I imagine many of you love where you live – me too. I’ve probably made that pretty clear. But I’ve mostly talked about the landscape. The color of the skies, rain puddles, a brief and early spring.
I may love my local pho place as much as the weather. Pho, as I’m guessing you know, is a Vietnamese noodle soup and it is pronounced, “Fuh.” The restaurant is owned by a woman who looks to be in her early 30s. I have to point out that she’s beautiful because the place is very small and her presence felt, but I should also tell you she is on top of every detail and not afraid to run the show. She makes sure we are all seated as quickly as possible.
She often brings her little boy with her, and her mom, or maybe an auntie, will feed him lunch. He now looks to be almost two, a boy as beautiful as his mother, who shows his feelings – joy at the space, annoyance at his food, comfort in his mama.
We patrons are a varied bunch.
Recently:
A table of five, high tech workers from the way they talked. The man who appears to be their manager sounds like he’s Brasilian. He wears his salt and pepper hair combed back in waves. However, I really don’t know where he comes from, and it’s important not to make assumptions. I trust my assessment that he’s the boss more than any other guess I make.
Another table, of two. A tall distinguished woman with a dark bob, still wearing her wool trapeze jacket, eats with a younger woman who looks to be her adult daughter. The young woman has longer hair. They are both Caucasian.
A third table of three young men, all of whom look to be Asian. Again, don’t assume, because people from certain parts of Latin America often have the look we Anglo-Americans often think of as Asian.
Note how often I have to use a qualifying “often.”
Yet another table of five workers. These guys have jobs that require them to wear bright yellow and orange vests. They might also have hard hats in their car, which might be a truck. They wear badges. Two are African-American, but maybe from Haiti, so, I’m not sure what descriptor they’d like me to use. I’ll keep my labels to myself, transparent, ready to change. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect human beings not to generate labels for what we see, it appears to be a fundamental part of our process for language and meaning. But it has to be possible that we all remember we are making assumptions only as a step in understanding, and we are therefore happy to adjust as we learn more.
Obviously that’s really what I’m trying to say here.
The men are all talking about the Golden State Warriors, our championship basketball team who play in Oakland, on the other side of San Francisco Bay. We don’t call ourselves the “Bay Area” for nothing.
The little boy will saunter around every now and then. His head isn’t yet as high as our plates. Everybody says hello.
The owner sits down at a table, sometimes, for meetings. Seems she has made such a success of the pho place that she’s investing in commercial real estate. I find myself borrowing pride in her success, although our weekly bowls of chicken and beef pho, fewer noodles, extra meat (maybe a shrimp spring roll, fried imperial rolls if I’m feeling reckless), are teeny in the scheme of her accomplishment.
I should definitely point out that the pho is really good here. There are pho restaurants up and down the Peninsula, which is what we call this side of the Bay, but this one is one of the best we’ve found. You just have to make sure to get there before 1:30pm because occasionally they have been known to water down the broth a bit if they start to run out. It takes hours to make, so, can’t just re-up on short notice.
When people talk about America, this is mine. Lunch-based, with an oval maroon-rimmed plate of jalapeños, basil, and bean sprouts.
Have a happy weekend everyone. Also soup.
52 Responses
Yum. Our local soup place is our home kitchen, I love to make soup. Just now I’m making a chicken soup, with a slightly “pho” leaning. Fish sauce and rice noodles. I always make up my recipes – it’s a creative outlet for me.
@KSL, Soups are so sensory, the way they look and smell, and always feel to me when done right like human nutrition at its best. I guess you’ve gotten to the point where you know the techniques so well you can improvise, which is then even more sensory, imagining the taste before you cook and as you cook and when you eat, all.
This is wonderful!
I miss the Vietnamese place I frequented in my former state. We watched the owner’s little boy grow up, from toddler to college, to Harvard Law. And then, mission accomplished, his parents retired. Shortly afterward we moved. It was not exclusively a pho place. At night there was a regular menu, but small, you had to trust the cook’s instincts. Pho was a lunchtime thing, and I miss it. I have yet to find good pho broth in Knoxville, but I’m thinking of carrying out an organized comparison, just to clarify my own thoughts to myself. Perhaps I shall be surprised.
@Mardel, That place sounds like a treasure. And how extraordinary to see that little boy get to Harvard Law. I think a pho crawl would be really fun to do, even in a group.
I don’t have a soup place, but lots of within-walking-distance dinner spots. The pho place is across town, so I don’t make it there often. But I am curious – did it take you any time to learn to say “Fuh” instead of “Pho” (“Fuh” as in fudge, vs. “Pho” as in Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum)? I find that I can’t bring myself to order it the correct way – the word is too weird for me. Other people find this strange.
