Sonja and Alex Overhiser work with young women at the Green Mango Cafe, a culinary training center in Cambodia built by the Greenwood-based Center for Global Impact. / Photo provided by the Overhisers
Broad Ripple couple built Green Mango Cafe in Cambodia
Apr. 5, 2012 |
Written by Vic Ryckaert
Alex and Sonja Overhiser, both 30, live in Broad Ripple and run a popular blog called "A Couple Cooks" (www.a couplecooks.com). The Overhisers recently brought their culinary skills to one of the world's most impoverished places, Battambang, Cambodia, where they helped train six young women who now work at the Green Mango Cafe.
The cafe is run by the Greenwood-based Center for Global Impact. The faith-based nonprofit built the restaurant, bakery and 12 cooking stations to serve as a culinary institute for young women who have few opportunities in the villages where they were born.
We emailed the Overhisers some questions while they were in Cambodia:
Question: Describe the village. What's life like for the people who live around the Green Mango Cafe?
Answer: Battambang is the second-largest city in Cambodia, inhabited by 250,000 residents. It is a university center with a small-town feel. In Battambang, most people have just enough to make ends meet. For many, this involves working in small businesses or in jobs that may seem old-fashioned to Americans, like delivering ice or coal, or selling fruit at the market, but these jobs enable them to keep their children in school and food on the table. Life centers around family and the desire to maintain stability, with a hope for a better future.
About 31 percent of the population of Cambodia is considered absolutely poor, meaning that their income is less than $1.25 per day. Of these, 80 percent live in the countryside, where life is hard. Most children in rural areas do not stay in school long. One reason Battambang's population is so large is that it offers many educational opportunities.
Students at the Culinary Training Center come from rural areas and difficult situations. Most of the girls at the Green Mango Cafe have been given over to orphanages because their families cannot care for them. Most of the girls have lost at least one parent, and the remaining parent is not able to care for them.
Q. How is food shopping different from shopping in Indianapolis?
A. The markets in Cambodia are amazing! The sights and sounds are unlike anything that most Americans have experienced. Dozens of vendors sell colorful tropical fruits, vegetables of all varieties, fried pastries, flowers, rice, fish and meat in close quarters huddled under umbrellas under the sun. As you weave through the crowd, you'll see snakes slithering in baskets, dead frogs, chicken feet, fish flopping, and women beheading fish on blankets and butchering meat in the open air. There is a frenzied pace and new ingredients, sights and smells at every turn! Most produce, shellfish and meat is sold at the market, and dried goods or other prepared foods are sold at small shops.
Q. What kind of ingredients do you have at the cafe? Any special Cambodian ingredients you'd like to take back home?
A. The cafe has a wide variety of ingredients -- almost everything we have in America and lots of unique Cambodian ingredients, too. The cafe makes a variety of international cuisine, so they have most American, Mexican and Italian ingredients. They also have Cambodian ingredients -- rice, noodles, fish, shrimp, lemongrass, limes, ginger and hot peppers.
We'd love to bring back things that are hard to find in America -- lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal (a root used for flavoring), and birdseye peppers (tiny hot peppers). We made a tom yum soup with the girls, and they used the leaves from a weed growing outside the cafe for flavoring -- no one knew what it was called, but we'd love to find it!
Q. You were there to teach the young women cooking skills. What are you learning from the experience?
A. We learned much more from these girls than we taught them! They taught us about Cambodian cuisine -- how to make tom yum soup, curry and green mango salad, and helped us learn words in their language, Khmer. They work very quickly in the kitchen and have excellent knife skills. They can make anything Cambodian or American, and can also bake a wide variety of things -- cakes, cookies, tortillas, pita bread and pies. They also know how to make many things from scratch -- peanut butter, sausage and even their own spice blends.
Broad Ripple couple built Green Mango Cafe in Cambodia
Apr. 5, 2012 |
Written by Vic Ryckaert
Alex and Sonja Overhiser, both 30, live in Broad Ripple and run a popular blog called "A Couple Cooks" (www.a couplecooks.com). The Overhisers recently brought their culinary skills to one of the world's most impoverished places, Battambang, Cambodia, where they helped train six young women who now work at the Green Mango Cafe.
The cafe is run by the Greenwood-based Center for Global Impact. The faith-based nonprofit built the restaurant, bakery and 12 cooking stations to serve as a culinary institute for young women who have few opportunities in the villages where they were born.
We emailed the Overhisers some questions while they were in Cambodia:
Question: Describe the village. What's life like for the people who live around the Green Mango Cafe?
Answer: Battambang is the second-largest city in Cambodia, inhabited by 250,000 residents. It is a university center with a small-town feel. In Battambang, most people have just enough to make ends meet. For many, this involves working in small businesses or in jobs that may seem old-fashioned to Americans, like delivering ice or coal, or selling fruit at the market, but these jobs enable them to keep their children in school and food on the table. Life centers around family and the desire to maintain stability, with a hope for a better future.
About 31 percent of the population of Cambodia is considered absolutely poor, meaning that their income is less than $1.25 per day. Of these, 80 percent live in the countryside, where life is hard. Most children in rural areas do not stay in school long. One reason Battambang's population is so large is that it offers many educational opportunities.
Students at the Culinary Training Center come from rural areas and difficult situations. Most of the girls at the Green Mango Cafe have been given over to orphanages because their families cannot care for them. Most of the girls have lost at least one parent, and the remaining parent is not able to care for them.
Q. How is food shopping different from shopping in Indianapolis?
A. The markets in Cambodia are amazing! The sights and sounds are unlike anything that most Americans have experienced. Dozens of vendors sell colorful tropical fruits, vegetables of all varieties, fried pastries, flowers, rice, fish and meat in close quarters huddled under umbrellas under the sun. As you weave through the crowd, you'll see snakes slithering in baskets, dead frogs, chicken feet, fish flopping, and women beheading fish on blankets and butchering meat in the open air. There is a frenzied pace and new ingredients, sights and smells at every turn! Most produce, shellfish and meat is sold at the market, and dried goods or other prepared foods are sold at small shops.
Q. What kind of ingredients do you have at the cafe? Any special Cambodian ingredients you'd like to take back home?
A. The cafe has a wide variety of ingredients -- almost everything we have in America and lots of unique Cambodian ingredients, too. The cafe makes a variety of international cuisine, so they have most American, Mexican and Italian ingredients. They also have Cambodian ingredients -- rice, noodles, fish, shrimp, lemongrass, limes, ginger and hot peppers.
We'd love to bring back things that are hard to find in America -- lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal (a root used for flavoring), and birdseye peppers (tiny hot peppers). We made a tom yum soup with the girls, and they used the leaves from a weed growing outside the cafe for flavoring -- no one knew what it was called, but we'd love to find it!
Q. You were there to teach the young women cooking skills. What are you learning from the experience?
A. We learned much more from these girls than we taught them! They taught us about Cambodian cuisine -- how to make tom yum soup, curry and green mango salad, and helped us learn words in their language, Khmer. They work very quickly in the kitchen and have excellent knife skills. They can make anything Cambodian or American, and can also bake a wide variety of things -- cakes, cookies, tortillas, pita bread and pies. They also know how to make many things from scratch -- peanut butter, sausage and even their own spice blends.
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