Whenever I tell my parents that we’re coming to visit, my dad emails, “Mom asks what you would like to eat.” She takes requests from my siblings and their kids, as if she’s a restaurant chef. My response for Father’s Day was vague, “Maybe we can cook something on that grill we bought you for Christmas?” I was trying to get her to use the grill instead of her broiler or lighting a charcoal fire. Mom is 81 years old!
Rory and I arrived on Sunday for lunch and my dad greeted us with rose wine and said, “We’re having pork two ways!” It’s been about a year since Bo Gia had two stent implants and he was looking mighty good. My mom was in an equally cheery mood when she announced that she’d made two northern Vietnamese pork dishes, Hanoi-style bun cha and pork belly marinated in the style of dog. I know that sounds weird but my mom said she was inspired by my banh mi hot dog tips and also the one on Bo Gia’s wellness tip that included eating more turmeric.
“I had the pork belly in the freezer and found a recipe in Lam Bep Gioi [one of her and my favorite Vietnamese cookbooks] for faking grilled dog,” she proudly said. I volunteered to go outside to grill. My dad poured me a glass of wine.
When I came back inside, my mom had readied the rest of the meal. Every dish was inspired by something I recently wrote for VWK and prepared from an Into the Vietnamese Kitchen recipe.
“I followed your recipes for everything because you write with such detail. Things work,” she said.
“Some of these recipes are based on things you told me,” I replied, as if to say, Mom, don’t you remember this stuff?
“I can’t remember everything and you’ve recorded them down in the book,” she flashed back. A high compliment from my mother.
So then there was the question of why she’d selected the other dishes for our lunch.
Back in April, I wrote a series of articles on this site to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. Bo Gia regular prints out the stories for Mom to read and afterwards, she then files them (she used to be a logistics person for USAID in Saigon and is very organized). I had interviewed my parents for some of the April posts and unbeknownst to me, the resulting pieces triggered a flood of memories.
So mom fried gratitude wontons and served them with sweet and sour sauce. It had been years since she made those wontons, preferring to serve wontons in broth because it was healthier and my nieces and nephews like them that way.
Last Sunday was for remembering good times. We talked about the times our family made wontons for parties. My dad added that one time we brought them to our church international night. "The wontons went so fast. People ate them without sauce! We had to drive home to make more!" he said. (Note: My mom discovered Azumaya brand of wonton skins and wholeheartedly recommended them for their extra crisp finish.)
That wonton VWK story mentioned several people who stepped up to help us out resettle in America. After reading the post, my parents were inspired to make oc nhoi, stuffed periwinkle served with a ginger lime dipping sauce. She followed the recipe from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. The stuffing is held in the shell with two blades of lemongrass, which as you know, my parents relish for flavor and health. That dish, my dad recalled during lunch to Rory, was beloved by two American friends who helped my oldest sister get situated at USC where she and the rest of us went to college. "Mr. Pat O'Donell held an empty shell to his ear and claimed he could hear the ocean. Then he asked if there were more to eat," Bo Gia recounted.
We’d eaten the stuffed periwinkle a zillion times but for the sake of Viet World Kitchen readers, Bo Gia wanted to demonstrate the art of eating them:
Then there was mound of rice with chicken and shiitake mushroom. “Your sister Tasha immediately recalled the chicken back and celery rice dish when she read the blog story,” Mom said. “But I really like the recipe in the cookbook. It’s more elegant.” To get the crust, she reheated the cooked rice in a nonstick pan with oil over a high flame.
What are we suppose to do with the pork belly mock dog? Just eat it, Mom said. The four of us nibbled on it and I also treated it like grilled pork bun cha and enjoyed it with rice noodles, lettuce and herbs, plus a drizzle of nuoc cham dipping sauce.
After lunch, Mom plopped an old photo album on the dining table. “Look at these photos of our family. Take what you like,” she said.
Who is that? Is so-and-so still alive? Where were we in that picture? My parents recounted the stories of many of our relatives, some who had passed and others who remained. I was taken by the above photo of my parents in the 1980s, standing with my aunt Bac Thoa, cousins and my always rakish uncle Bac Thanh.
“We were so young then,” my mom wistfully said.
“You’re looking alright mom,” I responded. “I’m taking the whole album home.”
As my parents get on in years, I try to spend time with them. This blog is one way of doing it. But seeing them in person is much better. Last Sunday was a special Father’s Day celebration full of of good food and memories.
For more on the Fall of Saigon and how Vietnamese people fled and rebuilt their lives, start with this post.
