thadieu's opera rambling outlet

chúc mừng năm mới!

shipment_Feb2016
shipment from Berkeley CA. lunar new year 2016

Haaapppy new year everyone!! a similar* box arrived at my new empty apartment to bless the sunny place and new year, things are looking up! That pink “sausage”-like thingy** at the top is deadly! I attempted swallowing one while walking to the office.. ended up with mad uncontrollable runny nose (those Thai chili peppers KILLS :D, and the flood of raw garlic and full-sized black pepper corns..)

It’s the year of the Monkey. We have none in our family. We know nothing about them! please feel free to share any story / personality you know of them, first-hand, second-hand, compatibility :D. I feeling soooo relaxed and happy.

And while searching for a clip of the (thadieu-) traditional annual new year song, i found this, really how it was when we grew up. I love that shop and all the bamboo flutes behind, AND the pot at the front. Never mind the lovely flute to the “spring” spirit (for us new year = spring time).

———
* little sister has this friend who knows how to make all things vietnamese… and upon receiving her hand-delivered box of some 20 of those pink sausages, she texted if I wanted a few.. promptly before needing to ask, i sent the address.. but of course was busy during the week when shipment arrived.. and we all know stories of shipping “raw” meat :D. I had to wait 1 full night extra to pick up the box the next day due to some annoying delay.. so quickly box was ripped apart with everything scattered now in empty fridge + 1 big chunk in freezer and 2 sausages in stomach.. hence no nice pix of box.. so I stole this pix from sister-in-law who got her shipment last night.

** This is raw pork! cured of course.. though my stomach has been complaining a bit the last 2 days.. might have been those killer chili peppers though.. I found the German has something similar, check out this photo from 2012 when my friend introduced it to me. Except theirs is much more soft (spread-like) and majorly lacks garlic + chili peppers.

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Posted by:

thả diều

writing-challenged opera-addict

43 responses to “chúc mừng năm mới!”

  1. dehggial Avatar
    dehggial

    when you come around you should try this. It should be spicier than the German one. In your German pic you have streaky bacon and a couple types of salami. But the ones you got in Munchen last May were good!

    is the green leafy thing the same kind you posted last year, with the “foetus” inside?

    Reply
    1. thả diều Avatar
      thả diều

      oh, i have to try it!! looks super tasty! i love all varieties, but never remember what they are so i always got 100g to 200g of each, hence always around ≠–ºª•¶§∞¢£™œ∑´®†¥¨ˆøπ“‘«æ ¬˚∆˙©ƒ∂ßåΩ≈ç√∫˜µ≤≥÷÷Œ´‰Á¨ˆØ∏”’»ÆÚÒÔÓ˝ÏÎÍŸ˛Ç◊ı˜Â¯˘˘¿˜`⁄€€ (found the euro sign!! :D)
      always around €27 worth by the time i remember what i loved 😀

      Here is how our pink thing is made. it can be of any shape, not just “sausage” like. and as the video said, beef is safer, but we like pork around here..


      (what that video didn’t emphasize enough is that the pork has to be SUPER LEAN, hence the hard texture compared to the spread-like texture of the German version.)

      Oh, we wrap just about everything in banana leaves.. no, these are 2 traditional vietnamese things, one that Stray got to taste already.. here’s a pix from shipment last year. The other is true vietnamese meat-loaf, also made of pork, marinated, and steam for some hours too.. (don’t be discouraged by the vietnamese, just watch along.. this is _the_ basis of our food, it can be eaten as is, add into anything, eat at all hours.. in fact when my sister came to visit 3 years ago the first thing she handed me was this while we waited for the luggage to come out 😀 )

      Reply
      1. dehggial Avatar
        dehggial

        by the looks of it I think we have something similar, will have to show this to mum. I’m crap at the process of making sausage etc.

        Reply
        1. thả diều Avatar
          thả diều

          and i’m crap at buying meat, one time spending 1 hour at the market choosing pork and ended up accidentally buying a piece of beef…

          (and i think the raw pork thing it’s critical to have a local butcher.. i remember when my sister was living in middle-of-america near the Amish one morning she brought home the raw pork fresh-kill and i got frightened looking at a tray of raw-meat sitting by her window for 24-hr!! (during curing process.. but still that was quite a hurdle mentally..) )

          Reply
          1. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            you need to take pictures of the meat you buy and write some notes on what each bit tasted like 😉

          2. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            haha, found the convo i had with my sister, probably back in 2010, last time i attempted to buy beef… in vietnamese of course, but i don’t think you need to understand it, just the confusion is enough 😉 (ended up picking up a piece of pork..)

          3. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            I had a similar thing at Xmas when mum sent me to buy pork shoulder because she said it in dialect so it needed 2 translations + me not knowing the names for the edible parts of the pork in any language!

          4. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            don’t you think the western world invents too many specialized words for “shoulder” ? 🙂

    2. thả diều Avatar
      thả diều

      oh man oh man, breaking news of the new year, this exact chef has just opened a link on her fb taking order and will ship, guess how i’m gonna live from now on 8-> 8-> 8->
      (chef = the one sending the box in main post, here’s a photo i might just put up on my wall, drooling)

      Reply
      1. dehggial Avatar
        dehggial

        you’ll be eating a whole year off that shipment 😀

        Reply
        1. thả diều Avatar
          thả diều

          oh, that’s her advertisement photo, which i would like to frame and put on my new empty wall, in addition to that nice ws and tintin photos… but i off now to test the first vietnamese true restaurant, 30min bus ride 😀

          Reply
          1. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            the ws photo reminds me of the polar ws vehicle 😀

          2. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            wooooow, u realllly touched up nicely on it!!!! not like my amateur version 😀

          3. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            good use of spare time 😉 I think I should print it, too and laminate it.

