Food

I've decided to try and focus on one topic per blog entry for a while, in order to make some sense of things. The whole world is brand new to me, but talking about everything all at once seems like a bad idea. I'm also going to try and post something at least once a week. So, this week it's food.

These were my first food purchases on the day I arrived. I wanted something that I could just have on hand for whenever I got hungry, because I didn't know what the meal situation was yet. So I stopped at the supermarket and picked up some Nut House brand nuts and some sort of preserved fruit called Omai, and pronounced,"Oh, my."


The nuts were just ordinary cashews. The Omai was a little bit more of a gamble. They turned out to be little apricots (or something) sprinkled with chili powder. On their own they're not so good, but they happen to be good with cashews.

Other things from the Fivi-Mart...

Pumpkin chips...

Canned Iced coffee. Which was also one of my favorite things in the US. These have some sort of recycling like logo on them, but I'm not sure what it means. I havn't seen any evidence of a recycling program anywhere yet. And, their little triangle is a little different. So I'm thinking it signifies recycling in a more esoteric sense. These cans will be "returned to the land."

And I've always been a big fan of animals that enjoy being eaten. These ones come right out and say it. They are so happy have their throats slit, be sliced up and formed into tube shape, and be tossed into your child's backpack to be consumed or traded for something better later, that they just want to say thank you.

How's that for an attitude of gratitude, huh?

I'm sure I'm missing the stuff at the supermarket that would seem the strangest to me because I just don't know what half of the stuff there is.

But at least once or twice a day I've been eating real homemade Vietnamese food prepared by the woman who does everything around the house. It's all fresh. It's all delicious. And, there's always more than I can eat. You can tell these eggs came from real chickens.

I've always liked bananas, but I swear they taste even more banana-ey here. My room mate thinks it's because they pick them ripe. But my new favorite fruit is Dragon fruit. Especially if it's been in the fridge for a while. I could plow through pounds of this stuff.

Of course, there's a reason we don't have such fresh fruit in the states. I had an apple tonight, and while I was eating it, this little critter came crawling out...

As soon as I saw him I spit everthing that was in my mouth on the floor, and then laughed at myself for over reacting. Until I cleaned it up and there was a worm on the floor that had apparently just been in my mouth. I guess that's why Mom always said, "Don't forget to irradiate your food!"

Still, I'm really liking all the fresh food for the most part. And, it didn't dampen my sense of culinary adventure. I went right out and got an avocado shake at a bakery/restaurant down the street.

Mmmmm... Smooth creamy weirdness.