road-side stand for  50-cents (USD)

PROTEIN

Fresh eel at the market

Eggs for sale

Luckily for us, we visited Cambodia during cricket season:

Fried crickets and beetles.  Remove legs and wings, head optional.  Taste like potato chips.  

One dollar's worth of friend crickets.

This is how Khmer people catch crickets:

There are certain leprechaun-loving Miller cousins that might enjoy setting up these kinds of traps.  

The white pole attached to the vertical plastic is a light.  The light attracts the crickets at night.  The crickets hit the vertical plastic and fall into the water on the ground.  Crickets are trapped in the water.

chicken - organic and local

frog legs

Pleasurable moment, food-related:  during Relief Society, the women spent time discussing an upcoming cooking activity. At one point, a woman sitting in front of me stood and walked to the front of the room, where she started to sing a song.  The room hushed for the first time (I've never seen such animated church meetings!)  as this woman sang a song that had been passed down for generations in her family.  The words of the song reminded the musician-cook of the different ingredients needed for a certain kind of Khmer soup.  It was delightful.

Keeping it Real in Siem Reap

Not a prop!  (The monkey smile happened because the money was chewing a big piece of food)

a real Buddhist monk

A smile - it suddenly makes him look like he's just dressed up as a monk (but he's not…)

Cambodia:  hot and muggy and sweaty … and WONDERFUL!!!

Kiwi Sports and the Jones Family

SQUASH

I bought a squash racquet so I can join the Squash Club.

NETBALL

Mercy netball with her school team - She is playing the "Wing Attack" position, as you can see from the "WA" on her uniform.

Mercy is in the blue on the left.  (She is about to catch the ball.)

 ADVENTURE RACING

Soon after we moved here last August, Noah started working out with the Hillary Team (adventure racing team) and the varsity ("First V") basketball team at Boys' High.








We notice a very different response when we mention this to Kiwis around town.  Something like this….
Me:  "Our son plays basketball at Boys' High…."
Kiwi, flatly:  "uh-huh."
Me:  "….and he's also working out with the Hillary Team."
Kiwi, with expression:  "uh-HUH!!!!"

The Hillary team definitely sparks more respect than the basketball team, even though the varsity basketball team is a great team with good coaches.

adventure race training

Close-up of the insignia on Noah's varsity basketball jersey

CRICKET

Cricket equipment at the sports store

Oak had a brief stint playing cricket with the intermediate school's team.  His statements on cricket:  "It might be fun if you were really good."  "The wickets were the most interesting part."

Little kids' cricket at Mercy's and Sage's primary school

MORE ADVENTURE RACING
Danny and Oak have started adventure racing, too.  They were on the same team yesterday for a 6-hour race near Rotorua.  1st place!

Danny and Oak on the right.  Each racer brings a bin of supplies. 

This race included 12K run/tramp, biking, rogaining and ax-throwing.

SURFING

Oak

RUGBY

There are no rugby players in our family, although the boys play a lot of "touch" during their PE time at school.  Here's a fun video that Mike took of a Boys' High rugby game with our boys doing the school Haka going in the stands.  

http://youtu.be/pP8SVDrE_O8

Yesterday, we watched our YM president, Sione Lea, play rugby.

Sage posed for a picture in front of a scrum.

Sione carrying Joycie and his daughter, Merilyn

Sione and Lottey.  Lottey knew when to cheer and when to yell at the refs.  

Sione's calves are as big as his head.

after the game

INSANITY ON THE FRONT PORCH

Mike does Insanity on our front porch.  The view is great and there's no one to hear or see him.  I laugh thinking about him doing this on our front porch in Utah.  :)

Other pictures from the last week:

 I played the harp part for Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Overture with our community orchestra.

Sage at school.  

Oak Jones, piano; Rosie, flute, Ronan Avery, violin - Chamber Music competition

Coaching the Taranaki chamber music groups  - very fun!   

Taranaki District Youth/YSA temple trip

Quotes - Look for Trends

Once a year, I take a minute to collect all the quotes of the year and put them in each kid's white binder.  Here are some of my favorites from the last 12 months.

Joyce JoAnn

"Bum and hind me!" ("Come and find me!")
Joycie has trouble with the consonants at the beginning of words.  There's also "hip hops" (flip flops) and "him hoot" (swim suit) and the "Booth Hairy (tooth fairy).

