I had this delicious salad for late breakfast in Hue, Vietnam. Obviously, I love salads. You could have it for lunch or dinner as well, of course. It's the perfect way to use up some leftover beef if you don't want to start from scratch. You could even, in a pinch, use thickly sliced roast beef from a deli. Turn the page for the easy recipe...
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Sunday, July 21, 2013
THOUGHTS ON MOSAICS
I once had a picnic lunch in Julius Caesar's living room. It was back in the day, when Rome's Forum was still a weedy field and nobody was rushing about seeing their day's quota of ruins. There were no fences and no crowds, only me and two cats and a few odds and ends: salami, buffalo mozzarella, some big dark olives, bread and some wine. It was a fall day, sunny and just cool enough. I sat on a large piece of rubble (marble, carved, 1st C BCE), laid out my feast on another stone, and fed both myself and the cats. A little sign, discrete, almost an afterthought, informed me that the mosaics under my feet were part of Caesar's floor. For the life of me I can't remember what the pattern was, only that the background of 1/2" marble tessera was white, and some dark swirls - leaves? fish? - peeked from under the dirt and weeds.
Think of mosaics and that's likely what you'll think of: small squares of colored stone carefully laid, enduring for millennia in some cases. Tunisia and western Turkey, for example, are practically paved with mosaics. Find the Bardo Museum (Tunis) site for some killer examples. Mosaics also come in tiny, detailed form, some of the stones 1/16", which allows amazing detail.
I am in Hue, Vietnam, and went this morning (on a motorbike, picture that) to see the Imperial tombs outside the city. Most of them date to the mid-19th century, and - compared to most funerary complexes - are pretty modest. Part of their beauty is their settings, which are rolling parkland and forests, with long expanses of lotus-strewn lakes. The Minh Mang complex is particularly lovely, with a series of rising and falling pavilions amidst the trees.
And then we have the tomb of Emperor Khai Dinh, (1916 - 1925, essentially a French puppet), sited on a hillside overlooking rolling hills and rice paddies. The guidebook says mosaics line the mausoleum at the top of the hill, so I climbed the 127 steps and went into the hall where the Emperor is buried. The room, centered by the gaudiest tomb ever built, is thirty by thirty, with twenty foot ceilings. There is not a square inch that does not have high relief glass and pottery figures in it: the Four Seasons, Eight Precious Objects (?), and Eight Fairies (those I wanted to see), dragons and phoenixes, clouds and peonies and plants, birds and flowers. It is in absolutely awful taste and it hangs together beautifully. There are times when nothing succeeds like incredible excess. This is one of those times.
Photos coming, when I can get to a computer that isn't blocked.
Think of mosaics and that's likely what you'll think of: small squares of colored stone carefully laid, enduring for millennia in some cases. Tunisia and western Turkey, for example, are practically paved with mosaics. Find the Bardo Museum (Tunis) site for some killer examples. Mosaics also come in tiny, detailed form, some of the stones 1/16", which allows amazing detail.
I am in Hue, Vietnam, and went this morning (on a motorbike, picture that) to see the Imperial tombs outside the city. Most of them date to the mid-19th century, and - compared to most funerary complexes - are pretty modest. Part of their beauty is their settings, which are rolling parkland and forests, with long expanses of lotus-strewn lakes. The Minh Mang complex is particularly lovely, with a series of rising and falling pavilions amidst the trees.
And then we have the tomb of Emperor Khai Dinh, (1916 - 1925, essentially a French puppet), sited on a hillside overlooking rolling hills and rice paddies. The guidebook says mosaics line the mausoleum at the top of the hill, so I climbed the 127 steps and went into the hall where the Emperor is buried. The room, centered by the gaudiest tomb ever built, is thirty by thirty, with twenty foot ceilings. There is not a square inch that does not have high relief glass and pottery figures in it: the Four Seasons, Eight Precious Objects (?), and Eight Fairies (those I wanted to see), dragons and phoenixes, clouds and peonies and plants, birds and flowers. It is in absolutely awful taste and it hangs together beautifully. There are times when nothing succeeds like incredible excess. This is one of those times.
Photos coming, when I can get to a computer that isn't blocked.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
AND YET ANOTHER ROADBLOCK...
Who'd ever dreamt that the simple act of typing could be so difficult? I am in Nha Trang, a beautiful sea-front city on the central Vietnam coast. The climate is as steamy as Florida's, the golden sand beach is miles long, rocky islands dot the bay, and beyond lies the South China Sea. One òf the magical phrases òf my life hás beên South China Sea (don't ask; who knows why?). Lodging hểre ís ridiculously inexpensive, food ís even cheaper, and except for the insane traffic I have little to complain about.
EXCEPT the computer keyboard. It's set up to type Vietnamese, which ís completely understandable, after all I am in Vietnam...except that it means every single word hás to be gone òvẻr a multitude òf times to make sure it's right. Seê all thóse little squiggles over the a's and e's, i's and o's? What happens ís that when those letters are typed, the next letter doén't get entered (sê doén't? See hơ it gét typed? Í thí crazy-making ỏ what?). Hard to explain, but perhaps the foregoing sentences help ẽxplain. And thểre ís apparently no W in thís language, so a U póps up until you repeatedly hit the W key! Yikes!
The net result ís that I have messed up my Yahoo mail account so badly that Yahoo hás shut me dơwn for a whole damn week. Suspicious activity. All it is was a Vietnamese keyboard.
EXCEPT the computer keyboard. It's set up to type Vietnamese, which ís completely understandable, after all I am in Vietnam...except that it means every single word hás to be gone òvẻr a multitude òf times to make sure it's right. Seê all thóse little squiggles over the a's and e's, i's and o's? What happens ís that when those letters are typed, the next letter doén't get entered (sê doén't? See hơ it gét typed? Í thí crazy-making ỏ what?). Hard to explain, but perhaps the foregoing sentences help ẽxplain. And thểre ís apparently no W in thís language, so a U póps up until you repeatedly hit the W key! Yikes!
The net result ís that I have messed up my Yahoo mail account so badly that Yahoo hás shut me dơwn for a whole damn week. Suspicious activity. All it is was a Vietnamese keyboard.
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