Menu of the week - February 22nd 2010

Breakfast: wheat bread plus something that I will get from the market later
Lunch: buttered tofu cubes and gai lan and spaghetti and parmesan shavings and one banh gio


We had our choir's Mardi Gras party on Saturday and it was an appetizer+dessert event. I brought the soup dumplings from Qing Hua and our host has these little spoons he bought for a Foie Gras Creme Brulee and they were perfect to serve these dumplings. I had one person holding a long white platter with 12 spoons and small bowls of soy sauce and hot sauce and another person with a plastic box to collect the used spoons. People kept asking if I made them and then where they could get more.


I also brought two tarts from Romados and they were also well received. There are more marzipan lovers out there than I thought. At $10 a pie for 12 people it was also a steal.

House on stilts

I read about houses on stilts and it made me remember of my own stay at such a place. I must have been 6 years old (my earliest memory is from 4) and we were up north somewhere for a weekend trip. We stayed in these series of houses on stilts right on the beach. I remember the beach but not how we got up to the houses as they were at least 6 feet above ground.


My sister's godfather was there and he was trying to scare us with ghost stories.

Gays in Tet parade

There was a small brouhaha about some vietnamese gay groups marching in the Little Saigon (Westminster) Tet parade today. The expected religious groups made a big fuss how it's inappropriate to have homosexuals - the thing they oppose - in the middle of a family event. The gay groups have been marching in the San Jose Tet parade since 2004 without any problems and they want to extend their visibility to this area.


I am not sure if the gay groups' arguments are 100% kosher but having religious groups dictate what is a celebration of vietnamese culture is definitely not nice. Not everyone follow their beliefs and imposing one's views isn't what Jesus preached IMHO.


http://bolsavik.com/2010/02/tet-parade-gays-marched-people-applauded-alls-well/

Work Breakfast

I used to not eat breakfast and it started around university when I found myself with less time. I would grab a donut or something and get on with the day. I would end up eating an early lunch and then a snack again before dinner.


This continued until I moved to California for work and I was on the 5am to 9am phone shift. After the shift ended our group would go to have a big beakfast at the cafeteria. Those were the good days of big bowls of fruit and egg sandwiches. I was always amazed at the year round availability of melons, strawberry, pineapple, blueberry, etc - maybe it was just part of the extravagant spending that took the company down.


Nowadays I have to eat something or I won't be able to work plus I need my 6g of fiber a day to get things flowing. I found this bread that has 3g per slice and I started to make sandwiches ahead of time for the work week. I filled them with egg salad, deli meats, butter and jam, etc. After 6 months or so I got tired of eating that so I've been looking for new ideas.


Last week's whole wheat pita was delicious and a novelty but I didn't get enough fiber so I have to go back to the sliced bread. I will however keep the crab+egg mixture for the filling and add some Giò lụa. For lunch this week I will pack soba and tofu and frozen vegetables.

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Bun Rieu

There are many soup dishes in Vietnamese cuisine and my favorite is Bun Rieu. The recipe is simple but the preparation takes time. My aunt has a simpler recipe that uses less ingredients What I end up doing most of the time is to use the crab meat mixture in an omelet to get the main taste of the dish. I would eat the omelet in strips with noodle or rice and I even use it as a sandwich filling.

I made some this weekend for my super-breakfast sandwich. Eggs, crab mixture, scallions. Whole wheat pita bread (bag of 6 for 1$ at Marché Lobo), Kewpie mayonnaise and a slice of cheese.