The Great American Bake Sale

Today is the Great American Bake Sale when people from all over the United States have their own bake sales to help fight child hunger in America.

At my day job, we had a bake sale and donated the proceeds to the local food bank where our office is located. The Alameda Food Bank is getting a check for $650!

We had lots of treats at the bake sale including a chocolate souflee, cookies of all flavors, scones with home made jam, three kinds of cupcakes, a delicious cornmeal cake fresh from the oven, Fleur de Sel Nut Brittle and yes of course... fruit loop squares.


















I'm already looking forward to the bake sale next year!

Phở for love of flavor

A bowl of Phở in Hanoi, Vietnam. A picture is worth a thousand flavors!

On the Mekong

Vietnamese street vendors, restaurants, and markets have no shortage of another French influence - bread. The Mekong markets are no exception.


During our trip to Vietnam my friend and I traveled by boat from Saigon four hours south Can Tho, a city that acts as the jumping off point if you want to reach the remotest confines of the Mekong Delta. The Cai Rang floating market and it's surrounding canals were our ultimate destination so at 5 a.m. we hired a man with a boat to take us there. Getting into the boat I knew that I would be able to get an excellent look at the way people in the Mekong region live but I had no idea just how much the experience would mean to me both as a cultural voyeur and as a woman who can appreciate how difficult it can be to grow and harvest food.

















Pineapples for sale

The man in the boat took my friend and I an hour further down the river to Cai Rang where one of Vietnam's largest floating markets happens each day. This is the place where people do their "grocery shopping" on the Mekong. Here's how it works... You bring your fruit, bread, noodles etc. that you have to sell or trade to the market in your boat. Then, you take a long stick and hang one of the items you have for sale as if to say, "I got pineapples, here!" Then, you wait for someone to come by on their boat and purchase your pineapples or better yet, trade you a pineapple for a mangosteen or maybe a few chả giò.

















A woman cleans a fish off the back of her house boat

The people who live on and along the Mekong River are true survivalists. The river is their life blood - They use the river for so much that they are destroying its once fertile delta. The river itself, however, continues to provide fish and other creatures that become the ingredient for delicious clay pot dishes as well as grilled and fermented . Water from the river is used to irrigate crops, boil noodles, brush teeth, clean fish, bathe... we witnessed all of these things during our time on the river.



















Claypot fish - possibly Basa Catfish, one of the most plentiful species found in the Mekong and on restaurant menus. The Basa fish is illegal to import into the US.


The Mekong Delta is a very profitable area of Vietnam. It is a large rice producing area, having three harvests per year versus two in the North. Vietnam has teetered between being the second and third largest exporter of rice globally after Thailand and India since 2002. The Mekong Delta is also a large producer (farmed and wild) of many kinds of shrimp which are mostly exported as frozen product.


But the Mekong Delta, like a lot of the natural treasures on Earth, is also in trouble environmentally. There is a huge fresh water shortage due to drout that will no doubt change the land permanently. Several agencies are working with Vietnamese farmers to build resevoirs and teach more sustainable farming practices.

I'm so glad that I was able to see the Mekong Delta so alive and thriving and, I hope that it's not to late to preserve and save it. I can't wait to go back there some day.

'Cà phê sữa means "heavenly" in my Vietnamese dictionary

One of the best things about Vietnam cuisine is the coffee. The best part of sitting in a Vietnamese cafe is the coffee. The best part of going to sleep in Vietnam every night was knowing that I was only 6-8 hours away from my next cup of coffee. Drinking Vietnamese drip coffee was one of the culinary hi-lights of my trip. Most people don't consider coffee "cuisine" but I consider it a food group, just like cheese.

'Cà phê sữa nóng' (translation, hot milk coffee) is made using coarsely ground, ultra strong coffee grounds. Hot water is poured through a little metal syphon called a cà phê phin and the coffee drips through, leaving about one inch of deep, dark, very strong brew in the bottom of a glass. This is either added to or dripped directly into sweetened condensed milk and voila - with a good stir, it becomes one of, if not the best taste in Vietnam.






















Literally, cà phê sữa đá means "coffee milk ice" and the best we had was in Can Tho. I'm still not sure what the magical coffee man did to make them so good but hot damn, I can't even begin to describe how good it was. It could have been that it was 100 degrees and 87% humidity and the iced coffee just made life so much happier. It could be that the coffee in Can Tho is enriched from the waters of the Mekong. I don't know. I get all giddy just writing about it.

Coffee was introduced to the Vietnamese by French colonists (thank you, French colonists) in the 19th century. Because of limitations on fresh milk in Vietnam, the French and Vietnamese started using canned sweetened condensed milk. Interestingly, the former military base of Khe Sahn, made historically significant during the Vietnam War is now surrounded by coffee plantations.