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Pennsylvania's Most Interesting Blog

05 Dezember 2006

what the pho?


Ah, you can take the girl out of the Pacific Rim but you can't take the Pacific Rim out of the girl. I'm home today with a sore throat, tiny snowflakes are flitting about outside, and all I want is a damn pho ('fuh' like 'the' or...'duh') place to get some sweet Vietnamese noodle comfort food.

I am entirely homesick for the PacNW and am preparing to slowly start the move westward. Scary and exciting all at once! When I say 'slowly' I mean quite that; don't ask when I'd be moving exactly, I haven't a clue.

So, lunch today has been homemade pho (or reasonable facsimilie thereof; see Exhibit A, above). While it aint no Than Brothers of downtown Redmond, Washington, it's pretty darn tasty. By the way, if you do click on the Than Bros. link, you'll note a studious young man in the pic...maybe he'll still be there when I head in over Christmas? Mwhahaa.

OK: why we don't have a pho place in this here college town makes as much sense to me as undergraduates still wearing flip-flops on campus in freaking December. Then again, as I quipped to a student yesterday, undergraduate dress habits here in Happy Valley are second in atrociousness ONLY to the fashion show that IS The Graduate Student.

Pho just makes sense. Cheap, hot, good, nourishing. But when I ask the guys and gals at (insert name of nail salon here, I bring them up because well, they are from Vietnam) who MIGHT know where to score some pho, they either don't know or are keeping the goods to themselves.

On a side note, my pho-making today has yielded one unexpected result: there is great advantage to being able to engage in the necessary slurpage and funny noises needed to fully enjoy this soup, all while not worrying about offending fellow diners.

That is all for today. Most Interesting, I'm quite sure, bwaahhh! How's the weather where you are, and what is your comfort food du jour?