Category: Uncategorized

Guilty Pleasures

Although I enjoy a vigorous and varied relationship with Onan’s sundry joys, it’s not often I find myself in a mid-river island village at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning with my hands down my pants slapping my own arse. In my cosmopolitan Downunder home town you wouldn’t bat an eyelid at someone having a quick public fiddle because in my hipster ‘hood just about everything counts as performance art. There, God’s Holiday starts just after 11, when post-archery-class manbuns in toe socks descend on the local cafeteria for a Fernet infused fair-trade truffle muffin and bourbon chaser. Red-lipsticked jades languidly pluck their ukuleles and sip hand-milked flamingo wee. None of them would be caught dead pre- or post-elevenses in fluoro pink Russian Market sports bra and Target leggings and sweating like two rats fucking in a sock. At least, not outside the CBD. Certainly not beyond arm’s reach of a spinning wheel, anyway. I would, though, and I was –  this time on yet another ill-conceived tramp to discover more of CharmingVille’s, er, charms, and to trim a few inches off the dewlaps at the same time. I also thought a bipedal zip round an unsung landmark might see off the stubborn melancholia left lingering after Bunster hobbled off life’s slippery twig. These were the noble brass rings dangling from my Sunday morning horizon. A cheeky outdoor spank wasn’t on the radar.

Unbeknownst to me, and easily missed this past predawn black Sabbath as I donned my ragtag sports kit, tiny red ants had already stowed themselves in the seams of my stretchy trews and underthings. I don’t know what it’s like over at your place right now but thanks to El Nino, Monsanto and of course the Vietnamese we have hordes of at least 5 kinds of ants swarming over our stuff here at Marital HQ. Little back ones, big black ones, and three sizes of red have invaded our nooks and got all up in our crannies. Just the other midnight, with the mercury zooming, I awoke to the smallest of our cohabitant formicadae thrusting their hot stings into the only place in this whole damn overcooked city where the sun don’t shine. Unable to suffer properly unless someone is watching, I woke the Hubster from his post pub torpor and made him help me look for the bug spray. He was tits on a bull, stumbling round the apartment and scaring our Bunster replacement pet, Ah Dop Dollar, a microscopic rabbit purchased for a furry ten smackers down 63. More on that next time. Eventually I made do with stick-on mosquito patches I found in that kitchen drawer that everyone has (used phone scratchies, keys for something, rubberbands, a lighter) and a can of imported salon-quality lacquer. They probably died in agony, but on the plus-side I have hair-sprayed ants in various poses, like a tiny Tuilleries sculpture garden, all along the headboard as we speak. Neat.

Anyway. A group of total strangers – all women except for one hungover bloke chastised by someone other than his wife for checking his phone when “we should all be looking at the view” – set out in a white mini van to Koh Anlong Chen. It’s south of town, and apparently 6 kilometres round. Six kilometres, 600 kilometres. It’s all the same to me when it’s hotter than Satan’s filthy maw and I’m dawdling behind the pack at the halfway mark with 10 kilos of camera strung round my neck like a sack of expensive Japanese potatoes. Ahead of me a younger, lither, barely damp NGO person and her intense older she-mate traded burpees and tips on capacity building for rural thrivelihoods. I’d given up politely saying “arun suorsdey” to every man and his dog and stumbled, sweat blind to the bucolic, riverine hamlet around me, with each jagged breath cursing those smug bitches in their Lulu goddamn Lemons. As I lent on a pole and gagged on my lungs, I felt all eyes in the village glued to my expiring physique. Local tykes gambolled at my feet, in awe of my vast, heaving discomfort. “Hello Lady, why are you?.” I had no idea, and frankly I didn’t fucking care.

