Rain, rain...

Since my last post, the weather has done nothing but rain. I have been confined to the hotel room for all but the trip I took to Đồng Hới City yesterday; six hours of driving, an hour or two for the interview and about an hour for lunch.  My stiff body is telling me it was a full day, to say the least.

In this land of Vietnam that has been my home for the better part of 18 years, there seem to be very few "firsts" left for me.  That was not the case yesterday, however, when I ate lunch.  Dong Hoi City is changing rapidly, and in a city that 20 years ago one would work VERY hard to find an appropriate place to eat, there are a few places to choose from now.  The local officials chose a very bình dân (regular people) Cơm Niêu (sticky rice) Restaurant to eat in.  The officials ordered much of the standard fair of pork, chicken and fish dishes that we shared among the group - picking food from a communal dish and eating from our own bowl.  On many occasions before, I had even eaten the sticky rice specialty for which the restaurant was named.  It was served in a small cast iron bowl; lightly brown and crispy on the top and edges.

The "first" came served individually in a stainless steel bowl.  The Medicinal Pigeon Soup (chim bầu câu tần) is much like the Medicinal Black Chicken Soup (gà tần) which is a small black chicken served in a soup of medicinal herbs and mushroom.  The biggest difference, I believe, is that the pigeon is very visible in the light broth and looks like he has been de-feathered and sleeping.  The trick is that the bird is to be eaten in its entirety (from head to butt), including the bones.  I got most of him down, though I did leave some of the larger bones in the bowl when I finished.  Oh, and the beak, I left the beak.  I mostly regret that I didn't take a picture of this dish before I ate it.  I secondly regret having eaten the head.  Though I wasn't able to discriminate the taste of brains and eyeballs, my imagination was working overtime as I relived the snap, crackle and pop.

I now have two reports to write.  They are not complicated, but I find myself stalling.  Mom used to remind me how much of a procrastinator I was; she was right and if she was still around she still would be.  That doesn't change my nature, it just makes me aware of it.