FESTIVE FAYRE: Mooncakes with a variety of fillings such as green rice or salted egg yolks.Photo courtesy of Cửa hàng Bánh Gia Trịnh
By Nguyễn Mỹ Hà
We are, hopefully, well into the final weeks of city lockdown thanks to a speedy vaccination campaign and daily testing to eliminate any wandering coronavirus from within the Hà Nội community and beyond.
Usually around this time, schools have already opened and students are finalizing their Mid-Autumn Festival check list.
A summer has been and gone, with nowhere to go. School has returned without students actually returning to school. Now before mid-term tests, they will be able to get into the spirit of Mid-Autumn Festival with fruit and, of course, mooncakes.
These last weeks some parents tried to give their children a sense of a vacation by putting plastic pools on little-used rooftops and filling them with water. Families would pull up dining tables on top floors, where they otherwise rarely go, to enjoy the fresh outdoor air as the temperature fell a little.
On the one hand, things are a little different and there’s no option for real travel. But on the other, people are realizing that perhaps they were taking things for granted before, and now take more time to appreciate the little things in life.
Before, family meals with everybody telling each other about their day could be hard to arrange due to hectic schedules. Today, stuck in the same space, day in day out, having three meals together each day can be more stressful than we might have imagined!
Though times are tough, we should perhaps think again about the doctors and nurses who have gone months without seeing or having a proper meal with their families, or the migrant workers who, stuck in Hà Nội and Hồ Chí Minh City, could not hang on anymore and decided to walk hundreds of kilometres back to their hometowns.
KID'S MENU: Spaghetti bolognese is a favourite among children today. Photo courtesy of Hội Đụng, thực phẩm sạch
We should all be thankful for what we have. If you have a roof over your head and some modest things to put on the table then, really, you are one of the luckier ones during this dreadful pandemic.
It seems these days, children of the younger generation prefer spaghetti over, say, traditional rice with stew pork and vegetables. Burgers, pizzas, sandwiches are now popular amongst the city’s children. Though, they can have rice at home every day, it seems like it is foreign food that they often want.
Thankfully, online suppliers make this pretty easy. They sell plenty of ready-made sauces such as bolognese, or creamy mushroom, or carbonara. All you have to do is boil the pasta, heat-up the sauce and pour it over. Happy families all-round.
Sometimes, I think if we give them spaghetti and pizza every day, they will soon be craving a bowl of rice with caramelised pork and boiled vegetables. But for now, maybe I will have to wait a little longer. Maybe, when they go to college or move out, some day they will call me and say, "Mom, I miss your food!"
Perhaps, for now this is just one of those illusions my mind has been developing in captivity, but it makes me smile to think about it. Dreaming an unrealistic fantasy is okay. It is not like it hurts anyone or costs anything.
There is much to be thankful for. Coming from a country with more than 3,000km of coastline certainly has its pros and cons. On one hand, we consume too much salt in our diet, but on the other we can eat fantastic seafood on a near-daily basis. Such a healthy choice must more than make up for the extra salt.
Lăng catfish is one of the most popular options these days, and you can pick it up for around VNĐ100,000 a kilo. At Chiều Cá Sông Đà, an online gourmet fish shop, you can order any dish from this fish, marinated to your liking, and shipped straight to your home. Marinated, ready for the grill; or prepared for a hotpot, you won't have to move an inch -- yet, another thing we can be thankful for.
The best thing about this fish is that it is almost boneless so you don’t need to worry about children or the elderly choking, which happened so much when my generation were children.
Back then, electricity was scarce and we weren’t always able to cook things until they were juicy and tender. Today, people in the cities think a lack of electricity is a bad thing, but it had its uses. On a full moon night, not a television could be heard and you could appreciate the simple things around you.
It’s something we could try today. You don’t need to wait until Earth hour to save energy. Why not try turning out your lights and watching the full moon, and talking with your family. It should be fun. Just make sure you wear some mosquito repellent before turning off the light and television.
With autumn well and truly upon us, it is the perfect time to be thankful for what we have. So, make sure you have a joyous Mid-Autumn night while contemplating the full moon and staying in. VNS
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