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Showing posts from October 12, 2014

Is the banh mi the world’s best sandwich?

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By David Farley   The cab driver stopped on the bustling boulevard Pho Hue and pointed at a mishmash of incongruent four and five-story buildings across the street. I hopped out and dodged buzzing motorbikes and exhaust-belching cars, trying to get from curb to curb. Then I spotted it: Banh Mi Pho Hue (118 Phố Huế; 84-4-3822-5009), the no-frills sandwich shop named for the Hanoi street on which it sits. Nearly everyone I’d asked had said Banh Mi Pho Hue served the tastiest banh mi in Hanoi. But the family that’s run the shop since 1974 has a reputation for closing it whenever the cooks run out of ingredients. So when I arrived at 7pm on a Saturday and found it still open, I was delighted. Life in Hanoi. (Hoang Dinh Nam/Getty) Translated simply as “wheat,” the banh mi is a delicious and ever-varying combination of deli-style pork, pate and veggies (think carrots, cilantro, cucumber, etc), stuffed into a soft and crunchy French baguette. Regional variations

Inside out and back again by ThanhHa Lai

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my little daughter recommends "Mẹ, this book is so good.  You might find something related." Inside Out & Back Again is a verse novel by Thanhha Lai.  The book was awarded the 2011 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and one of the two Newbery Honors. Wikipedia   From the author's childhood experience of fleeing Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon and immigrating to Alabama, this novel is the child's-eye view of family and immigration.  Based on the author's own childhood and written in free-verse poems, this unforgettable story captures a fierce girl's struggles to find her place in her family, in her new home, and in the world. Things are changing in Hà's world, as the Vietnam War comes closer and closer to her home in Saigon. When Saigon falls in 1975, Hà and her family are forced to flee on a navy ship and, after spending months in refugee camps, end up moving to Alabama. There, Hà struggles to deal wit