Maybe it was the stench of deep fried plumpster wafting through the weft of my lycra-rich sportswear – or maybe it was instant karma for dissing the dogooders – but suddenly my pants were alive with my trapped ant cargo. They jabbed my arse with fiery stings and not in the way I usually like. I bitch-smacked myself up until there was nothing for it but to plunge my sweaty palms down into me nethers and grab those little fuckers one by one.
A young deaf lad with a wonky eye took pity on me and dinked me all the way back to the ferry on what looked to be an original 1976 Malvern Star Dragster. It had a Winnie the Pooh squeaky toy wired to the handlebars and we coasted all the way to the ferry landing. If I’d Sharpie’d on a Hitler moustache and donned a floral muumuu on my own CTN variety show the village people couldn’t have been more thrilled.

The Mor, the hairier

Born into a circus family, Martin Mor didn’t really get a chance to decline a mediocre existence. If anything, the knife-throwing-pyrotechnic-cum-comic has done nothing if not fully embrace a life so far left of centre that, at times, it’s not entirely clear which planet he’s orbiting. He’s performed in front of the British Royal Family and Tina Turner, juggled machetes in an Italian prison, cheated death more times than should be humanly possible, and if that doesn’t impress you, his impeccably kempt beard most definitely will. Oh, and he’s pictured on an arts and entertainment square of Trivial Pursuit in a leotard. It’s little wonder, then, that he chooses comedy as an outlet for his outlandish, often inconceivable capers, delivering devilish, animated shows that have the unique ability to simultaneously charm the pants off the entire room while having hecklers shit themselves (hopefully with their pants still on at this point).

INTERVIEW

1. Why did you quit the circus and turn to comedy?
I was working on a new act that involved juggling basketballs while balancing on top of an 8-foot ladder. I had a fall, resulting in a broken ankle and six weeks off work. I was friends with English comedian Dave Gorman and he suggested that, while off work, I should go and check out the new comedy club that had just opened in Manchester. The owner already knew of me so he booked me to do a paid set at his club. So the first time I ever set foot in a comedy club I was working as the headline act doing my comedy juggling set.

2. You’ve performed in front of some pretty varied and unique audiences. What kind of material does one perform to inmates of an Italian prison?
I do shows for all sorts of audiences, from kids’ comedy, family shows, to edgy adult stand-up shows. In the Italian prison show, I did my knife throwing act. In this particular act, I start out with regular-sized throwing knives, and finish up throwing machetes. For the big finish, I give a member of the audience a machete to throw at me, I catch it and juggle with two other machetes. When I reached a machete to one of the prisoners to throw, the warders all looked pretty worried….It all worked out fine. Taking a bag of big knives into a prison…what’s the worst that can happen?

3. What makes you laugh?
I really like laughing, and do it a lot. Today i was made to laugh by seeing a very small adult, carrying a very large child. I’m still laughing about that now.

4. What’s your opinion on hecklers?
I love hecklers. I believe that live comedy is an interactive performance – the audience joining in is what makes it such a great art form. The only really annoying heckles are when the heckler is too drunk and just shouts out incoherently. That’s no use to a comedian.

5. You have been involved in everything from a high-speed motorway crash to being shot at by a drunken German. What do you think is the closest you’ve come to “the end”?
Comedians do not fear death. We have all died many times…and lived to tell the tale.

6. You have sported an incredibly impressive beard for some time. How do you feel about the fact that they are a bit of a hipster trend now?
I’ve had a long beard for about 20 years now, so I’ve seen facial hair come in and out of fashion a couple of times. Now that beards are fashionable, the same young men who might have drunkenly shouted “ZZ Top” at me in the street are now complimenting me, and asking for grooming tips.

7. What are your top tips for growing and maintaining it?
Step 1: Be a man.
Step 2: Stop shaving.
Step 3: Enjoy looking awesome.

8. Some people believe that a man with a beard is hiding something. How much truth do you think there is to this statement?
That is a strange notion to me? Having a beard is the natural state for the males of our species – shaving is the unnatural thing. The men who scrape all of their facial hair off every day are the ones to be viewed with suspicion.

9. Do you ever use your beard to hide things in it?
In my kids’ show, I do a magic trick where I keep producing things that are hidden in my beard. The largest thing is a ten pin bowling ball.

