Behind the simplicity

I have returned from two bookshops after an intensive search of cook books, dessert recipe books in particular. I was swallowed by all photos of desserts prepared and photographed just to make people get mouth watered. Being drown in that ocean of exotic food, I have just asked myself where I am. The question may be answered with my zero baking ability, and also with my culture. The former answer is evident, and that's the reason of my search of dessert recipe books. The latter answer is taking me a lot of time indeed.

It is quite understandable why this kind of photo is never found in any cook books in bookshops (at least which I have been to).

That is a kind of dessert in my home country, exactly in my home town. Chè bông cau, roughly translated as areca flower sweet soup is found both rustic and royal in Hue, my home town. Materials are only steamed mung bean in light sweet boiled water, but the dessert has a firm position both in everyday rustic life and solemn occasions. I have no idea of the origin of this dessert, but am very able to feel and create the connection of its simplicity and the aroma of areca flowers, which smells soft and enchanting. Those who have sensed areca flowers would agree with me the flower is a quiet beauty. It's like a girl one comes to know and decides to live with in one's whole life. Yes, it is the simplicity that earns the dessert's position in solemn occasions.
When I delve into the thought about what simplicity is, like when I sense chè bông cau with all my senses, there arises in me a connection between this food and people and their land behind. That I am not a foreigner to this food makes the meaning of simplicity held by me grows a distinct way.

Colour of the heart

I can't help falling in love with bright coloured veggies. I bought a bunch of beetroot so fresh and beautiful at the farmer market one weekend and found my mood going wild with the colours of this proud creature. Why on earth is there such a creature fully endowed with good qualities and beauty like beetroot? Look at its juice:

Only one ridiculous thing about this heavy colour is it is  very hard to wash it away from your hand after you play hard with it :) I'm kidding ain't me?
Evidently it is a dye robust enough to induce a new hue and to transform your taste of colour:

There was a long way from its original colour to where it became to in my dyed rice, which taught me the lesson of heat, proportion and cooking time in cooking.

I also learnt about "reaction" colours when making the cupcakes. The juice and icing sugar plus butter became more pinkish at first than after being put on the cupcake.

 
It is this hue and the process it transforms that is keeping inspiring me.

They fly me high

A non-recipe home cook often finds her own cooking moments of flying out of details extraordinary to her eyes and known knowledge. It is when she makes a cake out of a wrong recipe, arranges the dish in a never-seen-before way, and sees her piece of works from various angles through the lens of a child painter.

But it's not often the case she has to wait to see the final product, which after that ignites the engine of the hot air balloon in her. At times, the beautiful process of the dish coming into being in its own way is just overwhelming. She just stands still and witnesses subtle magical moments life shines on food and gives it a unique meaning, the meaning that emerges out of a now-or-never moment that teaches her the lesson of staying open staying fresh. There is nothing absolutely right or wrong, and imperfection is just perfect enough, that's what she double confirms through her cooking.

Things shine from their own standpoints, and let imagination drive you to locate your own standpoint. The joy of cooking then is not only the joy of making things out of love. It's also a huge release of emotions, an imaginary travel through a new land, and a full reflection of life in tranquillity. She has at that time found herself nicely singing John Lennon "Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky". And imagination goes on and on, beyond the square and drives her crazy until her kid pulls her down to earth.


Kids come into being to raise up a mum. And a mum cook would need her kid to reshape her outworn view of food and food making: simplicity, purity and originality. Wear a child mind and look at things with a child lens, you would agree with her cooking is to transform your heart and your soul.

What baking means more to me

I have deserted this blog for a pretty long time. The more reading I do (my most occupied job) the more I find myself nothing, or less than nothing. A negative feeling has been overwhelming me, and I wonder if i should go on with blogging, something I am both passionate about and nerve wracked due to a blog's publicity. It's somehow embarrassing you know when you are so immature and would like to do things beyond your ability.

Anyway, munching on the sorrow would not drive me to anywhere and yet munching on my first time home baked cakes would hopefully capsize the situation.

(Savoury gateau)
(Chocolate buttery gateau)
(Broccoli bread)

These days, I find myself the kind of person who would like to do something different to drive me out of the status of weak capability, and when I am hungry and thirsty for that kind of food-for-well being, I turn to mixing and dough kneading, which is good to burn out all excessive energy ran for negative thinking. I put any materials I find in my home for experimental recipes, things like chicken shred, carrots, broccoli, onions, and my son's chocolate leftover, which turn out to be resourceful for creativity, the luxury of a psychologically tired person. Baking this way is not really a way to act out an art or that kind of thing but a truly way of stress busting. That is another meaning I find in baking. At least, my baking can however bring a great pleasure to my big boy and my little boy.

The negative feeling in me is getting over...

So home, so cosy

"It's raining outside, Aki inside, tôm rim is tasty mum."

My son has stirred up my feeling about HOME with his description of the discourse, as pure and truthful as it was happening, of the scene, the affection, participants (including human and non-human) and their inner feeling. If going further, the statement of my son can bring you to his motherland, where dinner with all family members under a roof of torrential rain outside is cherished, where tôm rim (caramelised prawn) and steamy rice on the table are treasured when winter is in its full swing, and where no other thing on earth can pay for a cosy time of parents and children around a meal of dishes made out of love.

