Dirrrty South. . . . Mekong Style

I’ve been in Asia for the duration of an entire season of Project Runway. That’s sort of a long time.

Foodie Fridays: Featuring one delicious dish that I have eaten in Vietnam, and one delicious dish I dearly miss.

Yum Yum Vietnam: banh xeo

Yum Yum My Memories: pupusas

What I wouldn’t do for some pupusas…..mmmmm…..Handjobs on a street corner…. I would maybe even kill a man! To be fair, I think I may just be bluffing since I do not foresee the situation arriving where someone offers me some delicious pupusas for murdering someone. 

It’s a hopeless affair. In HCMC, many cuisines are easy to come by. You can find burgers, pizza, tasty Indian, Japanese, Korean, Italian, French, etc. places……..but I am pessimistic about the pupusas outlook. Even if I found a pupuseria…..would it be worthwhile or just some sad, blasphemous hodgepodge of ingredients masquerading as these delectable stuffed tortillas? When you are far from home and craving something, there’s no room for sorta, at least for me. I crave my food from home, I want it done right, I want it done deliciously. If not, what’s the point? Might as well stick with Vietnamese food. There’s nothing wrong with Vietnamese food! Life is like a culinary jackpot. Coming from somewhere very culturally diverse, I am used to eating several different types of cuisine in the span of a week, so it’s hard for me to eat any one kind of food exclusively for long periods of time.

With missing food from home, I find that it is often only partially the food itself I miss, the tastes, smells, etc. I miss who I ate it with, I miss the restaurants, the situations, but always above all the people. I associate certain foods with different friends, families, etc. I miss the deliciousness of pupusas, but I am also nostalgic about stopping at Pancitas for cheap bite to eat after work with Megan, or gorging myself with brunch at Zocalo with Emily, Viv and Steph, etc. etc.  Oh memories……oh hungry belly…..

This is my first time where I am living on my own, not at home, and not in a dorm with a meal plan and house cleaners. I’ve been acquiring all the little things that you don’t really give much thought to but are completely necessary to have, such as kitchen supplies, and I am slowly learning how to cook. I can kind of cook two things, but mostly eat out, eat instant noodles (and variations of it), or sometimes if I am lucky enough my students feed me! Since I live alone, and due to my lack of culinary skills (which means a lack of hosting dinner parties), I don’t have much of anything. Only a few cups, and I only have a few plates. But oh what plates they are!! Here are the two plates I eat from everyday:

It’s hard to pick which is my favorite. The Renaissance dudes are pretty awesome but the profile silhouette also makes me happy (slash a lil startled every time I finish my food). What do YOU think is happening in the plates? Who are these people? I kinda think that the blue one is some rich dandy of a Renaissance dude with his servant/special friend holding an umbrella, but that’s just my interpretation.  The profile? Maybe it’s my shadow (my shadow is butcher than i….that’s deep yo!)?

Anyways, so with two plates and only me to feed, I don’t really need anymore. Especially since eventually I will move out, where I will undoubtedly curse all my worldly possessions when it comes time to pack. However, how could I resist buying this one? 

That’s just happiness on in a plate. I wonder how many plates I’ll acquire by the end of my stay here. It does give me a skosh more motivation to eat all my dinner and wash the dishes. Is it weird that these plates may be my most favorite non-edible things I’ve bought in Vietnam so far? I’m proud of these lil suckas!

The two last pictures from the previous post made me all nostalgic about the Chiang Mai adventures. Here are some more photos of Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep.

Oh wait, it’s rainy season. What a ludicrous request. The day will start off scorching hot, and then suddenly (usually in the afternoon), torrential rainfall hits with an intense fury. You are basically rendered immobile, wherever you are. Just got to accept that for the next 20 minutes, hour or even hours you cannot go anywhere. In the U.S. this would drive me nuts. Here, I don’t seem to mind. It’s like being forced to take a much needed break. I don’t know if I think this way because the pace of life is different here, or it just seems like I have less of a hectic schedule (I do only teach 16 hours a week). Anyways, I was about to go to the market and buy me some foods so I could cook da grub, but alas, I am stuck in my room. As the rain pounds down on my corrugated roof (imagine the sound of thousands of marbles being dropped onto a sheet of tin –> that is what is competing with the new TV on the Radio album I’m attempting to listen to), I’ve decided to compile a greatest hits of pictures of being stuck in the rain in Vietnam and in Thailand. ((Note: My camera doesn’t work anymore, from being caught in the rain funny enough, so most of my posts involving photos will be me looking back on a faraway time))