10. How would you describe your comedic style in ten words or less?
I’m a big, shouty, sweary, beardy, funny motherfucker! (Is motherfucker one word or two?)

The Comedy Club Cambodia and Comedy Bookers Cambodia present Martin Mor, 8:30pm Friday May 22 at Showbox, #11 St. 330. Supported by Vatthina Tola, Scotty Muldoon and Steven Halcrow. Advance tickets from Showbox or at the door for $5.

 

Guilty Pleasures

There are 38 holes in my favourite black t-shirt. I wore it the other day to a hipster thingy because the alternatives were a fuchsia chiffon babydoll or a daffodil yellow soccer strip that Hubster likes to play boules in. In my zeal to declutter I have accidentally donated everything else to my local tuk tuks. I hoped my perforated T might have that “I don’t give two shits” uber cool vibe that Hipsters seem to dig. On arrival I saw my reflection in the vintage porn-shades of the first beardy fellow I mumbled “yo” to and realised I just looked uber poor.

So on my day off yesterday, and being unable to relinquish my premier chemise, I stitched and patched all the holes, most of them the size of a peppercorn, and all of them made by Bunster during his nocturnal nibblings. You drop your pants on the floor at 9pm and next morning you have culottes. It took four contented hours, with me babbling my customary monologue to the rabbit as he surveilled me from his spot on the stairs.

Life has a way of fucking you up when you least expect it. Within an hour of me putting my sewing down and my resurrected t-shirt on, our little orange pet was fighting for his life against some mystery, breath sucking malady that turned his lips blue and his ears cold. We rushed him to the vet in a double chicken bag and a careening tuk tuk. He licked some water from our fingers and let us hold him in ways he never usually did. 40 minutes after we left him the vet called to say our little mate had gone.

Ah Bunster. You little three-legged bastard. We designed all the electrical sockets in our apartment to sit an off-spec 60cm above the floor so you couldn’t chew through our chargers. Somehow you still managed eight. You got postcards when we went on holiday, and sat quietly licking us when we were sick. You jumped for joy every night Hubster came home from work and hopped ‘round his legs like man’s best friend – you were undoubtedly his. You ate your way through bushels of imported French dill and chewed the bjorkesfarken out of four IKEA bobble mats. You shredded my lucky $2 note, chewed all the buttons off the remote, and shat enough little vegan pellets to manure us some fine stands of balcony bamboo. You violated furniture at every opportunity so we got your own chair for exactly this purpose. You loved having your cheeks scratched, being brushed not so much. You had the most adorable yawn in the world.

On the way back to the vet Hubster sobbed quietly and made some calls. I blubbered and blathered about what to do next: maybe bring him home and put him in the fridge overnight so the ants wouldn’t get him? Buried or cremated? Could we pour honey on him like they do at Pashupatinath to mask the smell of bodies burning? Could I make his ashes into some kind of fabulous amulet? The vet was tearful. Bunny looked asleep, still warm, still our little guy. We cuddled him for a while, then swaddled him in Hubster’s favourite red krama, lay him gently in the chicken bag, and went to mum-in-law’s place across the river. Now close to 8pm, and despite his own shock, Love’s Helpmeet had managed to organise a proper send-off while I wailed and gnashed all the way down the hell-ride that is Highway 1, dust and bunny tears indistinguishable.

At mum’s, five young monks arrived from the Wat behind the house, trailing a posse of pre-teen grave diggers. The young lads solemnly petted our little bloke, then vigorously set about clearing a spot under the banana trees next to the family spirit house. Though there was a full moon, it was a dim dusty red, so everyone turned on their phones to give them light by which to toil. Meanwhile, sisters and brothers prepared a low daybed with a rattan mat, a small red-patterned plush carpet, and a white sheet. Final pats and we laid him down gently as mum folded a white scarf pillow under his head. The monks did their thing, glowing orange and chanting in the warm dark as I willed an ear twitch or a sleepy wuffle from the world’s first lagomorph Lazarus. As perfumed water flicked over him the kids sang a final round of something everyone but me knew, last pats, and then husband swaddled him and laid him in the ground – the first time he’d ever been anywhere near his natural habitat.

