Zero-ing in on My Recipes
This evening, I sat down with Essentials of Asian Cuisine by Corinne Trang and pored through it in search of all the Vietnamese dishes it contains. The book features sections on all the various cultures, cuisines and ingredients, and the recipes are categorized by course rather than by country, so I had to read through each section to locate all the Vietnamese recipes, which aren't always specifically listed as Vietnamese in the index. (Not that I mind, however, since I got lots of ideas for next month's ThingsAsian Dinner & a Movie in the process.) So... I flagged each Vietnamese recipe with a Post-it Note, and tomorrow, when I sit down to focus on my Dinner & a Movie project again, I can easily locate all the Vietnamese recipes and get an idea of which ones sound the most appetizing, and practical, given the potential scarcity of certain ingredients in my grocery-shopping vicinity.
12:15 AM PDT Permalink |

Searching for Recipes
As a jumping off place, I have chosen two books from my kitchen cookbook shelf to help me select my Vietnamese recipes and to design a menu to complement The Scent of Green Papaya. Those two books are: Essentials of Asian Cuisine by Corinne Trang, and The Asian Grocery Demystified, by Linda Bladholm. Of course, in the process, I will probably end up doing extra research on the Internet. There are so many millions of recipes on the Internet that it's a wonder anyone even bothers to publish a cookbook anymore.

My all-time favorite cookbook is The Joy of Cooking, followed closely by The Silver Palate Cookbook and the Moosewood Cookbook. But I don't think any of those three are going to yield much in the way of classic Vietnamese dishes. So that's where the Internet may come in handy. I also have to mention that I rarely follow a recipe to the letter. I have found that there are hundreds of variations on most traditional dishes, so what I usually do is research several dozen recipes to find out which one best suits my tastes and the ingredients I have on hand, and then I usually end up improvising. Occasionally, the results are disastrous, but more often, the end result is a delicious dish that I have imbued with my own personal touch. The only problem is that I usually forget to write down exactly what I did, so I rarely make a dish the same way twice. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But I figure as long as it's tasty, attractive, and captures the essence of the cultural cuisine, then it's all good. I like to think of cooking as a perpetual adventure, and what better way than to try something new every time.
02:37 AM PDT Permalink |

My Culinery Experience
I have a confession to make. Although I cook Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Arabic food on a regular basis, I don't know thing one about Vietnamese food, much less how to prepare a five course Vietnamese meal. So the learning curve is going to be really steep on this culinary project. However, after years of experience in the restaurant business, I'm a passable chef, not to mention that I have enjoyed hundreds of memorable meals in some of the world's best restaurants. And besides, I'm addicted to the Food Network and sometimes stay up watching cooking shows until nearly sunrise. So... I'm not about to be intimidated by one little Vietnamese dinner menu. The biggest challenge for me, I think, is going to be finding all the requisite ingredients in the town of Napa, California, where I live. Although we have a dozen major supermarkets here in town, we do not have even one Asian grocery (although we do have a Trader Joe's), so I may have to venture pretty far afield to find all the authentic components of a traditional Vietnamese meal. Fortunately, there are several multi-cultural towns nearby, and in a pinch, I can always drive to San Francisco or Oakland if need be.
02:51 AM PDT Permalink |

Welcome to Dinner & a Movie
The three things I love most in this life are Asian culture, gourmet cooking, and classic films. So when the webmaster of ThingsAsian offered me my own weblog, there was no need for deliberation over what the theme would be:

Welcome to ThingsAsian Dinner & a Movie. In this daily weblog, throughout the course of each month, I will be sharing with our ThingsAsian readers the process of choosing a classic Asian film, selecting recipes from the country in which the film takes place, designing a menu, shopping for ingredients, setting the table, preparing the meal, enjoying it while watching the film, and finally, writing a film review.

For my inaugural ThingsAsian Dinner & a Movie, I have chosen the 1993 French-Vietnamese classic, The Scent of Green Papaya, directed by Tran Anh Hung. The story of how I first came to see The Scent of Green Papaya is an interesting one that goes all the way back to my high school days. My best friend from high school is Betty Bullock, a Japanese-American woman who is an administrator in the staff development department at the University of South Alabama Medical Center. Although we live thousands of miles apart and rarely see each other, Betty and I have kept in touch over the years, and share a love of Asian film.

Each year, I receive press copies and write reviews of all the Asian entries in San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival for the ThingsAsian website, and in 2003, the best of the batch was a Japanese film called Firefly Dreams. I was so moved by the film that I sent it to Betty for her to enjoy, with the request that she return it so that I could circulate it among my other friends as well. A few weeks later, I got an e-mail from Betty's husband Jimmy, asking whether Firefly Dreams was available for purchase. Before I could reply to tell them to keep the tape, a package from Betty arrived in the mail. Enclosed was an extremely apologetic note, explaining how one of her children had accidentally rolled over on the remote control while the videotape was in the VCR and taped over the first few seconds of the film. What Betty didn't know was that the videotape of Firefly Dreams was just a promotional copy. As a peace offering, she had also enclosed a gift of two of her favorite Asian films, one of which was The Scent of Green Papaya.

All's well that ends well, and after years of catching my eye on the shelves of the foreign film section of my local video store, thanks to my friend Betty, I finally got to see The Scent of Green Papaya. And while I wouldn't categorize it as my very favorite Asian film of all time, it is so sensuous and appetizing and redolent of Vietnamese food and culture that it seemed the perfect choice for my first ThingsAsian Dinner & a Movie weblog. So without further ado, let's make a Vietnamese dinner and watch The Scent of Green Papaya.

06:03 PM PDT Permalink |