making vietnamese spring rolls {thoughts on international cooking}

posted on: Tuesday, August 24, 2010



It's pathetic how I cook the same things over and over again.
They may have different names
but in the end it taste a whole lot a like.

When baby Maria was born my next door neighbors from India brought enough to feed our small family of 4 and our entire extended family, for many days. It was a post-partum feast. I have been to Indian restaurants before, but this was a whole different level of cooking. The textures and spices blew my mind, and my tongue. A lot of it was too spicy for my wimpy tongue, but I couldn't stop eating it.

I'm scared to try and make foods with ingredients that I've never heard of before on my own. So I jump to the ocassion when someone is willing to teach me. This weekend one of our other neighbors taught a vietnamese cooking class at the community center, like  20 yards from my house.


It was so simple to assemble. I'm sure that If I tried making it all from scratch I'd have a harder time. Noodles are tough to get right.


Isn't it funny how packages from other countries just seem so much more stylish? I mean, check out that green. I could wear that green.


Christian wore his crazy aloha shirt. I love that aloha shirt. I think he was trying to flirt with me. It's like, you put food in front of us in a setting that is not home and we instantly pretend like it's a date. "This totally counts as a date right?" Sure, I mean, our baby is here but who's even watching her? 


I want to learn how to make these on my own and then make them! I want to learn how to make Vietnamese-everything-food, and I want to make Thai food as well, oh and definitely Indian food. I want to basically make more than just my repertoire of brazilian/American food.

Where should I start?


11 comments:

  1. I love love love International cooking because well... we are form allover! Those rolls look amazing and once again your posts have made me smile!

    xo

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  2. Oh yum! My fav! Nothing like stuffing a whole lot of fresh mint in there too! Just fab!
    xo tash

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  3. Puh-lease start with Vietnamese and share the real way to make spring rolls. I used to buy these from a wonderful woman at the the farmer's market when I lived in California - I've tried doing them on my own, but can't get it quite right. Especially the sauce. (oh, and I love the shirt, too)

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  4. at school my comfort food was vietnamese. pho and spring rolls on rainy days (with peanut sauce of course). i know there are probably a lot of good places to get vietnamese food in hawaii. i definitely need to scope it out.

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  5. I love Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls, mian-miam!

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  6. I can't give you any advice for Vietnamese food - it's a cuisine I want to learn more about, too. However, Thai food is pretty easy to learn about, and once you get accustomed to the "theory" of spicy-sour-sweet-salty and are familiar with the ingredients, it is relatively intuitive.

    I would recommend searching http://www.chezpim.com/ for Pim's Pad Thai and Pad See Ew recipes - she uses a method rather than a recipe that results in great noodles. Yum!

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  7. Thanks for the advice Margie. I should ask Pim to help me. She lives in the same town!

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  8. That looks soooo good! I love salad rolls! Thankfully my husband is pretty good at making them because there is not a lot of good thai in santa cruz (and we dont get out very often)!

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  9. Fiquei morrendo de vontade de comer isso aí!!! mas parece tão simples... como assim? achei que vc ia postar a receita e tudo, rsssss
    Adorei a camisa do seu marido!
    bj Dah

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  10. A fun learning experience and the rolls look fantastic!

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