Cooking Up a Vietnamese Storm



Plums at the market



Yesterday was "Consumer Sciences" day at the ISIHA (I could tell you what it means, but then I'd need to cut your tongues out).  We spent our morning at the Red Bridge Cooking School honing our Vietnamese cooking skills.  I sense some chuckles out there.  Yes, I do know that the word "honing" implies that there may have been some skills there to begin with.  My children will firmly assure you that I have no cooking skills whatsoever, so "honing" may be a wishful vocabulary stretch.  However, in deference to those in our group who did possess some culinary prowess, I think many of us did indeed "hone" our cooking skills.  Anyway, it was a day of Vietnamese feasting, and I am VERY good at eating.



Where's the beef?



We began our day at the Hoi An Market where we checked out the local market scene and saw the purchase point of most of the tasty treats we would fry up in a pan a little later in the day. 



Fresh Fish



Who are you callin' a chicken?

Squid!  My personal favorite.

Fresh Eel?  Not so much...

Hold my hand.  This is gonna be gross!



Buddies



Weight Shifting in the Boat

     

Studious cooking students

After an adventure-filled boat ride to the restaurant (during which the boat beached itself twice, and the passengers were required to run from end to end of the boat shifting the weight around), we arrived at the herb garden. Then, at last, our cooking class began. Susan, our chef/tour guide wielded a sassy sense of humor with her kitchen knives and spatulas.  She was the perfect match for a cooking class including middle school 'tudes.  She matched their personalities and engaged them beautifully. 

Before we knew it Foster was on center stage sauteing garlic and lemon grass with prawns over an open flame.  Next up was Brianna tossing seafood salad made with banana flower and arranging it in a hollowed out pineapple bowl.  We tried our hands at rice paper, fresh shrimp spring rolls, banh xeo (shrimp and pork pancakes), and eggplant in a clay pot.  After each experiment, we ate the results...until it was lunchtime, and we moved over to the restaurant to eat the "professional's" products.  When it was time to leave, someone made the wise decision to reduce the number of passengers in the boat.  We had beached ourselves twice before we had eaten.  Now we were stuffed to the gills and were bound to do some serious damage to the river basin if we ran aground again.

       

The beautiful thing about a cooking class is that all of your ingredients just magically appear at your side - measured, chopped and peeled for your cooking pleasure.  It has been my experience that this does not happen in the real world.  IF I attempt to cook something, the veggie I need is bound to be shriveled and rotting in the refrigerator, or the main ingredient will be two months past its expiration date.  Here in Vietnam,  I have all kinds of reasons to rationalize not cooking - a kitchen full of ants, no pots and pans, no staple foods, no place to store those staples so they don't get filled with ants, oh, and no motivation when someone else will cook it for less than I can buy the ingredients for in the market (with my ATPF face).

Making Rice Paper

Fresh shrimp spring rolls

Slicing lemon grass

So, cooking school was a nice diversion, but it failed to sell me on cooking.  Eating, however, is still one of my favorite past times.  The biggest endorsement of the day came from Foster (who we half-expected to scoff at the cooking school concept).  "I want to do the whole-day program for my birthday present in March."  Wow.  I'm a fan.  If you can get my twelve-year-old to voice enthusiasm about anything that does not involve a computer, you are a miracle worker in my book.  Cooking School II it is!  We'll be back in March.