Yesterday Nhan invited me to dinner. Nhan is my translator from Ha Noi and she has had to rent a room in Ninh Binh. She is as much a stranger here as I am, but she has the advantage of speaking the language.
To prepare for dinner, we first went to the market. Nhan had the list for ingredients for spring rolls. While she was doing her shopping, I was looking around. No pictures of this, not sure of people's reactions yet. We were in the meat, fish section of the market. All the little stalls selling fish, shrimp, crab, mussels, squid had these animals live in little basins with fresh air pumping into the basins. Sort of like a fish tank or a live-well on a boat. People here only want fresh fish and they want to see it swimming or splashing about, as so often happens. The chickens and birds are plucked of their feathers but otherwise intact. The cow and pig are cut up, with all the parts for sale.
Once we had the food, it was back to Nhan's house to clean and prepare the ingredients. Nhan lives in a compound with 6 rooms. They all share a toilet, shower, and small common food prep area that has a cold water tap. The 2 puppies from the landlord came to keep us company in hopes of a little treat.
We cooked rice in a rice cooker, just like the Black and Decker ones from home, boiled water in a little tea kettle, and cooked the spring rolls on a one-burner gas stove.
The power decided to go out in Nhan's room just when we were ready to cook. First the landlady, then the landlord came to try and get it going. I stayed out of the way, especially when I saw the landlord with a syringe like thing in his hand. I had visions of everything blowing up.
But it didn't and half an hour later we were cooking. I can't promise to make springrolls as good as Nhan but I will give it a try when I get home.
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