Monday

Sad news first: the wonderful little grocery store that was the Eden Center-piece has gone out-of-business after twenty-three years. Today, when we passed by, the windows were all plastered over with Vietnamese newspaper inserts. Why? Did the store get run out of the Asian grocery market by competitors? Did the owners reach retirement age and opt to simplify their lives? The handwritten cardstock signs shed no explanatory light, only thanking the community in Vietnamese and English for decades of patronage. I feel guilty for having only entered the store twice. The first time it was jammed full of food and wine, canned tropical juices, pepper and fish sauces, tea, and kitchenware. I identified plenty of things I'd planned to return for later. The other time I was there the shelves were bare, as they were obviously set on selling out. We bought two boxes of black tea because I was offered the second one free. Now the store is gone. The happy news is that we had a great meal at Four Sisters (which Sunshine has taken to calling by its Vietnamese name, Huong Que, which means I never know where she is talking about, anymore). I had a large bowl of chive soup and some crispy spring rolls. The way Sunshine has been instructed to eat spring rolls: first, pinch off a leaf or two of the provided basil and mint sprigs; then wrap them, with the fried roll, in one of the provided lettuce leaves. Dunk this green tube into the fish sauce (another thing Sunshine always says in Vietnamese now: nước mắm) and dine. The idea of further wrapping these things had never occurred to me, possibly because as an American, I expect green leaves on any plate without a salad to be purely ornamental. [Cavin]