When people are in the need of making money for their whole family times are rough! We do have our house in this compound since nearly 7 years, driving with a car or mostly with a motorbike to the right in the direction of Patong Beach or to the left in the direction of Phuket Town or south to Chalong and Phromthep Cape.

The Cook Arm

I never saw this street kitchen! There is a well-known restaurant directly at the entry to our village, but that 200 meters to the left are 3 street kitchen – I did not realise until last year short time before Christmas.

One of them had also, since a couple of month before I saw it, a street kitchen wagon standing in front of it, offering chicken and duck and pork as well. So I stopped and ask the cook what he has to offer. I have to say, there was pork leg steaming in the heat of the pot – that draw my attention and I decided to give it a shot. I got a good helping of rice and pork leg, cucumber and spring onions and soup.

What I at my first visit of that street kitchen did not realise is, they also offer Crispy Pork with Basil – one of my favourites! So, because this street kitchen is the nearest to our house I started to be a regular guest for breakfast or late lunch or earlier dinner. And I have to say, all that he offers is very tasty, it comes mostly with a small bowl of soup and always with a plate with spring onions, cucumber slices and chili – if someone does not have if now.

Red Curry from Pork and Fried Egg

And for sure we started talking! Arm, this is the name of my cook, hat this street kitchen nearly as long as we have the house. And he does the preparing and the cooking, while his elder sister do most of the preparing and the stuff with the fresh vegetables,

Since the 2 kids of her, a boy and a girl, go to school, there is not much other thing to get all the money together for the uniforms and the books and then for them just for living.

Between 5am and 6am he starts in the kitchen, cooks all the meet and put the ducks and pork belly in microwave – a ‘Thai microwave oven’ – basically a metal cask, where the Thai people hang their cook meat pieces at the top, put a bit of slow gas fire from the bottom and through the heat and the quite big barrel and closed by a lid comes, after 2 hours, crispy and fresh looking meat out of the oven.

From around 9 o’clock people come and ordered from the dishes they offer. Mostly Thai people sitting near to the busy street the whole day, they mostly know already which from the round 20 dishes they can offer, and after 20 minutes guests leave again.

Porn His Sister

They are busy most of the time, during morning and over lunch time and later in the evening. Sometimes they can rest a bit or take a shower, but sometimes guests coming all the time.

While Porn has sometimes free during the afternoon, Arm mostly stops working around 7.30pm and goes around the corner to play volleyball with a couple of friends – sometimes 6 or 7 people and sometimes more then 18: they play on a tar field, scarcly lit and bar foot or with cloth shoes and some play with sport shoes. My cook just lays his cooking apron on one of the benches and plays – and do trust me, they would be able to play in any middle class team anywhere in the world!

And around 10pm he gets his apron, says everyone good bye and does with his sister the clean-up of their street kitchen until 11pm. This is his day – day after day. He prays every day in front of the small altar they have in their street kitchen. And he hopes that everything will go well also this day. Difficult times.

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