Just a month or two old, Bunny found us just before Christmas 2011 – he’d escaped from a neighbouring 2nd floor balcony, a broken-legged Yule gift for someone who didn’t think much of him. We thought the world. Newlywed and broke, we kidnapped him and moved to rabbit-friendly digs in the heart of CharmingVille. He had the run of the house, and grew into a sweet, odd, destructive, mischievous, hilarious and loving non-human child. We’ll never forget him. Even if we wanted to, it’ll be a long time coming. From our sheets to our couch, from our hats to our shoes and everything in between, everything he left behind is full of holes.

Creem of the crop

FRI 08 | The concept is simple, but the occasion is as classy as they come. Networking events come in all sizes and styles. What sets this one apart from the rest is that it’s small – we’re talking invite-only – but totally high end. Expect to mingle with everyone from music and fashion profiles, to hospitality bigwigs, all while drinking free flow champagne and nibbling on canapés with a soundtrack of smooth lounge (obviously). Who’s behind it, you ask? Who else but the event-masters themselves, The Creem, of course. If you think you’re cool enough, contact The Creem on Facebook and get added to their events list, so you can be sure you’re informed when the next one pops up.

WHO: All the cool kids
WHAT: Champagne and canapé showcase
WHERE: La Maison D’ambre, #123 St. 110
WHEN: 6pm, May 8
WHY: We all like to feel like superstars sometimes

Irra-whaty?

Rice. A bland, four-letter word that does nothing to reveal this Asian staple’s flavour potential. The coconut rice at Irrawaddi Myanmar Restaurant is a perfect example of how much more there can be to this seemingly simple dish.

On first glance, it’s your typical bowl of pristine grains, with a few touches of cashews and dried fruits to pique your interest. But it’s nothing heart-stopping. After all, this is Asia and we’ve all seen enough rice in our lives to completely desensitise us from the starch bowl. So it seemed a bit premature when my expert eating companion proclaimed that this dish was a game-changer.

I shouldn’t have been surprised since rice is fundamental to the Burmese food culture, but somehow I wasn’t expecting such a heavenly experience. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect. Burmese food doesn’t exactly top the charts in terms of global popularity. From a country that endured some of the worst isolation in recent history it’s justifiable that they focused on human rights issues versus an international marketing plan for their curries. But with the first bite of savoury, perfectly prepared rice that gracefully held the nutty, slightly sweet coconut flavour in each morsel, I found myself thinking that maybe they should begin to.

We went on to try their fish curry, chicken biryani and famous tea leaf salad (lahpet thoke), which all rivaled the rice reaction, and led our waiters to give us sideways glances as we entered into a sustained state of food bliss. The fish curry has to be broken down into a two-part analysis: one being the effortless way the Cambodian snakehead fish fell off the bone and the second being the curry’s exceptional union of salty and sour flavours.

The chicken biryani was a testament to the successful fusion of such a multicultural country and another tip-of-the-hat to the versatility of rice, working as the base and soaking up the bright saffron notes. Though a traditional Indian dish, the Burmese interpretation usually uses fewer seasonings with the result being anything but inferior.

Rounding off the meal, in Burmese fashion, we finished the lahpet thoke and discussed it at length. With its textural elements of crunchy beans and peanuts and its distinctly earthy, tea flavour—offset slightly by the heat of julienned, pickled peppers and shredded ginger and the citrus from a squeeze of lime—we could easily understand why this dish holds such importance to the culture. Though the flavour profile seemed completely foreign at first, noting the unusual main ingredient of fermented tea leaves, we quickly suspended our allegiance to any preconceived rules for preparing a salad and simply enjoyed.

