Ahead of myself

Before I move along the road here, I must update yesterdays events. I can't get into too many details , so I'll leave it at that, AGAIN! Our last official lecture at SEAMEO RETRAC was a 3 1/2 hour lecture ( and I use the term loosely) on 'Contemporary Vietnamese Politics', which essentially outlined in great, and finite detail, the communist doctrine, I requested to opt out as how does this relate to my research into the culinary arts of this culture? But, I was told in no uncertain terms, these guys are paying the bill, YOU MUST ATTEND! So I attended, and believe it or not I did learn something. Believe me my field is not political science, but I did get a major and in depth lesson on the communist, socialist doctrine, I even get to bring home hand outs! ( Born in the USA baby!) I hope I don't get in trouble for this! Bye the way SEAMEO RETRAC is an acronym for Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization/Regional Training Center. (Get It!)

OK, after graduation, Oh, did I say that? We had a wonderful lunch at one of the best restaurants in HCMC, it was even recommended to us by the Consulate General's office. WE MUST BE SPECIAL!

After lunch we had about 2 hours of free time to shop, or what ever. I elected to get some rest and pack for today, Brian was out and about. That evening we were treated to another great dinner at another first rate restaurant "The Red House". All who attended had a wonderful time. Ok, it's time to stand down, I'll write about today, tomorrow, or something like that. We leave for the floating market on the Mekong tomorrow, with a pickup at 5am.

So until then,

Peace,

Chef

We're off to see the wizard!

Just a note,

Just finished breakfast, checked out at the desk, and ready to see the wizard! Some issues brewing but that for adm. For lose who have been here, done that it's cool, but for me and others on their first go round, the anticipation is palpable. See you on the other side.

Chef :)

Last Night in Dodge

Well,

Last night in dodge.

Just finished packing, since we will be returning here on the way home from Hanoi, I'll be leaving one of my suit cases here and pick it up on the return trip, we'll be here 2 more day's before we return to LA. Some interesting stuff last couple of day's, but I'll leave that until I get back. Had a mandated meeting with the crew and leadership regarding update's on individual research thus far, everything seem's to be kosher so far with every one. Suggestions that we buddy up on excursions for remainder of the trip, traveling uncharted waters for some of us. I'll be working with a few colleagues with similar research interest's ( environmental studies, economics, etc. ) should be interesting. I've learned much following our meetings with various government officials regarding the economic realities of commerce in reguards to food production and distribution in a socialist state. Now my focus will be the same issues in rural areas, where food production and distribution are pretty much for personal or local consumption.

I've been handed an opportunity to fulfill a long awaited need to return to where I spent a significant and important part of my personal history, and return to where I was stationed back in 1969-1070, a small coastal village on the South China Sea called Chu Lai, just north of Danang, this was my main base camp (The Rear) while stationed on and around fire support base LZ West in the Hiep Duc Valley. With a heavy heart I will be revisiting Chu Lai, for personal reasons I will keep to myself out of respect to the men I proudly served with during that important period in my life. Brian Doan who is a good friend and colleague from Long Beach City College and I will be taking a side trip from the rest of the group to the area where he has family, while I pay respects, Brian will be conduction research in the village of My Lai.

We plan to regroup with our crew prior to leaving for Hanoi to continue of collective research.

Had a terrific dinner with only 6 of the 14 in our group, some decided to do a city crawl on their own on our last night before the big move, I feel much anticipation in the air from everyone.

It's getting late, time to hit it.

Later,

Chef :)

Chicken without a head!

The tour company is driving us crazy, but that's a story for Mike and Florence. Sorry about the shots I promised, still trying to get work done on my project in the mean time we're all running around like chickens without a head, between meetings, breakfast, lunch, and dinner arrangements, etc! (only so many hours in a day!) Last night in dodge, we have a group meeting tonight before dinner, must pack tonight, and leave for 2 hour trip to Mekong Delta. We will be visiting local farmers on the banks of the river. I'm looking forward to research, document and interview ( with guide) the local farmers/fisherman and taste the products raised in the area.

