Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Don't Eat Pollution

Regarding my last comment in the last post: Nam does bring me a breakfast treat - not yesterday, but today. It's a different version of the #1 Breakfast - and he wants me to know it is from Hanoi. The difference is that the wide rice noodles are rolled up with something, I'm thinking dried mushrooms.

And I find something new to eat today: I am at the post office picking up a package from Amy T (her third strike, heart candies - thanks, Amy!) when a woman comes in carrying a stack of these:


I am curious and starving, so I buy one. The woman at the desk looks amused.

"Do you know what that is?" she asks. She tells me it's dried rice, topped with dried meat (the hairy-looking stuff), with chilies. "It's delicious!" she says.

And it is. I eat half of it while I am waiting for my package. When I go outside, Nam is lounging, smoking a cigarette. I ask him if he wants some. He quickly pulls the plastic bag over the rice cake and gestures out onto the street. He makes the negative hand gesture...I guess he is saying that I shouldn't eat something in the polluted street. He is trying to get this across to me while holding his cigarette, so I get a little judgmental. I point at the cigarette and make the negative hand signal..."well, perhaps you shouldn't be inhaling tar into your lungs, on the street or anywhere!"

The thing is, almost every food stand is right next to a busy street. Anyway -

Tonight, seven of us are getting together to watch the Oscars. They are being shown - commercial free - on a cable channel. We filled out ballots on Monday morning - we had to swear we wouldn't look at the results. The winner will get 350,000 VND, or about $20.

I should have had a dress made for the occasion.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately I am way to busy with my online curriculum at the moment to spend a whole night watching the show, but all our newspapers and magazines had pictures of the dresses yesterday and today - And what dresses! Seems like the mermaid-style is in....

Anonymous said...

Put all your money on The Dark Knight for Best Picture, and you'll be fine...

Marjie said...

Mungo, I saw "Doubt" last week - you were better than PSH in that role! What did you think of the movie?

And Cecilie, I didn't like the dresses AT ALL. They were so Cinderella - y. I liked Alicia Keys' dress the best out of all of them. What about you? Any dresses you saw that you might want to copy here in June?

Brian Bowker said...

"I should have had a dress made for the occasion."

Ha! I love it!

Anonymous said...

I still haven't seen Doubt!! Can you believe it?! We don't get the chance to see movies too often these days, so when we do, we tend to see movies that deserve a "big screen" treatment... I guess I'll have to wait until video...

Thanks for the compliment, though. You're a very kind, and very biased, locker partner... :)
Nobody does ANY role better than PSH...

Anonymous said...

When you wrote "pollution" but posted the "food" my mind quickly adapted it into "Don't Eat Insulation"... 'cause, really, isn't that usually found in that scary crawl space?

Anonymous said...

So...did you see your twin? Kate Winslet!!! OMG We all think you look alike!
Miss you! xoxoxo
You will try anything to eat, won't you??!!