Food in Khemmarat

Food is a big part of life in Khemmarat.  First, it grows all around us here.

Bananas and papayas grow on trees in people's yards.

Chickens, roosters, and cows are all over town.

The cow and calf above were grazing in the harvested rice field across the street from our apartment.

There are cows that graze by the river everyday and George sees them from the pavilion overlooking the river where he goes to read in the afternoon.  The cows are attended by a man and a dog.  Recently, one of the cows stepped onto the riverwalk and the man chased him back onto the riverbank.  We understand the cows we see around town are meat cows, not milk cows.

And this is farm country, with farmers raising rice, soy beans, tapioca, and many other foods.  There are rice fields everywhere, including right across the road from our apartment building.

The students at the Baan Nong Phue School maintain a garden.  They grow spring onions, morning glory, and other food plants that are used to feed the students

There are great chefs at school to prepare our meals -- Nola and Thearm.

The students bring their own plates for lunch and wash them when they finish eating.

There are also some vendors on the school grounds from whom students can buy snacks and treats.

And there are fishermen and women out on the Mekong River catching fish:

Buying Food in Town

There are many options for buying food in town and many restaurants.

The Chuanpit Store is the nearest thing to a supermarket in the town of Khemmarat.

In some categories the choices are pretty limited, for example, breakfast cereal and cookies.  (On the other hand, there are lots of choices for laundry detergent.)  There is no peanut butter or other nut butters for sale in Khemmarat, so we go to Ubon Ratchathani (a 1-1/2 hour car trip or a 2-1/2 to 3 hour bus trip) periodically to stock up on supplies.

There are motorbike vendors who drive around town with an assortment of foods in bags for sale.

But the most interesting and popular place to shop for food (and other miscellaneous stuff) in town is the Khemmarat Market.

Vendors sit on platforms with their products around them. Notice the green-wrapped packages in the photo on the left below; those are foods wrapped in banana leaves.  We see those a lot around town.

There are chicken eggs (not refrigerated anywhere in town), and other small bird eggs, and small bananas (notice the price for the whole bunch written on the middle banana: 10 Baht, about 33 cents),
 

lots of greens,

                                                                                    

green and purple long beans,

 morning glory raw and in a cooked dish,

lots of different kinds of mushrooms,

carrots and radishes, and

chili peppers (of course).

There are fruits:

including mangosteens,

                                                                     mangoes,

                                                                                            luktans (toddy palms),

 

                                                         lamoots,

                                longgans,

                       rambutans,

                                          rose apples,

 

                                                                   tamarinds,

 

pomelo,                                                                             and dragon fruit.

 And there are meats:

including parts of the pig and the chicken, including congealed duck blood

There is seafood, including live fish:

 

dead fish,

and squid and cockles.

There are prepared foods, including (in the first picture below) Thai spaghetti:

 

We watched sugar cane being processed for its syrup, which was then added to flavored drinks for sale.

We watched rice patties being grilled with an egg sauce (and took some home to eat) and rice being steamed.

There's also a spice/miscellaneous corner of the Market.

A friend we met at our local coffee shop, Oh, has the rice shop at the Market.

We took lots of pictures of the vendors and their helpers.

On the way home, we usually see our friend Nivat and, if we're lucky, his lovely wife and head nurse at the local hospital, Sirinon.  We buy our water from Nivat.

Eating Out in Khemmarat

We featured three of our favorite restaurants in the January 16 post , "Update from Khemmarat."  In this post we report on the Resort of Flowers.  This restaurant is part of a riverside resort and is a beautiful spot.  Sadly, it's not open in the evening, but if we're in town and hungry midday, we often head here.

 

Here are photos of us at our favorite table and of the views we have:

                          

And here are some of our favorite entrees: seafood salad on rice, and fried fish with pad pak (mixed vegetables):

And here is our lovely waitress Muei and the very gracious owner and hostess Deng:

Eating at Home  

Our eating accommodations at home are pretty minimal -- a refrigerator and a sink, no stove or oven.  So our meals at home are pretty simple (usually nut butter and jam from Ubon) in front of a computer as we watch NBC Nightly News online (if we have Internet).  But there's a lovely home about a block away that has the sweetest outdoor dining area.  We imagine they have some very nice dinners at home.

Final note on this posting:  We don't have names for everything we've included in this report and some of the names may be wrong, so we may update this as we get more and better information from our readers, especially those in Thailand.