Vietnamese cuisine is not too tough
After drinking beer, we frequently stopped across the street, diagonally opposite where we lived, at Galeries Lafayette, a shopping center with a supermarket in Rennes. Back then, they marketed a variety of specialized veggies available in Vietnamese marketplaces. Like water spinach, chives,…. Of course, the Western ones— cabbage and carrots—are really indispensable. Generally speaking, the supermarket carries pho noodles and rice vermicelli; there are enough veggies to prepare a few Vietnamese meals including pho, beef noodle soup, and braised beef noodle soup. Small establishments known as “Asian stores” sell spices; but, you must trek two kilometers from your house.
There’s also a tiny market close by offering homemade-style cuisine and spices for Western cuisine. I once came upon a Vietnamese seller offering some Vietnamese cuisine, but now I only remember the canned crab flesh. Every now and then I would visit her stand buy a can and prepare crab noodles. To vary things with my roommate.
Just buy nice beef, put it on a hot skillet, shake it a couple times, and you have steak. Eat with bread and French fries; all made beforehand.
About bread, France has an unwritten rule. Unlike store bread, every neighbourhood has always two bakers—the artisanal kind—hot, crunchy, and aromatic. People in the area visit there every morning to purchase bread for consumption all throughout the day.
The unwritten guideline is akin to this: Those two have to take turns, much as in a workplace where someone always has to be on call; they cannot take breaks at the same time. so that residents of the area have food! For the French, the lengthy baguette is akin to their own rice. The truth is, they cannot prepare bread at home.
There is also a laundry close to where I live in Rennes; all you have to pay for is the machine’s washing power. There are dryers as well. After the washing machine is finished, the person doing the laundry has to take the clothes out and place them in the dryer for a little bit more; they can either sit in place, read a book while waiting, or go for a bit and then come back. These kinds of venues have now started to show up in Ho Chi Minh City, although staff has to be trimmed down. In France, things are different: shopkeepers keep cameras on observation.
Writing these lines, I only wish to remember a few memories with Rennes, an old, tranquil city. Though I merely wish to retain them in my thoughts and recollect them seldom, there are memories.