Though we weren’t as taken with a fishy tasting eggplant and a somewhat bland fried snack, we still felt as though we’d found Phnom Penh’s hidden gem of an eatery. Sitting inconspicuously on Street 334, Irrawaddi is an easy miss, but having been in business for eight years they’re obviously not relying on location to garner customers. The owner, Cho Cho, warmly greets every guest, always serving up more than just her country’s cuisine to whoever walks through the door.

Irrawaddi Myanmar Restaurant, #24 Street 334

Guilty Pleasures

Although the extinct, car-sized salamanders whose vomit could melt your hair took my fancy for a few minutes this week, it were the Sparklemuffins what stole me heart. Until I found these incy wincy spiderlings crawling up my newsfeed I thought hats were the Devil’s work. I have an unattractively tiny, unhatworthy head, ask anyone, so except for my shoplifting sombrero I’ve never cared for the cloche or the cap. Back in the olden days in between sit-ins, and as penniless art meisters with normal sized heads, my louche leftie parents lounged in fez and fedora, drinking elderberry porter, Gauloised to the eyeballs and scatting to Gil Scott Heron, who was also partial to distinctive headwear, exuberant afro notwithstanding. The olds were tempted to sell me to the circus when it became clear my cranium would never get bigger than a peach. They twice resisted the urge, but maybe they shouldn’t have. I was never a shepherd or a nativity king, never a pony clubber or the captain of the Good Ship Lollipop. The wicked witch or the princess bride eluded the hatless tweensy me. I was never a cat in one that’s for damn sure. I was always the narrator. Or the tree. Where’s that sad violin music coming from?

I should be bitterer having lacked the correct head all these years, but these new found, new world little buggers turned my barebrained soul-frown upside down. Sparklemuffins don’t really have any heads at all either, just a hairy nub with four eyes in it. And what’s worse, and yet so snap, is they have massive great bums. Instead of whining like I always do, since we share identical physiognomy, they’ve made the best of both worlds and fashioned their enormous arses into rainbow spangled tam o’ shanters with a noggin-top stook of nano-dreads sprouting from the crown. It’s a Jah-worthy contortional miracle and a brave sartorial choice, and not a combination I would have thought to try. But somehow those little geniuses make it work. Plus, now they’re famous and have got their own YouTube channel. Like the Kardashians of the natural world, these big arsed, tiny brained arachnids have made it to the top of the spout just looking fabulous despite their physical anomalies, and if they can do it, so can I. Godammit, just because I’m a pinhead with a donk the size of a monster Triassic amphibian doesn’t mean I should deny my inner gay Rastafari fashion spider.

But getting my hat on requires me to leave the house. First of all it’s so hot out there. Second of all there’s the massively testicled bale of mange I call Coconut, the legally blind Baskervillian gatekeeper at the bottom of our stairs who takes no umbrage with anyone else except me. He’ll happily accept pats and treats and photo ops with tourists, but lies in wait just to scare the living shitsticks out of me on the way home from midnight badminton. Since his eyesight’s crap I thought spritzing myself with the Old Spice I banned Hubster from wearing, even though my Nanna gave it to him before she passed over, might trick that canny canine into thinking I was someone else. Clearly I stink harder than Old Spice: old Coconut’s got his choppers out the minute I turn the corner. Sometimes I think he’ll just sink his fangs gum deep into my calf and I’ll have to drag him round Aeon or meetings like he’s a jilted lover who can’t bear to see me leave. The only way to get him off my case is to pelt him with those candies people throw around to occupy mischievous spirit children. By the way people, of course they’ll go nuts on your appliances and mess with your taps with all that sugar! I’m doing everyone a favour. Still, sorry ghost kids.

Once I’m past my canine albatross there’s the short walk down Bag Snatch alley to our nearest hat HQ, Phsar Kandal. Although I live steps from CharmingVille’s undisputed premier head-centric shopping destination and go past most mornings on my way to drag Hubster out of the pub, I haven’t been inside for a year – not since the stick-limbed crone with the betel rosined toothpegs grabbed my lavish breasts and cackled “Thom! Thom!” to anyone who would listen. Which was everyone, because you can’t beat a massive white chick getting her boobs granhandled in a free, impromptu live comedy show right at your workplace by everybody’s favorite resident shamaness, especially if that workplace includes live fish writhing on the ground and boiling woks of oil and crickets just waiting for that hilarious, perhaps even terminal, pratfall to end ‘em all. No sir.

