Mmm: Bánh Mì

Peter brought me some bánh mì today. Bánh mì are Vietnamese sandwiches, basically. I for some reason got a craving for them yesterday. Vietnamese food has been very satiating for me lately. Get full real quick.

Speaking of food... No more Filipino soy sauce! Peter and I are not loyal to any one brand of soy sauce. We usually buy some Taiwanese brand. It's a tall bottle with a yellow label and says "soy sauce" in English, Chinese, French and Vietnamese. Anyway, one day Peter had wanted some Adobo; the Filipino version. So we ended up buying a Filipino brand that we saw in Safeway since we also had no soy sauce at home at the time. Well, since we purchased at a big chain, we paid a lot more than if we had gone to an Oriental grocer. And then on top of that, Peter never even ended up cooking the darn dish!

And then, for reasons unbeknownst to man, Peter bought another bottle of a different Filipino brand of soy sauce when we hadn't even finished up the first bottle. All I know is that these soy sauces only seem good to add to the rice you're eating, but doesn't seem to do so well as an actual ingredient in a recipe. It's too salty or something. (Yes, I know soy sauce is inherently salty, but it's even more so in these Pinoy brands, I think!).

So, never again will we buy Filipino soy sauce. Gonna probably stick with the tried and true Taiwanese kind or this other Vietnamese soy sauce. In an Asian household, you've always gotta have a bottle of soy sauce on hand, about a liter's worth. And rice. Always gotta have rice. We purchase 50-pound bags. 25 lb. minimum. I've also realized there are a few other condiments that we don't always have available in our pantry or fridge, but they always seem to be necessary for some authentic flavors: cilantro, Thai/Taiwan basil, ginger, garlic, limes... I hope Thevy will get to grow up eating mostly Southeast Asian dishes. So far it's a mixture of Asian and American... I didn't grow up with a lot of different ethnic dishes and feel a bit deprived. :-P

And about Thevy and foods... This girl is so cute. Well, let me start with a little "pre-story". We were looking at a Max & Ruby book (Max and Ruby are these brother-sister rabbit characters. We discovered them on a cartoon, but I think they may have been storybook characters first.) . So there's this book we were reading called Max's First Word. In the story Max is a little bunny who only knows how to say the word "bang". His big sister tries to get him to say other words as she shows him different objects. Max's response is always, "Bang!" In the end, Ruby gives him an apple and tells him to say "Yum yum!" That's when Max finally says, "Delicious!" Thevy and I both laughed at this. I don't know if she got it, but I was a bit amused.

Anyway, the other day Thevy was eating this peach dessert and I was trying to talk to her, asking her if she liked her food. I asked her, "Is the food good? Are the peaches yummy?", or something along those lines. Thevy responded, "Delicious!" And I've heard her use that word a couple more times when eating. She's so funny...