Normal: Doing a little shopping. Out here, this.
Normal: Catching up with the neighbors. Out here:
Normal: Going for a walk after dinner. Out here:
Normal: Stumbling across an empty building. Out here:
Normal: Trying new foods. Out here:
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| I swear we didn't order a beer for our daughter. |
There were a few more photos from the week that I couldn't think of any at-home equivalents for. They're just more amazing scenes from our neighborhood.
I could really get used to this version of normal, and it's starting to sink in that we're halfway through the trip. But we're certainly not going home any time soon.
And in case you're wondering how that first shopping trip worked out, Mimi seems to be quite happy with her purchase.
Speaking of French food (scroll up, I went a little overboard with the photos), I have one guilty pleasure in this town. There's a restaurant in the French Quarter that is modeled after the "Hill Stations" that the French would set up in their colonies. They were essentially provincial outposts set up to keep any eye on things in the frontier lands. The French were known to be significantly less violent than other imperial forces of the time, but it was still an occupation. So I sort of feel bad eating at a restaurant that makes light of one country exploting another. But, man, the breakfast is good.
That said, the Hill Station is a sometimes food. Generally speaking, our meals come in ceramic bowls placed on small plastic tables. Viet Nam is internationally known for its street food, but this street food is nothing like the flashy food trucks parked outside of music festivals back at home. There is an emphasis on 'street' in Vietnamese street food. Raw meat sits on the countertop, dishwashing often happens just once at the end of the day, and you're rarely eating more than a few feet from zooming motorbikes. But just like the chaotic traffic tends to work itself out, the food safety does, too.
I've started to wonder which of our food safety rules really matter. I'm sure the risk of getting sick goes down when meat is kept in the fridge. But does keeping it at room temperature for an hour or two before cooking significantly increase the risk? A different set of food safety norms than what we're used to has evolved here, but I'm not sure if one is better or worse than the other. Yes, they leave meat out at room temperature, but the butchers kill the animal just a couple of hours before they take it to market. And even though there isn't a handwashing station at the corner food cart, locals deftly handle their chopsticks so that they never have to touch their food.
Most of these street carts are run by women who have been cooking one dish on the same street corner for fifteen or twenty years. Their reputation means the world to them, and they clearly take pride in their offerings. Locals know who does things right, both in terms of flavor and in terms of food safety. Our rule has been to stick to places that have a few locals already eating at them, and we've been ok so far. Only once did Aimee have to use chopsticks to take a fly out of her pho. "More protein," she said, as cartoon hearts and butterflies circled around my head. She's a keeper.
And speaking of Aimee, it was her first Mother's Day this week! And let me tell you, it's pretty hard to come up with a present for someone who is already in paradise, and has unfettered access to gourmet food and fine tailored clothing. She even has plenty of dark chocolate from Nona. Aimee is wanting for nothing. I settled on sending Aimee back to the spa and booking us all a hotel room for no other reason than to use their pool. So we continued living in paradise with unfettered access to gourmet food and fine tailored clothing, except now we were a few degrees cooler. It was lovely.
