Vietnamese Specialties – Salted fish hotpot

The main materials of U Minh salted fish hot pot is salted trichogaster pectoralis (good one). The salted trichogaster pectoralis is cooked until its meat and bone are separated. Take all bones out, putting enough sodium glutamate and sugar into the hot pot. In order to rise it smell, people add some chopped citronella and its beaten root to the hot pot. The secret to make the hot-pot sauce fatty, scented and viscid is that people add a little milk instead of sugar. It depends on our liking that the hot pot is added pork or fish. But U Minh hot pot must include fresh fish meat. The most delicious and right ones are eal, anabas meat, ophiocephalus maculates or white catfish.

Besides fish meat, the hot pot can be added fresh water crab meat, snails, half fat and half lean meat. The most interesting thing in eating the hot pot is to enjoy many vegetables. The hot pot is a dish that collect the most wild vegetables. It may be right to say that there is not any dishes which are eaten with as many vegetables as the hot pot in the world

Midway City, CA92655

Thu Nhat Anh Nguyen

For the love of books

When I was a child, I loved reading, and I read anything I could find. But I detested sport, and even hated going for walks, so I spent most of my time with my nose in a book. I was the only girl in a family of four brothers, and I was quite quiet – but in the world of my books, I was strong and beautiful - the lovely princess with the handsome prince, the girl who fights enormous monsters, the star….

As I grew older, books became my life. I didn’t need to go out, or watch TV -I lived the highs and lows of my characters in their fights for success - I worried about the dancer who broke her leg, I cried when the rider’s favorite horse died and I was so happy when the doctor got through floods and thunderstorms to save the life of a stick child!

Of course, after time, I started to write my own stories. And of course, at first, I wasn’t very good at it! I found it easier to write about sad things, so my first stories were full of disasters, accidents and deaths. My father read one story and couldn’t quite understand why three characters died, a dog had an accident and a house burned down - and that was all before the end of the forth page!

Then one day my aunt said I should write about my own life. I was in bed with a broken arm, and even I got bored of books after a while. My aunt came to visit and brought me some paper and a pen. “Go on”, she said, “Write about your life with five brothers. Tell it like it is”. And so I did. (Luckily, my right arm wasn’t broken, so I could still write!)

Ten years after, my first story was published. And I used those early childhood memories. The main character is a writer. And guess what? She breaks her arm falling out of a tree, and her aunt comes to visit - and then she becomes a famous writer! And me? Well, I’m still waiting….

Midway City, CA 92655

Thu Nhat Anh Nguyen

Les Valse de Vienne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDQ9f2eEixM

You don’t understand

The pain that I’m in

The constant worry

That I feel within

The fact that you don’t care

Makes it that much worst

You joke about it all the time

And that really hurts

I can’t have what I love

And it makes me want to cry

I sit in my room at night

Thinking to myself whyI watch other people

Enjoying life without a worry

Why is my life so different

I’m always in a hurry

So try and understand

What is like to be me

Listen to my words

Hear my plea!

Midway City, CA 92655

Thu Nhat Anh Nguyen