          4. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            haha, i really have to laugh widely.. my version is quite typical of what i normally produce (product-wise as well), only I myself proud of it but totally looking non-pro .. now i see why we (I) need people who know how to do the real deal to package it 😉

          5. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            let me know if you ever need any help with that kind of thing.

          6. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            i was thinking about my proposals ;-), how we scientists can not communicate with the public 😀

          7. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            hard to explain to the public?

          8. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            it s a whole science in itself, public commu! in fact i think most of us end up discussing the technical aspect instead of feeping it big picture… and e.g., those hard edges on my photos sometimes make it not shiny enough to catch the public attention! 😀

          9. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            kind of like how these people who know a lot about music talk too much about how so and so didn’t do this bit as they should’ve instead of the general feel of he performance?

          10. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            ja, may b like us showing up for a public talk on meaning of music and some dude(ss) spends the whole hour on technicality of 1/24th of a tone 😀

          11. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            you definitely need a lot of polish for that 😉

          12. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            you know i’m coming around to NS with these stories 😉 (someone who can keep the big picture, communicates it with the public, and getting down to technical details with her crew as needed 😀 )

          13. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            NS and that lady with the pink sausages, haha! very nice display, made my mouth water too.

          14. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            there is simply no way you will get to taste this thing 😉 (may be somewhere made in UK, raw pork across border, that’ll be trouble 😉 )

          15. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            I wasn’t fishing! though maybe Vietnamese shops might sell it.

          16. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            deadly addictive 😉 (though likely only home-made.. like in germany or france, very difficult to find authentic stuff being sold in shops, just not enough critical mass to buy i guess.. and they mix stuff into it, wrong texture, wrong taste, etc. i bragging of course coz can’t believe my luck to discover she’s now making AND shipping it!! these are the kind of contact you keep for life 😉

          17. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            but you could make it yourself, eh?

          18. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            not quite! these are the fermented stuff, very difficult… even my sister tried (she’s muuuuch better at cooking than i do..) and still got it wrong, it’s all about temperature.. (like yogurt, not too hot, not too cold! i keep having this image of putting a bucket of raw pork on the porch and starting seeing stuff crawling out of it 😀 )

          19. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            thanks, fermentation cut off my appetite!

          20. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            tsk tsk tsk 😉 , but lots of pickled vegies are fermented, same with cheese! it’s all about getting it right no? (and you did eat my soup, which was made with fermented fish in the form of fish sauce 😉 )

          21. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            I’m sure I eat fermented stuff (I think bread contains some) but I’d rather not think about it 😉 yoghurt is fermented, isn’t it? Butter? fermentation makes me think of the runs!

          22. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            “runs”: when not done right ;-), hence we need life-time contact of those who know how to make. when little i remember only my aunt in her kitchen with a bunch of jars sitting in some 1/5th-filled “just-the-right-temperature” got the yogurt prod going.. while my mom tried endlessly and always got the wrong kind of milk 😉

          23. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            yes, my grandma made her own yoghurt, butter, soap, sausages and who knows what else, too. They learned these things in the past. Now I feel liks such an idiot for not paying proper attention.

          24. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            can always try on each trip visit 😉 (at least now i can see on tube how “technically” you make it.. coz for me this whole cooking thing was some voodoo in kitchen..)
            (voodoo is right! what i want eventually is to have a “feel” for it.. instead of 100gr of blah blah, 2tbsp of xxx)

          25. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            you know what is nice? kneading dough. I just had my first stabs at it this Winter and I like it! You get to learn when your dough is ready from how it feels.

          26. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            oh ja, that too, another hard thing to get right! (i asked my sister who eventually became a very good cook how she learned.. she said she made tons of mistake, but her husband just ate everything, and gave comments 😀 )

          27. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            haha, good to have someone who will eat it no matter how poorly done (I do the same, I cooked it, I will eat it even if it tastes like burned wood 😉 ).

            I made this today (without the nuts and the frosting). It’s really very easy and doesn’t take too long. My grandmas made it with cheese as well – also very good.

          28. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            🙂 (interesting for me to think cheese + sweet desert!)
            (just done unpacking last box! and found knife! (and blade so top hair just came off nicely 😀 ) )

          29. thả diều Avatar
            thả diều

            ps- actually my first “thought” of it was at a friend’s wedding in spain where her family hooked up a whole pig leg and later i heard they didn’t cook it but just put some stuff on it and put in some cave! 😮

          30. dehggial Avatar
            dehggial

            they do this back home too, you have in the “larder”, on a hook, along with strings of sausages and lard.

  2. idlehouse Avatar
    idlehouse

    your beloved sister in law who often cooks for you, she’s a monkey!

    Reply
    1. thả diều Avatar
      thả diều

      oh? haha, didn’t know 😀 😀

      Reply

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scientist by day, opera fan by nights and weekends.

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