Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Tết - Part 2

We took Sophie to the Tết Festival at Seattle Center. It was nice to see young children singing in Vietnamese and celebrating Tết. But it was also sad to see how disappointed the adults were. They were too absorbed in their own pain and suffering due to displacement and war trauma to realize that their children had nothing to do with it. The children just wanted to sing and have fun -- and eat their egg rolls.

Enjoying her egg roll
Children from Trường Việt Ngữ Lạc Hồng singing

Tết, Phở and Macarons

Tết (Lunar New Year) came and went months ago, but I never had the chance to create a post for it. So here are some pictures and a video for what we did. Our own Tết tradition.

To prepare for Tết, Vân and I took Sophie to Green Lake to gather some twigs. Then we bought some fake  flowers from Viet-Wah and used them to decorate the twigs. Sophie helped Vân stick the twigs in the pot and filled it up with styrofoam chips. Voilà, our own hoa mai.

Hoa mai
Hoa mai close up -- not so pretty
On New Year's Day, we went to the ID (International District) for the dragon dance, which Sophie did not care for. She was scared of the sound and the people. So we only stayed for about 5 minutes.

Sophie with Plex
Dragon dance
For our Tết meal, we had phở with bò viên (beef balls). Vân made a big pot of stock, which lasted us for three meals. And I bought some grass-fed beef by Painted Hill. It was the best phở. Sophie had a big bowl, and she wanted seconds.

Bò viên in stock
Painted Hill beef
Phở with bò viên and beef
But the best part of our meal was the macarons Vân made. We fell in love with macarons when we were in Aix. We had pretty good macarons in Seattle, too. But Vân wanted to make her own. They turned out pretty well. Check out the "pied" (feet) on those macarons. Of course, Sophie was the biggest fan.  She would never share her macaron with anyone.

Macaron shells
I'm not sharing!
Sophie is eating her macaron with chocolate ganache


Sunday, March 17, 2013

Footloose

Sophie started dancing like crazy when the preview of the new "Footloose" movie came on. She got quite a few fancy moves. I wonder how her friends from dance class will keep up with her. I know for sure that I can't.


Saturday, March 16, 2013

Our New "Saucier"

Sophie finally graduated from the vegetable station in our kitchen. She's our new "saucier." Well, she was just helping Vân stir the pot to make a béchamel sauce. Please don't attempt this at home with your 2-years old. It required supervision from both parents!  

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Don't Sing!

Sophie is cute. Very cute in fact. But that doesn't mean she can't be mean. Here's a video of her yelling at us.