We went to celebrate with Viet’s sister and her family before they left for the holidays, and his mom prepared gỏi cuốn and chả giò (summer rolls, spring rolls), and noodles and rice with nước chấm, and a plate of fried chicken diced into small bites. Their oldest daughter wanted to play hide and seek with us over and over again, and while she was looking for us the younger daughter kept trying to find her sister, who was not aware that she herself was the object of a game.
Then we went downtown and stopped at Dirty Goose, a new martini bar where everyone seems to know each other. This was where we had been when the election results started to roll in, and I briefly considered having flashbacks, then thought better of it and ordered a daiquiri. We chatted with our bartender who was wearing a Santa hat and reminiscing about a gay bar in our suburban neighborhood, now closed, where he used to be able to sneak in underage.
(Photo: Puerta del Sol, Madrid.)
365 Days of Food 