Food in Place

I wake up every morning craving Pho Ga, or Vietnamese chicken noodle soup.  Something about the steamy deliciousness of it; fresh ingredients; two of my favorite condiments too--cilantro and lime.  Accompany with Nau Da (Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk), and I would be content.  The Special K cereal I have in the morning now just doesn't cut it.  I think I could be happy in any culture that eats Xoi Ga (chicken & sticky rice), Pho, or some other hearty, but healthy, food for breakfast. 


Xoi Ga, with Sausage & Fried Egg, in Ha Noi

I didn't get to taste all of the wonderful foods that Ha Noi has to offer, and this makes me sad.  But in Da Nang (or "Halong Bay on Land") we had our fill of goat, prepared many ways, which, I wasn't crazy about, but tried.  Goat is chewy.  I am happy to be an adventurous eater, which I find is a quality absent in American culture.  I think I get it from my dad; growing up, he'd eat anything while my mother watched on in disgust.  She hadn't even had rice until she met him.  On the Asian side of my family we say a person is a "real HuYoung" by their adventuresome eating.  The "nasty bits" are, in fact, the tastiest, most valued parts of the animal in other cultures, but we are breed to think of them as "bad". 

I miss papaya salad too.  I want some "morning glory" and boc choy.  Some of those tiny fried spring rolls filled with crab.  Banh Bao, Bahn Mi...it's all coming back now.  I want those small bananas that taste more like sweet potatoes.  I want the accessibility and affordability of food--I do not like having to drive 10 minutes to pay $20 for a pizza.  I want to walk out my door and have it there, right in front of me.  I want to pay no more than $2 for Xoi Ga that will fill me up for the day.  I want to sit on small plastic stools with my soup, watching the world go by.


My First Ha Noi Street Food Experience

I want to taste the world's foods.  Yes, Vietnam, I want to try more of your cuisine, but want Chinese, Thai, Indian, Argentenian, Spanish, Brazilian...I want it all, in its place.  Food can be an experience of place, but eating food in its place is being there, in the moment.  I don't even care if I like it, I just want it.  Perhaps food is the real way to experience culture.

Organized Chaos: An Adventure in Vietnam, Part I

So I believe it's officially the end of what I like to call the "stressful period" in my life, which lasted for 4 months, hence the hiatus in posts.  As Adam left for Vietnam, I attempted to keep myself busy with a lot of craft projects that still have yet to be completed, as the busy holidays and annual Fellows banquet at work took its toll on my so called, down-time. Sometimes you get so caught up in being busy that you almost become numb to feelings and emotions; no bueno. 

Right now, I'm extremely jetlagged, for real.  I can't really think straight, and my head has a weird pressure on it, and I don't know how much sense I'm going to make.  So why am I jetlagged?  Because I just got back from one of the most amazing trips of a lifetime to Vietnam, where my boyfriend is currently living. We did so many things, saw so many different parts of the country, and had a lot of fun experiencing everything together.  I left for this trip the day after a stressful work conference/Fellows banquet, and planned the trip no less than 15 days before I left.  The timing was right, as it was Tet Holiday (Lunar New Year) in Vietnam and Adam had an entire week off work, though I'm not one to plan something as big as this so last minute.  From last minute preparations, to asking for time off work (after already taking a week off in December), to going to a foreign land, I was definitely out of my comfort zone.  But you know what? It felt so good.  This sporadic, spur of the moment, go with the flow adventure took me out of my usual "everything needs to happen a certain way" mode.  It turned off, and I decided to let Vietnam have me, if you will, carefree, exploring, experiencing, not knowing what food I'd be eating next, or where we'd be going the next day.  Although some of my "I need to know what the plan is, and we need to stick to it" impluses kicked in, I learned that sometimes it's better to experience life on the fly, not knowing what's ahead.  Sometimes it's good to plan last minute, because then you're more open to experiencing the moment, than experiencing with pre-expectations.  

This trip definitely changed the way I see things, and may have an impact on my habits in the future.  It also revealed that I'm in my formative years, and now is the time to decide what type of woman I want to become and what dream I want to chase.  In the next few posts, I'll write more about my experience, but first, so that I can analyze everything fully, I'm going to wait until the jetlag wears off and the fog around my mind clears.