cotton candy?!

Since moving overseas, I seem to post a lot about food. Food seems to be a bigger part of my life now. It takes up many hours of my week - shopping for and preparing food is an event. When living in the States, I would just grab something and go - grab something from a fast food restaurant, grab something out of the freezer and stick it in the microwave. Not anymore. There really is no such thing as fast food here. We have two hour lunches and most of the time, if I eat out, it takes that long just to order and eat - much of the time is spent waiting. There are microwaves, but they are crazy expensive. Gone are the days of stacked microwaves or cheap kitchen appliances purchased from Wal-mart (though ironically those appliances are made in this part of the world and exported there).

I have learned a very important word in Khmae; the word for to-go, take-out or take-away. It is kh-jop. Saying I'd like my meal to-go seems to reduce the time waiting, on work days I then take it back to my desk and use the extra time for work.

One day as Kenyon and I were exploring on a Saturday afternoon, we found something we hadn't seen before or since. There was a street cart roaming the streets. These are a common site, usually they have things like roasted corn, french baguettes, fried bananas, or something unrecognizable to the foreign eye. On this particular day. one of the street carts was selling cotton candy (known to Australians as fairy floss). It was $0.25 for a bag. It was so good. When Kenyon had finished eating it, he wanted more, but we had already moved on and there were no more carts carrying this treat...the mirage had melted away.

Kenyon refused to take a picture with the cotton candy because he knew it would end up on my blog. So, this is a posed picture with me and the spun sugar to prove that it existed...at least it did on that day.