Dig in

Today's big plans were a cooking class in the morning. The lesson started out with a trip to a market located in what we previously thought had been an underground parking lot below an empty shopping mall. I love going to food markets, especially the butcher stalls. We had a little time to poke around but were mostly on a mission and acquired our ingredients pretty quickly. We were going to make bún chả and nem (fried pork spring rolls). I discovered that an ingredient in the bún chả broth that I had previously believed to be some kind of cucumber was actually green papaya. Before coming to Vietnam I watched the movie, The Scent of Green Papaya, so I made sure to smell it today, but it didn't really smell like anything.

Once back in the kitchen, we got to work. After a few hours, we realized that making proper bún chả is nigh impossible if you're not a pro chef or at least good at using knives and not afraid high flames. I was highly praised for my consistently beautifully rolled nem, however. We were theoretically cooking for six, but it all ended up being more than enough lunch for us, some of the hotel staff, our chef/teacher, and then dinner.