@marsha calhoun, It did take me time to say Fuh, and it did sound really weird at first. The tipping point was working with a team of people who were Asian Americans – they wouldn’t have thought of calling it Foh, so I just fell into the group habit easily
My favourite of your posts in a while — I love the beautifully observed scene as much as I enjoy the assumptions you draw from it and your careful qualifying of such assumptions. Happy Saturday!
@Frances/Materfamilias, Happy Saturday to you too! I’ve been thinking about writing this for a while – I’m glad you liked it:).
My favorite soup is clam chowder. Living in Idaho, I’ve yet to find a place that makes it to my liking. However, I am blessed in that we go to the Oregon Coast once or twice a year. My favorite places there are Georgie’s in Newport Beach and The Sea Hag in Depoe Bay. When I get the desire for chowder at home I make it myself. So, no walking to a soup place for me, unless you count the kitchen.
xox
@MaryAnne, They make good clam chowder in Oregon? I didn’t know!
I’m with KSL – when my husband is in the kitchen making one of his wonderful Spanish bean soups, ours is definitely the best soup kitchen in town! I myself make a great Greek lentil soup called “faki,” but he makes it better… ditto with chili, but that’s a whole ‘nother subject.
(But unlike KSL, we both follow recipes – with our own little twists, of course!)
@Victoire, Now I’m hungry:). Will have to look up recipes for Greek lentil soup, sounds amazing.
Spanish bean soup sounds amazing. I love a good hearty soup for dinner.
Your best essay. Ever.
@Gail, Thank you very much!
So much more than soup to offer. Beautiful post!
luci
@luci, Thank you:).
Love this piece. There is a shift in your writing to a more intimate, descriptive style, which is a pleasure to read. We are fellow Silicon Valley, SF, SF Bay Area people. Pho memories are woven into my work and personal lunches. A bowl of pho is one of my comfort foods. Yes to extra protein as well as more jalapeños and basil. Happy Saturday. xo.
@Katherine C. James, One of the great things about pho is the way the cooks do the brother and protein and noodles and we can customize the rest! I like to dip my chicken in hoisin sauce.
Glad you like the writing – my best friend told me my writing style was “terse” and she thought she liked “flowy” a little better. So I tried to flow a little more. Also, look outside myself. xoxox
Happy Sunday.
It truly is all about the food.
@Marna, In so many ways.
Lisa,
For thise of us who live on rhe peninsula, you have to let us in on the name of your place. Please?
MaryKay
@Mary Kay, Email me at skyepeale at yahoo dot com!
On cold blustery days (such as now) or wet, rainy ones, I get a hankering for pho. It is such a comfort food. There are many Vietnamese families in this area (Northern Virginia) so there are many pho restaurants, for which we feel fortunate. I may just have to head to one tomorrow!
@Jane, I hope you did and it was good:).
Thank you , loved your descriptive piece. A restful break amidst our turbulent times.
@Elizabeth, My pleasure. Thank you.
Insightful post. I believe you are speaking to diversity. It’s wonderful to just sit back and watch others as they enjoy life and interact with co-workers, family or friends. A favourite pastime of mine.
@Joanna, You are so right – I am speaking to diversity.
This is a lot like my America, as well. (Mine has a bit more spoken Spanish, and maybe a Gujarat accent.) No assumptions – ever – about people’s stories, where they are from, their gender, or their sexual preferences. I wish for a way to communicate the satisfaction this brings me to people who haven’t experienced an America like it.
Of course now I’m wanting to know your favorite pho place, too, since I learned to eat pho in Vietnam – for breakfast – before laying bricks for Habitat for Humanity, and I haven’t found quite the right place on the SF Peninsula. (My favorite so far is in Mountain View.)
@Cathy, I used to go to one on Castro Street, I remember:). And funnily enough, this place is right in the middle of what we used to call “Little Mexico”
I love this post too. Sometimes I go with my daughter in law to a Vietnamese restaurant which is close to her office. Next time I will certainly order Pho.
Since we have a dumpling of a granddaughter who is almost two, I love reading about the owner’s little boy. You will have so much to see watching him grow up.
I understand not making assumptions I have sometimes gotten in big trouble with our younger son, not making assumptions, but asking questions. Don’t ask!
And yes, I love my city. I’ve watched it mature and improve since 1986. Maybe a bit of borrowed pride there as well.
@Susan D., I think when you’ve lived somewhere for that many years, you absolutely get to feel pride. And for the adorable dumpling of a granddaughter.
Pho is so good, and yes, the best pho places, in my experience, are occupied by a wide range of patrons who are there because the food is good (and not prohibitively expensive), and I love both the food and the collection of pleased humanity being fed.
My favorite pho place at “home” also gave one complimentary cream puff to each patron, which was a delightful touch.
A friend once brought me “to go” pho when I was sick – a takeout container of all the things-that-go-in-the-pho and a (granted, environmentally unfriendly) Styrofoam tub of broth; reheat to a simmer and mix up a custom bowl… and then, because when one is sick, one goes more for the brothy side of things, use the leftovers to make a stir fry.
