Random tee and Christmas wrap up.

So I was walking through my local Kmart searching for plastic storage tubs to organise my life's worth of crap and I stumbled across this completely random shirt in the bargin bin. I had to buy it on the "random factor" alone.



Ten points to the first person who can translate the Khmer text! Is it just gibberish or does it actually say something? Mark is placing bets on "please get me out of this sweat shop".

In other news... My Christmas was was really lovely. I spent 3 days with Mark's family on the Gold Coast. Despite the cold weather and rain - in December??? - we had a very relaxing few days. Christmas Day we were up at 5am and Mark and I opened one present each before heading to the beach for an early morning swim. Christmas morning was the ONLY clear morning so we were glad we made the most of it. Then it was home, getting brunch ready to go before we headed to church. Church was fun - lots of singing and stuff for the kids. Once we got home the eating commenced and did not cease for about 3 days. Needless to say I have been trying hard to get to the gym every day since then!

I am in the process of putting up some of my favourite pics of the festive season on flickr, but we have used up our cable limit and the speed is now cut back to snails pace.

Tonight we are off to the park to see the movie ET. I have never seen it - which some consider a little strange - so it should be fun.

Happy New Year to all.
Love me.

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Its a most wonderful time of the year...

I wrote a Christmas wish list a month or so ago and it was made up of everything from boks, CDs, clothes - normal bunch of random things I really don't need.

Then right at the bottom I put a request that I have wished for for many years... A raised - no dig - vegetable garden. I put it on there almost as a joke as I never expected - in my wildest dreams - that I would get one. But what do you know?

Last night I came home from work and Santa had delivered not only a load of timber sleepers, but fertilizer and instructions on constructing a raised vegetable garden. His elf helper - in the form of Mark - was already busy in the pre-construction preparation phase!

I haven't stopped smiling since. Come 3 months time I will be hopefully harvesting my first selection of fresh produce!

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Khmer cooking 101

So today at work we are having an international lunch. On my floor we have people who have immigrated from over 15 different countries - each of us were asked to bring along a dish of our home country. Now I knew deep in my heart that a meat pie would not stack up against a home made Indian curry or a Spanish paella.

So I went with my adopted country of Cambodia to add to the variety.

With the help of Elephant Walk's amazing cookbook and My Linh's great cooking website last night I cooked some desserts for the first time without the supervision of Khmer women. I think I did okay! The truth will be in the tasting at lunch time.

I went with 2 dishes:
Bai Ta Nop Sway (Sticky Rice with Mango) - which, while quite good I must admit, was not a patch on Amok or Khmer Kitchen's.
Borbo Skar Chia Mui Poat (Corn Pudding) - I'm not sure if this is the correct name as the recipe I used substituted the rice with tapioca.

The number one lesson I learnt cooking these yummy, yummy bong-eims??? If it doesn't taste right keep adding the sugar. My teeth already hurt...

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Welcome home Andrew!

Welcome back to the land of Oz, Mr Benoy - even if it is only for a short while.

Call me!

PS: New pics in my Flickr account of my trip to the beach last weekend. :o)

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