my new diet

It's no secret that I love carbs. I scoffed when the Atkins diet grew in popularity and wondered how anyone could live a happy fulfilling life without bread and pasta in their daily diet. I'm italian. A life without carbs is no life at all.

In SE Asia, carbohydrates are fairly easy to come by, but not in a form that my body is used to. The noodles are made of rice or beans or eggs. Small baguettes can be obtained, but are sometimes hard to find. I was exstatic to find these small baguettes upon our arrival in Vietnam but my excitement quickly diminished upon biting into the bread to find that the soft fluffly interior was nearly non-existent. There was no fluff to speak of. My teeth crunched through the airy interior right into the next layer of crust. Still, happy to have found a carb to quench my desires, I suffered through the hallow loaf of bread.

A few days ago, my stomach decided that it no longer enjoyed SE Asian cousine and began rejecting food in one way or another. The sign and smell of food envoked a feeling of nausia. Even reading the name of certain foods on a menu was enough to make me ill. I yearned for comfort food: something I could recognize and possibly digest. The fruit here, although delicious, is somewhat exotic and generally acidic. The soup, a food I often seek when ill, is rich in flavor and often spicy. So I turned, quite naturally, to a food that never lets me down... carbs. More specifically: bread.

In the past two days I have consumed an enumerable amount of small, somewhat hallow, baguettes. The climax of my baguette consumtion was reached at approxomately 10pm last night. I walked out of our hotel in search of a bread/sandwich stand. I knew that at 10pm, this might not be an easy task as most Vietnamese are early risers and get to bed rather early. I walked a block or so and found a woman who was just packing up her portable restaurant. I approached her and as she locked away her tiny plastic tables and stools she shouted something to me in Vietnamese and motioned for me to walk toward the cart she'd left a few feet away. I waited at the cart for a moment until she returned. It was clear that she spoke no English. I said as clearly as I could "Bahn Mi." and held up two fingers indicating that I wanted two bahn mi (literally baked noodles in Vietnamese, but it means bread). She pointed at the cheese and other things she had on the cart attempting to sell me more. I shook my head and again repeated my request. She knew what I wanted. Now I had to figure out how much it would cost. I had a small wad of dong (Vietnamese dollars) in my pocket and pulled it out not only to count it, but also to show the woman so she might be able to point out the correct amount. I had 14,000 dong (which is just less than a dollar). She took the money and counted it, then put it in her cart. I knew that two pieces of bread should cost less than that as Sylvan had purchased two baguettes and a sandwich the night before for about the same price. I picked the money back up, again held up two fingers and shook my head no, indicating I would not pay that much for two baguettes. She took the money back, nicely, and somehow convinced me that she would work it out. She then grabbed a huge pink plastic bag from behind her cart and began stuffing it full of baguettes. I stopped her as fast as I could but she had already put in seven airy loaves. I figured she was trying to get rid of as much of her product as possible since I was the last customer of the night. She handed me the huge bag, smiled, then pointed to the bag and back at the money. I took the bag of bread, five baguettes more than I wanted, thanked her, and ran back to the hotel. It turns out that she knew better than I, what I wanted. I had, in fact, wanted seven baguettes. I ate them all, except the one I gave to Sylvan.

And whether it was the bread itself or the peace of mind that came from eating something somewhat familiar, I am feeling much better today.