Shrewd Food

Entry #7.  March 15, 2012, 3:23 pm.  Hotel Room, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  It’s about time I ladle out my admiration and obsession for Vietnamese food.  The whisking of French and Vietnamese cuisines, peppered with influences from China, is truly something special.  The dishes here are hearty and healthy, tasty and toothsome, and appetizing as well as ample.  Simple scrumtulescent.  Seafood lovers will find their ambrosia, with mixes of shrimp, crab, fish, and squid tossed in sweet and tangy fish sauce.  Carnivores can delight in freshly boiled beef, suckling pork, and fried chicken.  And of course vegetarians will embrace the many preparations of tofu and exotic fruits and vegetables, each with a unique taste.  Vegans- just don’t come.  Lastly and most importantly, some of the desserts here are mouth-watering.  Yesterday I walked five blocks just to buy this lady’s deep-fried, over-ripe, sugar-battered bananas.  These caused a convulsive foodgasm, and if I had eaten her fried banana cake directly afterwards I may have broken down into dry heaves of crying.  The French imprinted their baking skills on Vietnam, so there are European-style bakeries on every street corner.  I love a certain bakery’s (called Bready- enjoy that Asian wit) freshly baked giant sugar donuts, which cost only thirty cents (approximately 8,000 dong).  Yes the currency is the dong, so naturally I am constantly thinking, “that’s what she said”.  I’ll get over it.  But I cannot go without writing about the pho- Vietnam’s most famous dish.  Pho (pronounced ‘fuh’) is a hot, brothy dish of thick noodles, beef, and a blend of herbs and spices.  You can just taste the healthiness.  It’s a dish, like all the other favorites, best eaten at the sidewalk restaurants, which are simply food vendors with a few carts, fold-up tables, and mini plastic chairs.  These restaurants offer pure freshness and localized flavor, and I can’t get enough of them.  In conclusion, the food in Vietnam is gift from God.

I have a special treat for you, readers.  A colleague of mine who teaches teenagers in Cambodia emailed a hilarious story that I am compelled to share. Last week, he came across students passing a note in class. When one student obtained the note the teacher promised the student that if he gave it to the teacher immediately, there would be no consequences, otherwise an essay would be given to write at home that night. The student wouldn't give up the note, saying it was a family secret, which was a full out lie as it had been passed around several times.  My friend, the teacher, decided 500 words was a sufficient essay for the student to write on the subject of "Why I shouldn't pass notes in class".

This is what the teacher received the next day, spelling and grammar errors untouched:

Why I don’t give you the note because this note is not for you to look why you want to look. This not is my family secret, my brother secret, my sister secret, my uncle secret, my aunt secret, my mother secret, my father secret, my grandmother secret, my grandfather secret, my younger brother secret, my younger sister secret, my older brother secret, my pet secret my waiter secret, my school secret, my home secret, my homeland secret, my friend secret and my secret. if you want to know my secret note you have to ask my family, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, younger sister, younger brother, older brother older sister. This secret note of my family is important to my family, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, my brother, my sister, and my hometown. If the secret note is lose my mother or my father will fight me until I find the secret note of my family and my hometown. If I keep the secret note of my family and my hometown my mother or my father will buy the robot boxing for me. If you want to read the secret note of my family and my hometown you can ask my father, my mother, my uncle, my aunt, my sister, my brother, my older brother or my older sister to look the secret note of my family and my hometown. But if you take the secret note and look if you lose my secret note I will tell my family to fight you until you find the secret note if you cannot find the secret note of my family and my hometown I will tell the police, F.B.I, C.I.A, S.W.A.T, Ranger to put you in the jail for 10 to 15 years. If you come out from the jail. You have to find the secret note of my family. If you cannot find the secret note of my family you will have punisment. If you have punisment you will get hurt. If you get hurt you will go to hospital. If you go to hospital you will spent a lot of money. If you spent a lot of money you will get low money. If you get low money you cannot buy the food. If you cannot buy the food you will always cry. If you cry you will go to work. If you cannot find the Taxi you will walk to work. If you walk to work you be get tired. If you tired you need water if you need water you will spent for water to walk to work. If you spent for water to walk to work you will get hungry. If you hungry you don’t have money you will dead. If you dead your family will cry for you. If your family cry for you your family will take in the fire. If your family take you in the fire you will be very hot. If you very hot you will go to hell.

Hilariously disdainful and shrewd.  Of course I couldn’t wait to share his essay with my father, my mother, my uncle, my aunt, my sister, my brother, my older brother, my older sister, my friends, my grandmother, my grandfather, and my pet.