Butterball!

The title of this blog is Butterball…because that is what I am going to look like when I get home. I have been very busy….eating! Gad, the food is so good….and I have no power to say no. So….I end up eating huge meals far too often!

Last week I went “downtown”. This means a 30-40 minute ride in a taxi ($5) or on the back of a motorcycle taxi ($2.25). If I am feeling more adventurous, I take the city bus –which is super cheap (30 cents) but VERY, VERY crowded and usually pretty dirty and a much longer ride. The first time I came to Hanoi I used the city buses all the time. But now I am either lazy or getting smart! I usually take a motorcycle taxi. There are guys sitting on every street corner who will take you anywhere for a very low cost. You sling yourself on the back of his motorcycle, wrap your arms around him –and off you go! They “usually” are good drivers and very fast….they know how to beat the traffic snarls that seem to be everywhere these days.

Anyway, last week I ended up at a very popular restaurant in downtown Hanoi. It serves food from all areas of Vietnam (North, South, Central Highlands…etc). A Master’s Degree student who lives a few doors down from me took me out to lunch. It was fabulous! We had a variety of wonderful dishes and I enjoyed them all.



The next day the Geography Department celebrated its 55 year anniversary. I don’t know why 55 is special in Vietnam …but they seem to have different milestones than we do in the U.S. But, it was a HUGE event. Over 500 people—mostly retired faculty members—showed up! Flowers, speeches, dancing and more speeches followed by FOOD! I don’t have any photos of the food…but once again, it was magnificent. Below are a few photos from this event.





Then last night two friends and I were headed to Fivimart to go grocery shopping. It started to rain…so we steered ourselves into a local restaurant instead. BIG MISTAKE! Gad…the food! We ate and ate. Below are some of the dishes.

First, this was a Bia Hoi. This means cheap beer and good food. This place was a classy Bia Hoi… most of them are more downscale with plastic chairs and tables and very, very cheap beer. The beer here was about $1.25 for a good sized mug…so more expensive. Most of the places sell mugs of fresh beer for about 50 cents.
Anyway, we order….. mmmmmmm. Started out with a jellyfish salad. The photo below doesn’t do it justice. It was so good. Jellyfish have little taste and the texture of gummy worms. But they use sauce and herbs which make it very flavorful.



Next we had a fried tofu dish. I have learned to love tofu. It is very healthy and low fat. In the US people really don’t know how to cook it. In Vietnam they are experts! This tofu has been fried and is crispy with coconut type outside and a creamy warm inside. You dip it in a dark sauce of ….um…something! I think soy + fish sauce + lime + chili. Anyway….it is great!



The next great plate of food was spring rolls…but these were not the traditional Vietnamese type. These were stuffed with fried fish that was rolled up with fresh dill. You dip the roll into a dipping sauce before you take a bite. The photo below shows these….but only three are on the plate. I forgot to take a photo before we started eating these beauties!



We also had a hot dish of snails, tofu and a variety of vegetables. It was called a soup…but I like to put it over rice. The spices were perfect! And the photo below shows the whole table of food. Add a couple of dark beers and you probably can see why I stumbled out of the place! I was super full……



But the food saga doesn’t stop there! My friends know I love egg plant and we found some at Fivimart that night. They came to my room today and cooked up a batch of heavenly food AGAIN!!! They both are great cooks…so I am assigned the job of cooking the rice—of course I have a rice cooker, so it is a quick assignment. They chop up the egg plant and soak it in salt water for awhile…then the cooking begins. They start with tofu…frying it lightly. Pork is next….a small amount is chopped up and added to the pan. After that is done all is removed and the egg plant is cooked for awhile in my one pan. Everything is then mixed together and water is added and it bubbles away for about 15 minutes.



Finally a herb called Perilla –from the mint family, is added along with green onion. It is put in a dish and we are ready to eat!



The thing you have to realize is that all the cooking is done in my bathroom! For western culture, this is really strange! But for the Vietnamese, this is pretty typical. They use rooms for “multi-purposes”…although I do think that cooking in a bathroom is pushing the cultural divide a bit! The one thing I do have is a small “hot plate”. It actually is an induction cookplate. This thing is awesome. It heats up in a nano-second. Much better than electric or gas.





So…this is just a quick overview of why my weight management system isn’t going so well. Add lots of rain –which has curtailed my volleyball and TaiChi activities ..so exercise has been almost non-existent! Oh well….