By Karen Coates on March 1, 2010
Today, a new partnership begins. From now on, you will find more of my ramblings on the Food Page of The Faster Times. I’ll be writing twice a month about Food Culture and linking back here with additional information and photos. Remember all those tasty Asian ways with peanuts I mentioned a few weeks ago? [...]
Posted in Food | Tagged Angkor Peanuts, beer nuts, Cambodia, The Faster Times
By Karen Coates on February 23, 2010
This is the last week to catch an extraordinary Reyum exhibit, Measurements in Khmer Society. It takes you through history, through the market and rice field, through sunrise and sunset, and everything between, to explain every little way in which Khmer people have measured the important stuff of life. The French introduced the meter in [...]
Posted in Food, Travel | Tagged Cambodia, Khmer measurements, Reyum
By Karen Coates on February 18, 2010
One night, the lights go out in Battambang, and we are presented with the prospect of candlelight dining. This is a throwback to years past, when generators rumbled through the dark and electricity flickered on and off. We planned a patio dinner anyway; a few flames in the breeze would add ambiance to the meal. [...]
Posted in Food, Travel | Tagged Battambang, Cambodia, grilled chicken, grilled pork
By Karen Coates on February 10, 2010
Cambodia drives me to drink. Picture: riverfront sunsets with amber rays, light grazing across cocktail-hour boats and the saffron folds of a monk’s robe. Warm breeze, jasmine air. Pedicabs and pushcarts, buzzing mopeds, rumbling trucks. Kids selling postcards and photocopied books, and a seat at the sidewalk where I can watch it all (this can [...]
Posted in Food, Travel | Tagged beer snacks, Cambodia, Peanuts
By Karen Coates on February 7, 2010
We did something the other day that we hadn’t done in ages: we became tourists for a day. Just as the morning sun cast its butter-colored rays across Siem Reap, we caught a tuk-tuk to the temples. With one-day passes in our pockets, we joined the throngs at Angkor (my, how things have changed!). More.
Posted in Food, Travel | Tagged Angkor, Angkor Wat, Bayon, Cambodia
By Karen Coates on February 4, 2010
So you’re a young Khmer guy in the big town of Siem Reap, and you’re out for dinner—alone. But your honey is on the phone, and your grin gives that fact away. You chat and chat with that grin real wide until the fried rice comes to the table. More.
Posted in Food | Tagged Cambodia, fried rice, Siem Reap
By Karen Coates on January 30, 2010
This is not the fish we had for breakfast. This happens to be a fish we had for lunch last year in a village along the Mekong. It was a big meaty snakehead, straight from the river, and our host, Monin, paid a pretty price for it. The fish pictured was not farmed. It had [...]
Posted in Food | Tagged Cambodia, Cambodian fish, Mekong, Tonle Sap
By Karen Coates on December 1, 2009
I wonder what David is eating today.
I was reminded this morning that today is World AIDS Day, and I immediately thought of David in the clutch of his grandmother’s skinny brown arms. Four years have passed since we last saw the little boy in a hot, cramped neighborhood on the edge of Phnom Penh, just [...]
Posted in Food | Tagged AIDS, Cambodia, Food, UNAIDS, World AIDS Day