boys give me food
because he is so big and mean-looking, dos equis sometimes works the door at a certain bar in the lower haight. because he is so sweet (and not really mean-looking), he brought me lunch today before going to work: toasted pita bread with homemade hummus, tzatziki, and a tomatoey kinda sauce, plus a bottle of not-homemade cabernet. and he carried it up here in a picnic basket! after driving over the bay in the dumping rain and howling wind, even! (OK, he didn't have to drive in it, but it was out there before and during.)
after giving me powerful garlic breath and a red wine buzz in the middle of the afternoon when i am supposed to be stringing coherent words together for publication, he kissed me goodbye and i climbed the stairs to my loft and noticed this little treat that's been sitting on the corner of my desk since i unpacked from vietnam.
two days before i left VN, i flew back to saigon from the north. since i'd allowed myself to spend 'frivolously' on material evils this trip, i'd acquired enough stuff to warrant two daypacks in addition to my big pack; ie, more than i could fit on the back of a motorbike for the 45-minute trip from the airport to phuong & francois' house. so i took a minivan-taxi. we merged into midday traffic and wound up on phan dang luu, a major thoroughfare. so there we sat, inching painfully slowly down this major, congested boulevard, and my driver offered me some candy.
in a typically quick, unsmiling, businesslike way, he pressed a couple of plastic-wrapped pieces into my palm.
'mang cau. very good,' he said. 'you know?'
'yes, i know it. i love mang cau,' i said, unwrapping a piece though with an impending migraine i didn't particularly want to eat it.
'special for tet,' he said.
i popped the sticky candy into my mouth. mang cau is one of my favorite tropical fruits – my first taste of it was after a wedding in a village in the very rural long an province, in the mekong delta. after the wedding ceremony, the friends i had come with decided to go wandering around the market, for lack of entertainment. i was happily operating in tourist mode with my point-and-shoot, snapping narrow boats on the water, a kid climbing up a tree to knock down some longan fruit, wooden houses. but they brought me along a-marketing and one of them asked if i'd ever tried the scaly green fruit i'd often seen in markets. no, i hadn't, i told her, and she promptly bought half a kilo.
she took one out of the bag, rubbing her thumb against the powdery skin, which took off a couple of the green scales. see? she said, showing me how to get the skin off and handing it to me to try it myself. when i'd gotten half of it off, she told me to take a bite of the white, juicy flesh. just like that? i asked, a little hesitant. i sniffed it and took a bite. there's a reason it's called a custard apple in english – not so very appley in any way, but definitely custardy in texture, and mildly sweet. my friends laughed, pleased, like watching a baby try a new fruit and like it the first time.
the driver glanced over at me with something of the same look.
'it's so sweet!' i said, juggling the two smooth seeds in my mouth.
'no sugar,'* he said emphatically.
a woman who runs a guesthouse in nha trang, where i've stayed a few times, taught me how to make mango leather, and the mang cau candy tasted like it was made the same way. cooked with water, boiled down, dried in the sun. no sugar, but super-sweet.
in the taxi, i dropped the big black seeds into my palm and the driver briskly swiped them out of my hand to throw away for me. he grabbed a few more candies out of his stash and insisted i take them. he was serving me the way i'd be treated as a guest in his home, urging me to sample the treats brought out for guests, but doing it in a sort of gruff, male manner. when he dropped me off at the house, i thanked him profusely and wished him a happy new year as he hauled my huge bags out of the back, giving me the slightest smile and nod and driving away.
* pronounced 'SOO-guh' – i love that.
after giving me powerful garlic breath and a red wine buzz in the middle of the afternoon when i am supposed to be stringing coherent words together for publication, he kissed me goodbye and i climbed the stairs to my loft and noticed this little treat that's been sitting on the corner of my desk since i unpacked from vietnam.
two days before i left VN, i flew back to saigon from the north. since i'd allowed myself to spend 'frivolously' on material evils this trip, i'd acquired enough stuff to warrant two daypacks in addition to my big pack; ie, more than i could fit on the back of a motorbike for the 45-minute trip from the airport to phuong & francois' house. so i took a minivan-taxi. we merged into midday traffic and wound up on phan dang luu, a major thoroughfare. so there we sat, inching painfully slowly down this major, congested boulevard, and my driver offered me some candy.
in a typically quick, unsmiling, businesslike way, he pressed a couple of plastic-wrapped pieces into my palm.
'mang cau. very good,' he said. 'you know?'
'yes, i know it. i love mang cau,' i said, unwrapping a piece though with an impending migraine i didn't particularly want to eat it.
'special for tet,' he said.
i popped the sticky candy into my mouth. mang cau is one of my favorite tropical fruits – my first taste of it was after a wedding in a village in the very rural long an province, in the mekong delta. after the wedding ceremony, the friends i had come with decided to go wandering around the market, for lack of entertainment. i was happily operating in tourist mode with my point-and-shoot, snapping narrow boats on the water, a kid climbing up a tree to knock down some longan fruit, wooden houses. but they brought me along a-marketing and one of them asked if i'd ever tried the scaly green fruit i'd often seen in markets. no, i hadn't, i told her, and she promptly bought half a kilo.
she took one out of the bag, rubbing her thumb against the powdery skin, which took off a couple of the green scales. see? she said, showing me how to get the skin off and handing it to me to try it myself. when i'd gotten half of it off, she told me to take a bite of the white, juicy flesh. just like that? i asked, a little hesitant. i sniffed it and took a bite. there's a reason it's called a custard apple in english – not so very appley in any way, but definitely custardy in texture, and mildly sweet. my friends laughed, pleased, like watching a baby try a new fruit and like it the first time.
the driver glanced over at me with something of the same look.
'it's so sweet!' i said, juggling the two smooth seeds in my mouth.
'no sugar,'* he said emphatically.
a woman who runs a guesthouse in nha trang, where i've stayed a few times, taught me how to make mango leather, and the mang cau candy tasted like it was made the same way. cooked with water, boiled down, dried in the sun. no sugar, but super-sweet.
in the taxi, i dropped the big black seeds into my palm and the driver briskly swiped them out of my hand to throw away for me. he grabbed a few more candies out of his stash and insisted i take them. he was serving me the way i'd be treated as a guest in his home, urging me to sample the treats brought out for guests, but doing it in a sort of gruff, male manner. when he dropped me off at the house, i thanked him profusely and wished him a happy new year as he hauled my huge bags out of the back, giving me the slightest smile and nod and driving away.
* pronounced 'SOO-guh' – i love that.
posted by a wandering eye at 5:20 PM
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