Day Thirteen

Today we went to our cooking class. We started class by walking to the local market to pick out fruits - vegetables - herbs. Our woman instructor taught us what each of the fruits, veggies, herbs were (there were several that we didn't know) and which ones to pick. For instance if you're picking mangoes, for a salad you want it light green and yellowish - but mostly green. And for dessert, you want it yellow. Also, alway pick the ugly mango - brown speckles everywhere. This means it grew in the sun, and the inside of it will be good for eating - not stringy. Also, it will make the Vietnamese women upset if you smell the mango and then don't buy it. So never buy it for the smell always by sight. We learned lots of different things like this for picking out the other items as well. Even that part of the class was invaluable! Now I know that those aren't artichokes...  They're sugar apples...

We headed back to the restaurant (Morning Glory) for our cooking part of the class. We walked into a room with 2 rows of tables. Each table had 2 burners, prepping utensils, and some pre-prepped foods and spices. There was a main table up front with a mirror above so we could see what our instructor was doing. We watched her make the food, and then we made ours, and then we ate ours. Everything was Really Good! We made a cabbage soup with shrimp paste dumplings, shrimp and pork fresh spring rolls, traditional Hoi An fried pancakes, and BBQ chicken skewers with mango salad. They gave us all the recipes and a few additional ones to try and a cutting thing that they use to slice their fruits and veggies (looks like a garden spade with a thin slit down the middle of it), not to mention we ate a lot of great food for lunch. Over all this was one of the highlights of our trip! It was really fun to learn about all their foods, ask questions about their culture and of course learn how to make some of their meals at home (of which we fully plan on doing).

After class we stopped in at the neighboring restaurant (of which is owned by Morning Glory). Our instructor mentioned that they make a specialty lemon grass ice cream that is delicious, and we had to try it. We stopped over and each got a scoop and a cone. I will say that this was one of the best ice creams I have ever had! In my life! Incredible! This was another highlight of our trip. We stopped back after dinner and got another cone!

Before dinner we stopped back at the local market for some additional cooking utensils that we would need to make the food we learned.  A cute little grater-stringer thing - 2 cute little pans for the pancakes - 2 clay lids - and 2 sets of long chop sticks for cooking with. First we scouted around for the pans. We asked the women of the market where we could buy the pans. Not fully understanding they took us stand to stand pointing at cookies, pastries and candy. Jade said no, we need pans to cook the pancakes. The women determined for us to buy from them or their sister's or their friend's stand brought us to another woman, who in tern brought us to another woman, who finally understood what we were looking for. Oh, you want pan to cooking the pancake she said. She sent her friend off into the market, and said you wait, I get you pan to cooking the pancake. The woman scurried back quickly with a dozen or so pans. She asked how many we needed, we ordered 2. The cute and cheap little pans were what we used in class and we thought they'd be fun to bring home and use - and the cute little ladies assured us that they were good high quality pans! We asked for clay lids, and the same happened, the one lady said something to the other lady, and she dashed off into the market and fetched us clay lids. All the shops seemed to work together, bound and determined to make a sale and make us happy. They were like personal shoppers. We purchased all of the items and the women all wrapped up our pots and lids etc in news paper, and put them into a bag for us. I thought about bargaining with them over the price (ended up being 15 bucks or so), but I thought, nah, this can be their tip, and just paid. We were happy with the pans and with the experience of having them help us.

For dinner we went exploring to the other side of the river (less touristy) and found a cute little 3 story restaurant on the river called The Lighthouse. We sat over looking the river on the second floor. Open air, as every building in Vietnam seems to be, we felt the cool breeze off of the river which was lovely. Turns out it is beetle season, as we ducked a huge beetle buzzing thru the air bouncing off of the lights, walls, bookcase etc. We're not talking little box elder bug here, we're talking 3 inch long 1 inch wide monster beetle! We saw about 10 or 15 of them before our waitress asked if we were scared of them. Jade's face answered the question - and the waitress took a moment to goal tend the beetles back outside. Another young couple came for dinner and sat outside on the balcony (we were sitting just inside). They ordered drinks - a beer for him, and a fruity one for her. They sat talking wait for their food when we heard her scream and flop around in her chair. A giant beetle  had dunked into her little fruity drink. The bug took up most of the room in her drink and it buzzed its wings for the escape. Covered in pineapple and alcohol, it couldn't get out, but successfully flapped drink all over the screaming woman. Jade and I watched laughing at the dinner time entertainment. They got the bug out, and the woman was bummed that she wouldn't be able to drink her drink, and the man said it's ok, I'm sure it'll taste just fine. After a few minutes, the woman continued drinking what was left of her cocktail. We ate a papaya salad and fish cooked in a clay pot with steamed rice. Our meal was excellent.

We strolled back for a movie in our room, and then to bed.