Family meals in our country are valued in their own way. Of no expensive or rare food, a Hue family meal is memorable for its affection steaming in each plate. It is the food shopping basket of mum in the rain, the young fresh greeny tips of kumara plants or water spinach, the fresh water fish caught in a flood, steamed fish paste in harsh days, all of those seasonal and local stuffs, with mum's hand, would become something warming up all the family's hearts in winter. Yes, winter, simply because it is a season of coldness, and thus of family gathering and extra care family members give to each other.


While a daily three course meal in a Hue family including soup (canh), simmer (kho) and stir (xào) is held for value because it speaks for a stable and basic material life, a family winter meal with fewer things due to the harshness of weather is memorable because its meaning goes beyond the everyday material value. Fish paste, which is kept for ages, duck eggs, whose delivery does not much depend on weather conditions, fish or prawn, which are caught in flood (and of course sold in market), and veggie, the staple major second to rice, all of those seasonal stuffs come a long way throughout the coldness, the wetness, and the harshness to the dining table to fill each stomach and heart with warmth. It is that long way in that condition that makes the family meal more than precious. It is also that long way in that condition that leads to a new world of recipes, uniquely and meaningfully created by mum.

No heart-made dishes would ever be born outside the roof of family I believe.

Photo note (from top to bottom)
1. Tôm kho rim (Caramelised prawn)
2. Gỏi rau muống (prawn + raw water spinach)
3. Giá trộn (Mung bean sprout salad)

Going veggie and beyond

The sensation of a veggie dish used to hit me most on Lễ Vu Lan (Ullambana Festival). It was something more about our culture and custom to observe the practice of going veggie during the festival.

In Vietnam, vegetarian food is prepared very sophisticatedly and time consumingly. Between a non-veggie and a veggie dish, most people will choose to make the former for its convenience. This implies the fact in our country making a good veggie dish is always harder than making a good non-veggie one. As a cook, I have been raised out of that perception and reality. I therefore believed vegetarian food was something special and upper-classed in terms of its spirit behind the food. I also therefore held appreciation towards those vegans.


It is not until recently that my veggie perception goes through a transformation. By going veggie, I am aiming to going green and clean. Simply speaking, it is all about vegetables and cleanness in its all senses. I try not to use lots of spices, particularly those spices which may transform the aroma and taste of vegetables. If possible, I try to serve raw vegetables or make them stay fresh over tender fire. In terms of nutrition, strong belief and evidence about healthy food are always held towards raw and fresh vegetables.

A veggie dish, if colour and texture preserved, can hit your eyes the way a picture does. Always through a dish of this kind of food do I enjoy a unique presentation of art. This kind of enjoyment can bring the gourmet beyond the visibility of food to a world of imagination and creativity, both materially and spiritually. With this point, I figure out some kind of sensation veggie food may bring to your mind and soul, the feeling you can surely have when in the middle of the nature's immensity.

Photo note (from top to bottom):

1. Bánh bột lọc chay (vegan tapioca cake with mung bean paste filling)
2. Sauteed mushroom and green round bean, mixed with raw snow pea sprouts
3. Rolled and fried egg and red cabbage, served with lectuce

Upon "My kitchen rules"

About new recipes, food materials, cooking styles and principles, the strict nature of a contest, and food styling, this TV programme has been intriguing me to move to the world of culinary art. Above all of the stuffs I learn from My kitchen rules, food styling stays longest and leaves the deepest footprint in my cooking learning world.

I am not learning to be a food stylist at the moment, nor is it my intention. It is culture, belief, and human life behind food styling that provokes my thinking and inspires me.


Preparing this dish has been the first time I executed food styling, with which I was pretty unsure if my dish could be labelled, but at least because I was having these two exotic words in my mind when preparing the dish and photographing it. After several looks at the photo, I believe it is not any attractive to those who are fans of thịt xíu (the caramelised belly pork), simply because caramelised pork is not normally served this way in our culture! That is my first lesson of food styling.


This photo came into being with an obsession of food styling. I deliberately use these two exotic words over and over again because I am obsessed by them. If it is, this photo can only look attractive because of its colours. Again, this is not a popular way of serving spring rolls in its motherland. I did not intend to translate our culture, particularly that of serving this kind of food through this photo, but I failed.

I decided to put action to my food, in the view to make it more inviting and lively. This kumara sweet soup is not lying untouched on the table. Layers of the soup reveal its texture, aroma, and real perception of its taste. What will hit your tastebud is a combination of solid and liquid, chunks and bits, sweetness and fattiness, and a multilayer of sweetness. With those, this photo speaks much to its viewer, the way an action speaks. I began to realise something...



When my thinking has grown, I began to ponder how to build a connection with food through the photograph. A food looking inviting also means a food in company, a food going hand in hand with you through some kind of exploration, and a food coming in some form of cherishment. Again, it is the translation of culture, customs and habits, and the life style.

Eventually, it is something about a healthy and balanced life when it comes to why food is born. If it is raising us, cultivating us, and beautifying our life, I believe food should be reproduced the way it will reveal multiple layers of meaning, which is my keen desire.