Cultural Weekend 2010: Food and Music

Today, I went to a cooking class at Frizz Restaurant on Street 240 (the “Champs Élysées” of Cambodia). Before the class began, we took a trip to the market to learn about how to select the best specimens of our ingredients. Once we arrived back to our rooftop classroom, I learned how to make spring rolls, banana leaf salad, fish amok (Cambodia’s national dish), and sweet sticky rice with mango and banana. All of the food was amazing, if I do say so myself, and I can’t wait to come home and cook for people.

In the evening, I went with my friend Jo to FCC (the Foreign Correspondents Club), which is one of the swankiest places in town, and has one of the best views of the Tonlé Sap on Riverside.

After dinner, we attended a show at Sovanna Phum Arts Association. We weren’t sure what we were going to end up seeing, whether it would be shadow puppets or music or dancing. We were kind of hoping for shadow puppets, but instead we got a performance of a battle between monkeys and giants by Hanuman and Giant DRUM with some local dancers. It was so good, we weren’t even the slightest bit sad that we hadn’t seen shadow puppets. To read an article about the show from the Phnom Penh Post, click here.