I'm a sucker (or should I say pucker?) for sour cherries. Fresh ones are nearly impossible to find, and the season is a brief blink in July. So when I found some at the farmers market - a small box, stuck in a corner, nearly hidden by towering mounds of boring Bings - I pounced.

These are Montmorency cherries, a variety that's over 100 years old, and the most plentiful type of sour cherry in North America.

They're a beautiful, bright crimson - so pretty, I almost don't mind the tedious task of pitting each one. I remember pitting cherries when I was a kid, using one of my grandmother's old-fashioned U-shaped hairpins to fish-out the seed. Now I'm thoroughly modern and use a paperclip.



I didn't make a cherry custard pie, like I remember adoring when I was young (anybody got a recipe?). Instead, I went for a sugar-cookie crust cobbler, from The Best Recipe cookbook - my go-to cobbler recipe. You spoon the dough on in mounds, and as it bakes, the juice bubbles up through the cracks. The crisp, sweet, buttery crust is the perfect foil for sour cherries. The Bottomless Pit (not to be confused with a cherry pit) thoroughly approved.

La Tartine Gourmande is another sour cherry fan. She has some sexy cherry shots and an intriguing cherry soup recipe here. Dommage! I've got no cherries left to experiment.



So what to do in those dreary months when you can't get fresh cherries? One of my favorite risky-things-that-might-break-in-your-suitcase is Confipote cherry jam, from France. You can find it in just about any supermarket (in French, "cherry" is "cerise"). It's a low-sugar jam, so the zing of the cherries comes through brilliantly. (Yes, I know this photo is a jar of fig jam, but obviously, I already ATE the cherry jam!)

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Yes, Italians have their pasta shaped like butterflies, ears and angel’s hair – but on my recent trip to Vietnam, I saw noodles in the most unusual forms I’ve ever encountered.



You can grab a hearty bowl of pho at almost any street corner (BTW, don’t call it “foe” - it’s pronounced “fur” in north Vietnam and “far” in south Vietnam.) Pho’s basic, fettuccine-shaped rice noodles are just the beginning of the Vietnamese noodle empire.

In Hanoi, I sampled wonderful steamed rice-noodle crepes, wrapped around minced mushrooms and topped with fried onions...

It was mesmerizing to watch the store-front chef pour the batter into her cloth-lined steamer then, a few minutes later, peel the slightly gummy translucent crepe off (all while holding her baby) and hand it to her husband, who added the filling, rolled it and snipped it into four floppy sections with a pair of scissors. You can see the whole process on this video:


In Hue, the last imperial capital, all sorts of dishes were invented to coddle the whims of Emperor Tu Duc, a legendary picky eater. His 50-course banquets were a parade of winsome little morsels, including some descendents you can sample today. (You can also visit his sprawling tomb and imagine him lounging in the pavilion by his artificial lake while reciting poetry to a few of his 1,000 or so concubines.)

I was surprised when one Hue noodle dish, called banh beo, appeared as a collection of 14 little bowls, the size you might use for soy sauce. A pool of rice batter had been ladled into each one and then steamed. They were topped with dried shrimp and a crispy curl of fried pork rind...

The proprietress demonstrated how to spoon a bit of fish sauce on top and peel the disks out of their bowls...

The same humble café served rice noodle batter bundled into banana-leaf packets and stir-fried. Each one was a flat envelope, a gift to unfold and taste how the earthy-green flavor of the leaf infused the pasta...

In Hoi An, noodle dumplings are shaped around shrimp, ending up looking somewhat like a flower. Supposedly only one family has the recipe for these “white roses” (Banh Bao Vac) – and the water to make them must come only from ancient Ba Le well. You’ll find the well down a narrow alley, where someone will likely be pulling up buckets of water to fill jerry cans that fuel production of this hors d’oeuvre that graces most local restaurant menus...

Cao lau, also a Hoi An specialty, may reflect the Chinese and Japanese influence on the cuisine of this old trading town. It features thick, chewy noodles, which are also supposed to be made with water from the legendary well. At its best (my favorite version was this one, at the elegant Brother Café), the pork broth at the bottom of the bowl is reduced to a rich, savory umami bomb...

Be sure to stir it all up, so you get bits of sliced pork, bean spouts, noodles and one of the crispy little pillows of fried dough that top the dish, in every bite.

Of course, there’s more, like wads of cold rice vermicelli that you tuck into rice paper with basil, mint, young bananas and grilled pork. Or the heftier rice noodles they slam onto the table at Cha Ca La Vong, the grubby Hanoi joint that serves addictive cubes of fish that you fry in a skillet on your own little brazier. And I'm sure there are oodles and oodles I didn't even try!

Just two months ago, I was in Bangkok, zipping around on the Skytrain - often passing through the Siam area or headed for the Siam Paragon mall ("The Pride of Bangkok," its website proclaims) to shop, see a movie or graze at the street food court. The area is modern Thailand at its most vibrant, packed with hip young people, loads of restaurants and shopping, shopping, shopping.

Or I should say, WAS.


It's almost impossible for me to imagine, but the entire area is being destroyed in the political struggle that has been going on since before I left in March. The protest started out peacefully, and on several occasions it looked like a resolution had been reached - but things have turned chaotic and ugly.

My friend, Dao, who lives in Bangkok sent me this heartbreaking email today. So far, news about Bangkok's strife has been a mere footnote in the media. Here's how the situation is affecting one of my favorite Thai people:

I am ok and stay in the curfew night now while Central World building is collapsing as well as burning Siam Square and Siam Paragon; also the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

It is the most bitter moment in my life. It is different than when you have a broken heart from a break up or losing love ones. This is losing of the country and integrity.

The country is in pause. I pray to see all this mess stop and I hope I can be a part to help my country recover back to where we used to be.

I know Bangkok will come back from this, because of people like Dao - citizens who believe in their country and seek peace. Dao once gave me a beautiful book called The Happiness of Kati, which is about a young girl who perseveres through great loss. She said it explained a lot about the essence of being Thai. That gives me faith, too, that Bangkok will soon be vibrant once again.

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