Glitter ink
I know a colleague from the West. He confided that the thing he is most proud of since graduating is that one day he felt like taking 10 days off just to… go out. It was admirable and surprising, it seems like in the past 10 years I have never taken a whole week off to go out like that.
His destination was a small coastal village in the Central region. He spent from morning to afternoon wandering around, admiring the sea, looking at murals, watching fishermen pull in their nets, and eating seafood.
While wandering around, I stopped my car on the side of the road to argue with the lady selling melons whether it is better to eat ripe melons soaked in iced milk in the Western style or to eat them young and eaten with crunchy salt and chili in the Central style.
“But what fascinated me the most was going to the early morning market and watching the squids that had just been caught, transparent and sparkling in the morning sun, when the sun had just risen. I had never seen anything so beautiful and delicious.” Since then, whenever he heard about Tam Thanh or Tam Tien (Nui Thanh) beach, his memory was of squids sparkling in the morning sun.
Wake up early with the sea
I, sometimes feeling tired and stressed, often go to the beach. Not in the afternoon, when the beach is crowded with bathers and bustling with the sounds of people... relaxing.
Pick a weekend morning without sleeping in, wake up early at 4:30 with a personal playlist called “happy”, put on your headphones and start your journey chasing the sun.
The car passed through the sleeping streets, crossed the Ky Phu bridge and the rice fields with the scent of young leaves. At that time, dawn was shining on the horizon.
Follow the light of the dawn, follow the bustling sounds of laughter and you will find your way back to the fish market - a small market on the early morning beach, where night boats are welcoming the shore.
There, I realized that the world never sleeps. While someone is sleeping and resting, there are always people still drifting on the night sea. When the day comes, the boat full of fish returns to shore.
There, I watched buckets of fresh fish, shrimps popping, and sea snails poking their heads out as if looking at the world one last time before some girl bought them to boil and make snail salad.
And I smiled, remembering my younger brother's words with the immortal parable of singleness: "There will be no girl who is willing to sacrifice herself for me because of love. Only squid and fish are willing to... die for me" - while looking at the trays of squid just brought up from the sea, still transparent.
And the taste of the sea
Under the first rays of the morning sun, the tiny dots begin to sparkle like sunlight, like joy, like reflecting the joyful hearts of fishermen with a good harvest.
Amidst the clamor of buying, arguing, and haggling, squeeze in to buy some squid. Then take it to the market and find the woman selling banh xeo, who is pouring out pancakes that are golden as the sun and crispy as laughter, and ask her to pour you some banh xeo with the squid you just bought.
Wait to enjoy the brilliant culinary picture with the yellow color of the cake crust, the red color of the plump, finger-sized squid, the young green color of the vegetables, and the clear white color of a few bean sprouts.
Wrap everything in a thin layer of rice paper, dip in honey-colored anchovy fish sauce, and you will feel the essence of heaven and earth converging on the tip of your tongue.
Or easier, stop by to buy a bunch of water spinach grown in the coastal strip, people call it saltwater water spinach. Then, just steam the squid and roll the water spinach in rice paper to taste the sweet squid flavor on the tip of your tongue.
Or faster, boil a pot of water with some pineapple and tomatoes, add squid, scoop it out and pour it on soft white rice noodles, slurp it up in time for a weekend morning. I can taste the taste of the sea permeating into each piece of crispy squid.
In March, the sun was shining brightly, I bought a dozen kilos of squid to pack and send to Saigon for my younger brother who was craving for the sparkling squid. On the way to send the car, I realized that there were also many people packing fish, shrimp, squid - gifts from the Central coastal region - to send to their relatives. Hearing the love suddenly simple and strong like sea salt.
The Central Coast, besides the storms, always has such brilliant early summer mornings - cheerful and shiny like squid and fish, basking in the sun...
Source
Comment (0)