~ This posting is dedicated to my one and only best friend, my mother. I love you, Mom! ~ Happy Mother's Day! This year I don't get to celebrate this day with Mom as she is still in Vietnam with Dad, visiting my grandmother who has not been feeling well. No worries, we will be celebrating Mother's Day "late" when she comes back next week. Since this is Mother's Day, it is the perfect time to recognize Mom, and how much I appreciate everything she does for our family.
Mom is the pillar of our family. She really is "the glue" that holds us together, and that includes her grand kids. Growing up in a family of ten siblings in the inner city of Saigon, Mom barely had enough food to eat leave alone money for schooling. As a strong-will woman she is, Mom never let that prevented her from obtaining an education; she knew the only way to climb the poverty ladder was to do well in school—an important lesson she has taught me since I was a little girl. Mom did what she knew was best. With two torn school uniforms, my mother nibbled on dried breads and water and saved every dime for school tuition through four years of high school. She never missed a day of class, though it meant going to bed with a growling stomach or skipping breakfast every morning. Grandfather eventually acknowledged her motivation, and worked extra shifts to keep Mom in school. Hard work had paid off the day Mom graduated from high school and a college degree just immediately before the Fall of Saigon. Mom was the first in her family to earn a high school degree. It may seem conventional in today's world, but graduating from high school in Vietnam back in the 1970s was a huge achievement.
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So, I'm going to start out slowly but surely immersing myself back into the dessert world that I was born and raised with: Vietnamese Sweets! Living in a tropical place, the Vietnamese are constantly trying to create exotic and soothing desserts to stay cool in 360 days of the year. Growing up, I would find any excuses to use my allowance to get some cold sweet soups, puddings or jelly cakes to ease that throbbing afternoon sun rays, or at least, to make the heat more manageable. Vietnamese coconut and coffee layered jelly was what I grew up with, and I knew nothing better until I was introduced to the American culture of cupcakes, donuts, cheesecakes and brownies. Although I have learned to more selective with my sweets intake and my tongue has acquired anew expectations (its standard has heightened), I still find some comfort in eating these Vietnamese popular jelly desserts. Well, at least most of the time.
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This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesAboutTristina TiepNhu Nguyen is a pharmacist by weekday and a baker by weekend. She is also a wife and a mother of two children. Free Cake Tutorials!Sign up for my newsletter and you will be the first to know about my new recipes and cake tutorials!
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