Sage Louise Mahogany

Sage:  Why is Joycie so pinchy?  I mean…pinchable?
Me:  Aren't all babies?
Sage:  Joycie seems the pinchiest.

Sage:  I just LOVE Saturdays!
Me:  You must love having a day to play with your sisters, without spending so long in school….
Sage:  No, it's because on Saturday we change our fairy names!
("we" means Mercy, Sage, Joyce)

Sage, 1 week after moving to NZ:  Mom, the pioneers…I mean, the missionaries are here!
(for a girl who has grown up in Pleasant Grove, UT, pioneers and missionaries are imaginary beings that you learn about in Primary)

Mercy Elizabeth

"That's a COOL-AS waterfall!"
-Mercy, picking up some Kiwi slang

"If I can't be a piano teacher, I'd like to be a garbage woman."
-Mercy is interested in garbage-collecting machinery

"Seriously?  You are JUST LIKE MY BROTHERS!
-Mercy to Uncle Dan, after he snitched food off her plate

"That wasn't my normal voice!  That was my . . . . VOICE!"
-responding to Danny's comment about how loud her voice is, at times.

Oak to Mercy:  "Do you do anything fast, or do you do everything slowly and carefully?"
Mercy:  "I get ready for bed fast!  Last night I got ready in 17 minutes!"

"I LOVE this chord!  It sounds like Christmas!"
-Mercy, while practicing piano

"We need to have a consequence for leaving the kitchen with food.  Danny would have SO MUCH consequence!!!"

"If I were bigger, I'd TEASE you guys."
-Mercy, to her older brothers

Mercy wises up:  "I KNOW what you're trying to do."
Danny:  "What?"
Mercy:  "Make me angry!"

Oak Ammon

"It's cuz AT LEAST I have adventures in my sleep!"
-Oak, in response to us teasing him about his bed head.

"Don't you mean the bowels of heaven waiting to be poured out?"
-Oak, needs to be careful when paraphrasing Malachi verses about tithing

"What I do when I'm tired - fall forward and then keep my feet up."
-Oak, on cross-country running

"If that outfit looks good or not…I'd trust Dad and Sage more than Mercy or Mom."

"I like running in the rain.  It's like the air is easier to …. eat."

"It actually feels really good not to breath."
-Oak, about a laughing fit that lasted a very long time

NZ science teacher to class:  "What is the boiling point of water?"
Oak:  "212 degrees Fahrenheit"
Teacher, annoyed:  "Don't be smart.  Just tell me in Celsius."

Daniel Kent

"I'm not pushing her buttons - she's just spazzing at everything."
 - Danny, defending himself about bugging Mercy

"You're a hopo swag bro!"
- Danny, calling Oak a "hopeless swag brother"

"In New Zealand, you are more cool per square inch."
-the low population density of NZ adds to Danny's coolness

Noah Michael

"I wish God would command me to dunk a basketball - because then I could do it. "
- Noah's takeaway principle after seminary one day

Noah's friend at school:  "You don't EVER swear?!  What do you say when you stub your toe????"
Noah:  "Hmmmm…..Ouch?"

"I get this weird sense of joy from being totally prepared for things.  Like when I went on that bike ride yesterday, if I broke my leg or something and couldn't come home all night, I could survive for 24 hours or longer with what I had in my backpack."
-Noah and Mercy are cut from the same cloth

Holly and Mike

Mercy:  What time is it?
Mom:  Dark.  And that means bedtime.

"Careful, these guys are on drugs!" 

- said by Mike, as we pass an elderly couple Mike has seen in the ER.  They were pulling out of their driveway in a very old car.

"So what did that TedTalk say about sleep? Am I going to die soon?"
-ER physician's schedule doesn't lend itself to ideal sleep

Danny to Mom:  "You better hurry and go buy a microwave yourself or else Dad will go get a super fancy one."

"Will you PLEASE not do such a thorough job of sweeping the kitchen?"
-Holly to Mercy (It was past bedtime…)

"I don't know if I have everything…but I have enough."
-Mike, who has the reputation in our family of over-packing for any trip.

Dad:  Mom and I are going to abandon you for a week and go to Hong Kong.
Sage:  What does "abandon" mean?
Mom:  It means that we'll organize really fun babysitters to take good care of you for a few days.

"I don't know what it is, but I almost feel like crying when I watch you run.  I'm just so proud of you."
-Mike, to Oak after a cross-country race.