I was invited by my friend, Nop Kong to lunch at his house in a village near Siem Reap. Frankly, I cannot tell you where it was exactly because we took several single lane footpaths to get there. It was the highlight of my day because in addition to going to the market on his motorycycle.. Mind you when I say go to the market, we drove through the dirt path lined by vendors on each side with not much more room than for the moto. It was like going to 7-11 and driving down the aisle, slowing down just long enough to pull some fish out of a bowl still slithering and drag some veggies off the table. Kong and his housemates butchered a chicken for me. It brought me back to my childhood in Colonia Okinawa when dad would make me butcher and pluck the chickens in our backyard.

They butchered, plucked and gutted the chicken all in less than 15 minutes. Then came broiling parts and boiling others in soup. What came of the lunch is in the last photo. We sat around the mat in the living quarters and had morning glory stems with oyster sauce (my favorite Khmer food), chicken soup with veggies grown in the yard (fertilized by the pig), fish we pulled out of the water at the outdoor market, and other things I could not fathom.

Kong was very kind to explain that I don't eat much meat and to ask forgivness from his housemates if I was a little picky... I loved the morning glory, lettuce, carrot and cucumber salad. It was harvested right in front of my eyes and I got to see the process from beginning to end. Now that's what I call slow food.

Something I gotta tell you is that we were seated on the very mat that later this evening Kong would sleep on. Furniture in Khmer houses is limited. Married couples might buy a large wooden slat foundation for their bed and later add a headboard and footboard, but the kiddies sleep on the mats until they marry.. Kong being thirty and not married yet, gets to sleep with the other bachelors in his commune (a jointly owned farmb etween all who live there) on mats on the floor. All very cool.