Soup. Humans being fed. Businesses flourishing by exchanging good value with customers and treating everyone involved well. A happy slice of a neighborhood. And tiny humans. All lovely things!
@KC, All lovely things! And now I am DYING for a cream puff! “I love both the food and the collection of pleased humanity being fed.”
Yes.
The first time I tried Pho was in Tucsan AZ. My mother had just had brain surgery and my sister and I needed to eat while we waited for her to wake up.
Need less to say we were worried exhausted distraught.
Neither one of us had ever tried pho. I’ m not sure why we went in….but ten years later I still remember the fragrant, nourishing bowl of soup. It soothed my soul.
@Kelly, I am so sorry about your mom, I hope she is OK now. Thank you for sharing your story, it is striking and wonderful.
I am not a pho fan but I feel the same as you about the Italian cafe in our neighbourhood and the yum cha emporium at our local shopping centre. It’s beautiful how food brings us all together through all ages and walks of life.
Local eateries are microcosms of society.
SSG xxx
@Sydney Shop Girl, That they are. Italian neighborhoods used to be that way in San Francisco, but not so much any more. A pity, in a way.
One of my favourite posts ever!! Xxxx
@Ff, Thank you so much. xoxo.
I love eating soups…and a tasty Pho place would be fun to try…we have a restaurant here in Victoria called Ferris’s and they make a soicy Chicken soup with dumplings which is the perfect soup for a chilly rainy day..the recipe has been on their menu since the place opened…still a favourite among the regulars.
@Bungalow Hostess, Yum, chicken and dumplings!
You have the ability to add the extraordinary to any quotidian topic, not that dining on one’s fave soup should be taken lightly! I love good soup, especially pho and miso soup and ramen.
One of my pastimes is looking around my cafe and wondering, if we were on a desert island, which jobs each of us would be in charge of. Probably I’d help make huts and clothing.
@Melanie, Thank you. And what an interesting exercise! My observations are lazier, I love your imagination.
Follow-up to your response above: *Fascinating* observation by your friend. What she experienced as terse I experienced as businesslike (you’d say, “let’s deconstruct” and it would remind me of my writing work with my company’s Marketing team as opposed to my own Engineering team, who were generally hooligans:), and I assumed was coming from your years of business writing. Flowy writing, or maybe I’d think of it as more stream-of-consciousness writing, where the writing glides from subject-to-subject with the subjects related in ever-widening circles that one can then bring back in or leave further out, works better in my writing too. One of my favorite exercises, which come to think of it produces flow in me and may be what your friend is referring to when she says flowy, is to sit somewhere, relax, let go, note the sounds, smells, sights, and describe it all, or to take a day and settle into my memory of it and describe it. In both cases I add myself in as an omniscient source of knowledge about the place, its past, my past, something that is bigger than the scene. It makes me happy, and I notice that when I share it with others, it often makes them happy as well, maybe because it works as a window of shared, recognizable experience that moves each of us to our own related memories? Your pho writing is a combination of outside you and inside you, which I like. What I articulated above, particularly the part about an omniscient me, include things I’m attempting to think about and put into words for the first time. So, thank you for that. This subject is interesting to me, and I love the way it is manifesting in your work. Thank you for sharing that, for me, thought-provoking and provocative insight. Final note: For years I’ve avoided writing except on social media or in my professional life, despite encouragement to write things for publication somewhere. That did not sound good to me for a variety of reasons. Recently, I’ve found myself wanting to share my writing more. Not for any sort of publication goal, but as a way to add structure, describe my current life, articulate (give shape to) my goals, and to connect as, for example, you, Frances, and Bumble do. xoxoxo.
Happy Sunday.
@Katherine C. James, I would SO welcome you to the blogosphere. You have such a unique voice.
And thank you for the extra perspective on my “terseness.” xoxox.
Your Pho restaurant sounds outstanding. Delicious soup and a diverse group of people all enjoying their lunch/dinner. The soup quality and restaurant atmosphere sounds delightful. The young female owner is one very enterprising business woman. Impressive woman!
Leo Buscaglia said labels are “distancing phenomena” that tend to distance us from one another. I suppose that is true in its worst sense; at its best, it may just be a form of semantic shorthand. Either way, it is wise to use them carefully. I envy your Pho place – we don’t have a good one close by.
Eye doctor appointment yesterday, HOURS of waiting amidst people I never see and do not know, anxiety rose as minutes passed, reached high annoyance level at lady cackle-laughing too loud for the size of the room, grew fitful, was about to turn to self-loathing [what kind of path is THAT?] when VOILA I turned myself into you, and began framing the situation as a reporter, collecting facts and kind impressions. Thank you for your good example! Favorite line from your essay “still wearing her wool trapeze jacket.”
What a lovely description and I am glad to find some time to scroll around and read what you’ve been up to.
Thank you, Liz!
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