Cooking Lessons and Other News

After school on Friday evening we had dinner and I went to the park with Anna. When I got back, Dung was talking about plans for the weekend and she said she would teach me to cook rice noodles with beef and pho! We spent a long time brainstorming ingredients for making a vegetarian pho broth so we never got around to cooking it but on Saturday I did learn how to make rice noodles with beef, a dish we eat almost every weekend.

In the morning before cooking, Dung and I went to have breakfast at a pho restaurant on Truc Street. Anh and Anna were still asleep when we went but we brought back pho for them. We ended up going to a small restaurant on the backside of Truc Street. The only time I'd been to the area was during the Champion Dash since the street led to the last three obstacles of the race. Anyway, we had pho on the street since there wasn't much seating inside and it was nice and mild outside. I think it was the best pho I've had in Vietnam so far but that also could be because it tastes most like the pho I'm used to in

the US. Dung did advertise it as the best pho in the city though so I maybe the place I go to in Ballard is pretty authentic. After breakfast we went back to the apartment and Anh ate his pho for brunch. He woke up very late after having two teeth pulled on Friday and ate lunch around the same time as the rest of us; but had pho instead of the noodles we made.

Anyway, we started prep around 10:30 after Anh's parents came to the apartment from the city. I helped and observed Dung and her mother cooking the noodles - the dish is actually very simple to prepare since the only part that's cooked are the noodles and the beef (when I make it at home, I'll use mushrooms for my dad). Most of cooking for this dish is preparing the garnishes since you serve the noodles on a bed of mixed herbs and lettuce with peanuts, bean sprouts, and fried shallots on top. You have to mix the broth/sauce that is ladled over top of the noodles and beef too but that's also not

cooked so it's pretty easy to make. I'm excited to try the recipe when I get home but I'll have to find some vegetarian fish sauce for my dad because the broth is flavored almost entirely with fish sauce. It's the same basic recipe as bun cha, just a different cooking of the meat so if I can figure out a way to replicate Vietnam's street-side grilled pork, I can make bun cha as well!

I had a bit of an interesting afternoon after electrocuting myself with my iPod charger... I was in my room working on homework when I went to unplug my iPod; it had somehow already unplugged itself from the wall and the connector between the cord and USB wall adapter was a bit blackened. I brought it out to show whoever was up and Anh's dad just plugged the USB connector back into the adapter. I decided maybe something happened with the outlet so I tried plugging it into the outlet in the kitchen. I thus went to do so and got shocked! I can't remember that it really hurt but it definitely alarmed me because I jumped back and yelled. Anh's parents and Dung's mother were both afraid that I had been burnt but I wasn't - my hand had just been blackened. I quickly decided to throw out the charger and wash my hand. When Dung got home later she said she would get an extra charger from her office. I didn't even care that much about the charger, I was just too scared to plug anything in after that. I ended up finishing my math in the living room because I was afraid to plug the computer into the socket in my room. I've since moved the computer back into my room and have not been shocked since.

I spent the rest of the evening a little shaken but had dinner as usual. After emailing my mom in the morning we planned to Skype but because the 14 hour time difference changed to a 15 hour time difference after daylight savings time, I had to stay up until 11:30 to meet them on Skype. Luckily there was a movie, "Lucy" playing on HBO so I watched it with Dung and Anh. It was a little violent but an interesting idea and I was able to stay awake without getting tired before Skyping my parents. After my weird electrocution, the internet had been slow and kept resetting so when I went onto Skype, the call got cut off three times. We had almost given up and planned to Skype in the morning but I reset the WiFi one more time and we had a strong connection until around 2:15 when I finally said goodnight. We had a lot to cover with this awful Financial Aid profile for my college applications as well as my trip in December, planning for gifts for my host family, and just generally catching up with my parents. With the financial aid stuff, my dad filled out the whole financial aid profile for me(it's even more complicated than FAFSA) and sent it off to my colleges with a couple hours to spare on the deadline. We hadn't done it sooner because I didn't know it was a part of the application and it's not listed on the CommonApp. Anyway, thankfully my dad worked hard to finish it on time so it's all worked out. I promised to help on the FAFSA application when I get home and my mom also proposed that I take her and my dad out for dinner or give them some gift for doing it completely last minute - after I failed to ask them about it sooner.

On Sunday I had hoped we would be making pho but after such a late night on Skype and also calling my dad again in the morning to check in, I wasn't up and out of my room until pretty late. Dung's mom had made traditional porridge the day before as well so I ate that for

lunch. Dung told me it was made from boiled bones and flour which is about what it tasted like. The flavor and texture made me feel like I was eating chicken fat with fried pork skin on top so, needless to say, it wasn't my favorite. Dung said it was a dish she ate everyday as a child so I guess she really likes it but I wont be eating it ever again. I ate mine as quickly as I could and had two bananas after; the bananas were good. I spent the rest of the day doing math and other work. The internet is still weird and I haven't been able to connect to the WiFi on my iPod at all. I think it might be a hardware issue with the router and I hope it gets fixed soon. I really need reliable internet connection for my math class and the school doesn't have any public access for students, so I don't really have anywhere else to go.

After dinner this evening (we had chicken and Dung and her mom enjoyed the feet), Anna and I went to the playground. It's been consistently cooler which is nice; I still wear shorts when we go to the playground, but I haven't had to turn my air con on during the day so the weather has been much more bearable. It's around 10:15 now and I'm getting ready for bed and school tomorrow. I think we have the final soccer game of our school league in the afternoon so that will be a good way to start the week.

As a side note, to anyone with friends or family in Paris, I hope they are safe. I sent a message to my friend, Adrienne, who's on an

exchange in France right now. Luckily she's living in a suburb just outside the city and was home when the attack occurred on Friday night. My thoughts have gone out to her parents the most who I'm sure were extremely worried when the news broke Friday. I didn't even hear about the attacks until Saturday morning when I woke up but they were well publicized here in Vietnam and I'm sure I'll hear something about it tomorrow at school. Anyway, I wanted to say something about it since it was a horrible act of terrorism and it has been on my mind these past two days.

Sorry to end on a downer but I hoped you enjoyed the rest of the blog. As always, thanks for reading and have a great Sunday.