I was apprehensive in anticipation of this humiliating en-masse thigh slap. But the call of the brave Sparklemuffins was strong, and I wanted their copious hair. Their commitment to hats. Their joie d’ vivre. I craved their whole damn shebang.

“It’s getting sunny out there, and we live in the fucking Magic Kingdom of Hats, after all!” I said to myself out loud as I parkoured down the stairwell. Coconut, for once, was nowhere to be seen. Phsar Kandal, epicentre of all things madly cranial, here I and I come.

A sweet ending

“It ends today,” I remind myself as I enter through the crystal door of Dessert Story, a Taiwanese/Hong Kongese-style café on Street 51 whose small and inconspicuous sign outside makes it almost invisible to the unknowing eye.

To my left, a wall covered by a huge poster of bookshelves tricks the client into believing he just entered a library of sorts. Orange Chinese lanterns sway slowly over round, wooden tables while the comfy, padded chairs invite you to spend an afternoon of chitchat here with friends. In front of me, the big counter populated by half a dozen employees showcases the impressively large menu in shiny screens. Overall, a decoration that initially strikes one as bizarre, but that eventually grows on you.

I take a seat over by the corner. A pair of small, slightly slanted eyes stare at me from across the table. “It ends today,” I keep telling myself.
The waiter hands us what seems like an oversized cuisine magazine. On closer inspection, it’s but a menu of epic dimensions illustrated with stunning pictures.

Skimming through it, I become perplexed and hungry in equal measure.  The dishes, overflowing with appetite-inducing colours, are all unfamiliar, but eye-catching nonetheless. They all come from the Taiwanese and Hong Kongese dessert traditions. Featuring ingredients like sea coconut jelly, black glutinous rice and tapioca pearls, this is no place for the close-minded Western expat. The ice cream menu, with jelly grass, red bean soup and sago among other ingredients, and the Hong Kongese tofu puddings immediately draw my attention.

My herbal jelly with sweet potato, barley and jelly pearls ($4.20) is a kaleidoscopic concoction of salty and sweet flavors sitting over a bed of crushed ice. I find myself troubled by contradictory feelings: the mix of textures, with the starchy, pasty sweet potato and the gooey pearls, is enticing; flavour-wise, I find little appeal in the subtle, sweet taste of the jelly grass and its combination with the brackish barley. The crushed ice adds a refreshing touch to the dish.

You can engineer your own smoothies by selecting a sorbet base from a list of fruit combinations and adding the fruit and jelly toppings of your choosing. There is also a long list of pre-made suggestions. From this list, I choose the cool watermelon with rainbow jelly and diced lychee ($3.30). It is lemony and refreshing, and I love it from the first sip. The thick pieces of toothsome lychee are icing on the cake.

My table companion orders glutinous rice with mango and coconut milk ($2.20). I can see from his expression that he is enjoying it. Lucio is, despite his innumerable faults, a well-travelled man with a sensible palate accustomed to the most exotic tastes.

All in all, people familiar with Taiwanese and Hong Kongese cuisines will enjoy the never-ending number of colourful dishes that Dessert Story has to offer. Unadventurous Western expats will need to come here with an open mind, or skip it all together. With prices ranging from $1.20 (black glutinous rice with coconut milk) to $6.20 (strawberry volcano with vanilla ice cream), Dessert Story is not a cheap option for your dessert experience. The quality of the dishes justifies the price tag, but you may want to think twice before spending $5 on your dessert.