Ben Thanh Market

Back again about the mercado yesterday, the heat kicked my butt, thank god I brought enough water to last the day. I walked from the hotel about 5 blocks to the Ben Thanh market, a huge market in the middle of the city, probably 5 to 6 square blocks in area. My research so far has been pretty much stifled with all the meetings and visits to museums and state sponsored monuments in and around the area. For the food, well quite honestly it's been for the most part marginal at best, ( from my perspective my opinion only ) it's hit and miss, some meals have been exceptional, and some just plain sucked. The company that is coordinating the trip has pre scheduled and selected all of our meals for us, and many in our group are not happy with the arrangement for obvious reasons, for me how do I research something I have no control over. So yesterday was my first chance to do some real research, and Ben Thanh was the place, very thing from soup to nuts and then some. As a ServSafe instructor, it was a food safety and sanitation night mare. The majority of proteins from fish, pork beef, poultry etc. are left out in the open for hours under little or no refrigeration, and cross contamination obviously is not in their vocabulary. I's pretty much 3rd world in practice here, but in reality you do with what you have to survive. The fresh seafood on the other hand is hands down the most beautiful and freshest I have ever seen. The fresh water prawns are farm raised and sold live, and are the U-1's and 2 category. For those of you that are not familiar with the term, "U count" is the number of product, in this case prawns or large shrimp, that are available at or under a pound, so U-1 means that, that particular prawn weighs approximately 1 pound, if they are U-2's, 2 shrimp weigh approximately 1/2 pound each, them there are some big puppies my friend, in the hands of an experienced cook, spliced down the middle, a little salt, pepper, bushed with drawn butter again nirvana on the grill with a little butter, fresh lemon juice lightly chopped caper and dill sauce, man don't get me started. The killer here is that at home you would be paying about $18 to $25 a pound for these guys, here you're looking at $4 to $8 a pound, and that's just one species of seafood, you also have the fresh shellfish, squid, octopus you name it it's here. It's getting late, and we have another meeting to go to in the morning, after that we have all of 3 hours to shop, or in my case I'm going to take a few of my colleagues to the market to show them what I found, on saturday we leave the hotel and head for a couple of day's on the Mekong Delta to study the indigenous people that live on the river, (mixed emotions on my end, for obvious reasons, but I'll leave it at that, I'm here to do research). Hope you like the shots.

Peace,

Me :)

Finally!

Bunches of stuff to talk about, and post. I went to the 11th floor restaurant in the hotel this evening to work on my journal, beautiful view! Ominous clouds in the distance from my view, while scribbling notes and contemplating photo's to post, blam!!, thunder and lighting, (been their done that), monsoonish rains hit like a ton of bricks, and continued for about 45 minutes, then stopped. I have much to catch up on now that I have the blog issues resolved (thanks to Brian, my room mate, and my brother Paul, thanks little bro), that's what happens when you go from PC to Mac.

Much of the trip so far has been pretty much academic stuff, politics, (remember where we are) economics, education, history, bla, bla bla, I'll just leave it at that, don't get me wrong I've learned a lot during this trip, and I'm happy to say, I'm in the company of group of extremely smart, diverse and fun people, but as far as my research is concerned, one can only eat so much Pho' , fresh vegetables ( no montezuma's revenge yet, please god, I forgot my med's Doc Collins forgive me!) and I'm avoiding local water with ice like the plague! Given the extreme heat and humidity, I never realized how many bottles of 500ml. AQUAFINA one could drink in a day(PEPSI's making a killing over here!) So far, as far as I know, nobody has had any problems with the fresh herbs and produce we've been eating either, but the trip is young. The crew made a 3 hour journey north today, that I opted out of for reasons I'll keep to myself, that gave me a terrific opportunity to do a market crawl to the local mercado, aside from the traffic dodge ball, and the unbearable heat inside the building, I had a ball, a chef's nirvana! Crew just called time for dinner, I'll continue later, if I can, hopefully post some shot's

Later,

Chef