I’m amazed at how quickly we’re settling into “normal” life here in Hoi An! It’s really fun to feel less like a tourist for a stint! We moved into our house, which is quite spacious, last Thursday. It’s on a quiet, dead-end street, two blocks from the yoga studio (!!), five minutes moto from the beach (!!), and a few minutes run from thin little paths zigzagging between rice paddies. I’m pretty much in heaven!

We’ve discovered our preferred eateries — the places with the BEST local food, for $1 each. We’re pretty much pro moto riders (well, Derek is because I just sit on the back when we’re in town). I’m getting especially good at riding side-saddle, which is a necessity if I’m wearing a skirt! I’m also in charge of signaling from the back of the bike — we use blinkers, but it seems that sticking out a hand and flopping it around like a dead fish is the most effective way to get people to let you through. So, I’m the dead-fish-hand-flopper. Can I put that on my résumé?

Today we had another breakthrough: we found a store {run by and very much aimed at expats} that has EVERYTHING WE LOVE AND MISS! CHOCOLATE! BRIE! WHEAT FLOUR! Canned Oregon raspberries! They have so many goodies, I’m afraid it’s going to be a very dangerous place to know about. Our house ended up not having an oven OR toaster oven, so I’m out of luck on the cookie front, despite having found flour. I’ll have to do a bit of research into oven-less desserts! If only Derek liked pudding, I’d make it every day!

This salad actually has a much more involved name in English: Green Mango and green papaya salad, with banana blossoms and lotus stems. WHEW. And chicken. And spicy goodness. THIS IS SO DELICIOUS I seriously can’t even begin to tell you how amazing it is! We haven’t tried many salads in this country, because often we’re eating at stalls on the street that only serve one thing — whatever local dish they specialize in. Usually that means no salad!

We made this in our cooking class earlier this week. The dressing really makes this — as do the spices on the chicken. Neither the banana blossom nor the lotus stem really has much flavor, but their texture is awesome and included for that reason! The motto with food in this country is absolutely “waste nothing!” so we see many new ingredients (like lotus stem!), I would never think to cook. We {by that I mean Americans} could definitely stand to learn something from the Vietnamese when it comes to being resourceful and minimizing waste!

We started this salad by shredding the green papaya and banana blossom, and putting them in ice-water with a little bit of salt and lime. I’m not 100% sure why we did this, but it had something to do with the acidity… I’m just going to trust it’s done for a good reason! Next, we made the marinade for the chicken. We only marinaded for a few minutes, but it was enough to make some darn good chicken! We then prepared the rest of the veggies, and the dressing.

After 15 minutes of soaking, we took the papaya and banana blossoms out of the water and squeezed the liquid from both. We cooked the chicken, tossed everything together, added some crushed peanuts, and then devoured the salad. There are SO many flavors here that work well together, it’s a big ol’ party for your taste buds. I added quite a bit of hot chili sauce (which is more like a paste, found in small tupperware containers), which kicked up the spiciness a LOT. I’m not sure what the equivalent of this would be at home, but I think at a specialty Asian-food store you could find something very similar, if not the same.