“This is the end of the road, Lucio,” I tell him as I hand him a white envelope with curled-up corners. He takes it in his hand and, with slow, controlled motions, produces a strip of negatives from the inside. Lucio examines the strip carefully, as I watch how his serene expression gradually turns severe. He turns his eyes toward me, a piercing glance meant to intimidate me.

“What do you want, Adolfo,” he asks with restraint in his voice.

“A truce,” I reply.

Dessert Story, #294 St. 51 BKK

Fear and cooking in Cambodia

If you meet one of those tourists who complains that there is nothing to do in Phnom Penh, one thing you can suggest is an insect cooking class.

The class, taught on the other side of the Monivong Bridge, gives visitors a chance to fry four types of crickets, silk worm larvae, and black water beetles. At the end of class, the cooks are encouraged to sample the dishes: that’s why the course is called “Fear Factor Challenge.”

“Some people just go there to take a look, but they say, ‘How can I eat that one?’ That’s why we came up with the name Fear Factor Challenge,” says Vann Kimlay, the Cambodia-based programme manager of Backstreet Academy, a Singaporean social enterprise that offers some unusual tourist activities in the city.

According to Kimlay, Backstreet Academy was launched here a year ago and also has classes on Khmer boxing, coconut carving, shadow puppets, and paper masks. Fruit carving classes are being planned.

It turns out that cooking bugs is easy because they don’t try to crawl or fly out of the frying pan. To start with, the crickets are already dead from being held in a bag of ice, while the larvae and black beetles are pre-boiled. The crickets are mixed with salt, sugar, MSG, and rice flour, deep fried in hot oil with garlic, and served with chili and green onion. The important thing is to keep stirring so that they don’t stick to the pan. The larvae are fried with chili and green onion, while the black beetles are deep fried.

Then comes the most challenging part: eating. On a Sunday afternoon, insect cooking student Cynthia Luna, 71, has to close her eyes as the translator drops a black beetle into her mouth.

“Oh God, I actually ate a roach!” she exclaims. “Don’t kill them – eat them!”

According to Luna, from Puerto Rica, the larvae taste like corn tortillas, the beetles are like Vietnamese salty crab, and the crickets remind her of garlic shrimp.

The crickets are the easiest ones to eat. Just scoop a handful into your hand and drop them into your mouth.  Or you can tear the legs off first so they don’t get stuck in your mouth. Interestingly, female crickets taste differently from the male ones because they have eggs inside. To tell the difference, says course instructor Prech Vannet, look at their wings. Females have smooth wings, while the males’ wings are more wrinkly-looking.

“Normally, the female tastes better,” Vannet says, as he handpicks some female bugs for the foreigners.

Larvae are also soft inside, but it’s hard to escape the thought that they are worms in the making. Black beetles aren’t much better. After trying one, the foreigners don’t reach for seconds. According to Vannet, beetles are a popular snack with beer, so it’s best to keep some nearby to wash them down.

Vannet went into the insect trade after being a monk for 15 years. Nowadays, he claims he can make about $50 per day. The most popular snack is cricket, he says. They sell for $1 a cup.

“With this job, it’s easy to earn an income,” he says.

Vannet doesn’t catch the bugs himself, but buys them from middlemen. Each type of insect comes from a different province, he says.

According to Kimlay, most of the crickets are raised on farms, although some are collected by shining a bright light in the night. The crickets fly toward the light and die – although this method is dangerous because the light also attracts worms and poisonous snakes.

Although the practice of eating insects existed in Cambodia before the Civil War, it became more important during the Khmer Rouge period because there wasn’t enough food, Kimlay explains.

At the end of class, after cooking some bugs the Cambodian way, Luna buys an egg and makes a cricket omelette.

“I make omelettes with everything,” she says.

It was pretty good – if you didn’t look too closely.

The Backstreet Academy insect cooking class costs $18. Visit www.backstreetacademy.com for more information.

One-man wonder

TUE 31 | The Sofitel presents Wonders of 1929, an exhibition showcasing the works of theatre actor and director Georges Portal. Alongside his acting career, Portal pursued photography using the most technologically advanced equipment of the time. This exhibition will showcase 84 of his photographs and fine art cold pressed prints that capture his experience of Cambodia in 1929.

