Day 3, September 28

Today we had our wet market tour and our cooking lesson at Rose’s Kitchen. To say it was raining is an understatement. It came down in sheets. We are getting our money’s worth out of our rain ponchos. We got to walk some of the streets around the wet market. They are full of people, motorcycles, cars, trucks, etc. Even in the pouring rain, the streets were hustling and bustling. The wet market (by that time, a gross understatement because of the rain) was so interesting and even has its own mini temple.  We spent a fair amount of time there, but I could have stayed all day. After we picked up food supplies, we drove (and I use that term loosely) to Rose’s Kitchen where we had our lessons. It was a full participation class with eight of us in each room with an instructor. To begin with we put together the broths, one vegan, one beef, for the pho we would later make.  The spices in the broth were cinnamon, star anise, and black cardamom.  With that cooking, we went on to make a banana blossom salad. I grew up with banana trees and often played with the blossoms, but never realized they were edible. The salad had chiffonade blossom leaves, carrots, star fruit, bean sprouts, various seeds and some herbs and a great dressing of garlic, chiles, fish sauce, lime juice, kumquat juice and sugar. Eaten on rice crackers, it was amazing. We then made spring rolls of pork, bean sprouts, carrots, herbs, cellophane noodles, all wrapped in rice paper, fried, and served wrapped in lettuce leaves and dipped in a garlic-chile dipping sauce. Next came the pho we made, it was delicious and perfect for a wet day. For dessert, we had mango and oranges and learned to make wonderful egg coffee.

Back in the room, we dried out and slept right through the time we had tickets to see the Water Puppets. I think we saw enough water today!  Alan went downstairs for a late dinner, but I skipped it again. I must have been hungry when I arranged our independent tours, because tomorrow we have another street food tour, this one in a North Vietnamese army jeep. Hopefully the rain will stop, but we will have our trusty ponchos along. More then.