Eating red ants; giving our daycare kids real American food

Phuong has introduced me to some interesting Vietnamese cuisine lately, most notably a red ant and shredded beef mixture that's a tasty, salty, spicy, crunchy and sour treat. Red ants are served in Thailand, but this particular recipe comes from the central and northern highlands of Vietnam, somewhere north of Da Lat. I'm not a big bug eater, but Phuong insisted I try it. It gets a thumbs-up. The picture doesn't do this concoction justice, but the red ants are clearly visible, not pureed and masked within the shredded beef. The slightly sour taste is most notable and comes from a liquid secreted by the ants when they're threatened, or so I'm told. I guess nothing is quite as threatening as being cooked alive. The beef can be a little chewy, like all beef in Vietnam -- many families use little hammers to pound some tenderness into the beef.  I won't use meat tenderizer, so I like this method if the beef is extremely tough. This food is called KrongPa Gia Lai beef and it's great with beer. But beer seems to work with all food; Phuong and I try anything with our nightly beer; chocolate is a favorite. KrongPa Gia Lai's ingredients are beef, red ants, salt and red chili peppers. One of our daycare moms, An, gave us a sample and now we're hooked. But I consider this more of an occasional treat than a nightly "go-to" snack. For the day-in, day-out eating with beer, I prefer a dried, shredded chicken, lemon and chili pepper mix called kho ga la chanh. The folks at the Craft Beer bar around the corner gave me some when I bought some Estrella Damm beer. Daycare mom An sells us bulk portions of the shredded chicken. Everybody sells stuff on the side in Vietnam, my wife included. I guess I sell English on the side. Anyway, the chicken mix is very spicy and the red peppers are visible and super hot. Joanna calls the snack "Cay Cay" (spicy hot spicy hot) and she'll eat the dried, shredded chicken but avoid the chili peppers. Ice water is kept nearby. This dish keeps the plumbing flowing.

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Including Joanna, we now care for eight children daily at our house, and a ninth is coming soon. In addition to speaking English to the kids (this is the only language I can speak, by the way), I try to get the kids to sample some U.S. food, or at least food from my youth. Buttered toast with sugar and cinnamon is a favorite with the kids. Apples with peanut butter is starting to catch on. Scrambled eggs with cheese is becoming popular. Peanut butter and jelly has flopped. In fact, most of the kids don't like sandwich bread. We'll have cheese, which they enjoy but their parents don't eat, and I make milkshakes, which are now requested by the kids. Phuong and I share cooking duties, but I've slacked off the past week after a relapse of the flu. I don't know if it's genetics or conditioning, but kids and everyone else in this country love hot soup, noodles and rice for breakfast (lunch and dinner, also). When it's 86 degrees Fahrenheit at 7:30 a.m., I can't eat hot soup. I'll have soup once in a while here, but I don't enjoy it because of the heat. I don't care much for the very popular hot pot dishes either, mostly because of the weather but also because of their generic taste.

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No word yet on Phuong's interview, although the government has informed us they've created a "case" for Phuong. They're processing the $475 application fee and after that happens our lawyer will send in some paperwork and hopefully we'll get a date for the interview.

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Rainy season is here, although it seems a bit early to me. Locals don't seem to care when the rains come. They just seem to be real concerned about being out in the rain. Maybe they know the score: I'll walk in the rain if I have to, and I've been very ill twice in the past three weeks. I think it's the daycare kids bringing in viruses and me not getting enough sleep that are the real contributors to my poor health. But locals say, "You don't understand. It's the rain."  It's difficult to argue when you can't breathe through your nose, your chest hurts, and you're sitting on the throne  much of the day.