Home hosted lunch

After touring Angkor Wat, we stayed within the temple grounds and had a home hosted lunch with Sophie. She is quite the entrepreneur, as she shared her story of selling items at temples as a young girl, graduating up to buying her first retail stall for $100. She sold it for $300 a few years later and they now go for $1,000. She confirmed that the stalls that are all packed together on Pub Street are owned by a few people who then lease out space to individual sellers. It is the dry season here, and her corn crop is not doing very well. She grows corn and rice just for her family, and brings income in from hosting lunches like today and selling other wares to tourists. She also breeds the white Brahma that we have seen that look super skinny, but again it's the dry season. There's not much for them to eat right now so she brings in hay, just like we do in the states during the winter in the Midwest.

Her maiden aunts made lunch and it was yummy. Turmeric chicken with green beans, sauteed vegetables with rice, chicken veg soup, beef stir fry, and fish with veg. Then she gave us a demonstration of a local dessert and we got to practice. She shaped a banana leaf like a cute little cup after putting a little ball of palm sugar inside of stretched out sticky rice rolled into a bigger ball which was then boiled. Grated fresh coconut on top, very nice treat for dessert.Read more