Vietnamese Cooking 101

One of the great things about being a foreign volunteer living in a relatively small Vietnamese city is that I get the opportunity to be a part of a variety of different and unique activities on a regular basis.

This past weekend I received a call from one of my Vietnamese friends asking if my roommate and I wanted to participate in a cooking class for foreigners that was going to air on television. Not really understanding all of the specifics, but clearing hearing that we would get to eat some yummy Vietnamese food for free, I emphatically agreed (you have all heard many times about my LOVE for food!).

When Rachael and I arrived we soon learned that we were shooting an advertorial for a new cooking class that was soon-to-be offered by one of the local tour operators in town. Along with another American and a Korean, we began the morning by driving to a famous chef's house in Hue -- a beautiful historic garden house and our location for the cooking class. Of course, our journey to the chef's house was kind of a production in and of itself as the camera crew made us stop repeatedly to take footage of us driving our bikes.

We met our chef for the morning, a cheerful older Vietnamese women wearing an au dai and a conical hat, and headed to the market -- again with the whole camera crew in tow. Then, with our many ingredients in hand, we set to chopping all of the vegetables and meat for our fried spring rolls, fried rice and sweet soup, the menu for the day.

It took quite awhile to prepare everything and it was a little strange having the camera crew filming our every move from peeling a shrimp to frying the spring rolls in the oil. Not to mention the fact that we were all asked to wear aprons and chef hats, complete with the tour operator's information embroidered on the front.

All in all though, it was well worth it as the end result was eating a bunch of yummy Vietnamese food prepared by one of Hue's finest chefs.

Have I mentioned before that I love Vietnamese food? :)