WHO: Georges Portal
WHAT: Print & photo exhibition
WHERE: Sofitel, #26 Old August Site
WHEN: March 31
WHY: Rare historical snapshots of Cambodia in the ‘20s

Conscious comedy

Irishman Aidan Killian quit investment banking in Tokyo to “save this world one laugh at a time.” Since then, he has toured the world with comedy that aims to tickle the brain as well as the funny bone, while trying to offend the least amount of people possible. Unless they deserve it. In town for his upcoming show with fellow comedians, Englishman Graham Wooding and Scotsman Ray Bradshaw, Killian offers a taste of his cultivated humour.

When did you realise you were funny?
I’m not really funny, I just have an extraordinary ability to penetrate people with my words, enter their soul and tickle their insides until they succumb to an uncontrollable fit of giggles. At about age 12 I realised I could make my fellow school inmates laugh, which was kind of like having a superpower because it became a force field to boringness and brainwashing.

You spend a large part of your life making people laugh. What makes you laugh?
I like comedy that shines light on the world, but I also like the scene in V For Vendetta where the bad cops get massacred by V. Sometimes I laugh so much I end up feeling slightly guilty. Also the sound of a well-timed, loud fart gets me every time. If you can put the two together you might actually see me roll in pain with tears in my eyes.

Stand-up comedy can be a tough gig. What’s the worst reception you’ve ever had, and how do you save a total flop act?
I once was at a gig where a drunk guy came up on stage, pushed me, took the mic and screamed at me, “YOU ARE FUCKING BRUTAL!” The same night, someone broke a bottle and demanded to be served another beer and the barman actually served him. There was no saving that gig. I just wanted to go home to my mum.

What is the audience reception like in Phnom Penh as opposed to other cities in which you’ve performed? What jokes make PP audiences tick?
What a bunch of wonderful weirdos this place attracts! There is such a mix of freedom-lovers, arty types, adventurists, sex-pats, tie-wearing teachers, losers who don’t fit in at home, dreamers, drug-lovers, drunks and general misfits. So, basically, they should be the perfect crowd for my Braveheart style of comedy. I will do my material that I have been writing all month and if it doesn’t make them tick they can suck on my shamrock-flavoured balls, which would likely make them tick.

If you could crack a laugh from anyone in the world, who would it be?
Vladamir Putin. And can I give him a hug too?

What does St. Patrick’s day mean to you?
Fuck St. Patrick’s Day. It’s an insult to mankind! It’s a day when the stupid, embarrassing, drunken Irish fools drink ‘til they puke while wearing cheap, green, silly, plastic hats made by Chinese children to honour a genocidal agent from Rome who singlehandedly destroyed the ancient druidic knowledge. Bah humbug! Seriously though, the man was not Irish, he wiped out the druids, killed the ancient knowledge and replaced them with the Church, which ultimately enslaved our great nation and so we celebrate him by getting hammered. Ghandi himself would have punched him in the face.

An Irishman, an Englishman and a Scot walk into a bar…
The Englishman puts his hand up the Scot’s kilt, the Scot hits him, they roll around the beer-stained floor but it gets steamy and they end up making out, sharing a beer with a straw and pulling each other off in the corner. The Irish guy is not judgemental but equally unsurprised. Then a super-hot American chick comes over, licks Irish guy’s face and says, “Please show me your Leprechaun.” Irish guy ends up giving hot American chick extremely powerful multiple-orgasms until she becomes at one with the entire Universe, goes backwards in time and when she comes out of her pleasure-filled state-altering trance looks at me, eh.. I mean, Irish guy… in the eyes and says, “Yeh, you were right – it turns out St. Patrick was a prick!”

Aidan Killian will perform his comedy alongside Graham Wooding and Ray Bradshaw at 8pm Friday March 20 at Equinox Bar, #3A St. 278. Tickets are $5.