Uyen Luu

I haven’t really worked in a professional kitchen before. I have set foot into one a few times here and there over the years because of doing “this”. When I was 18, I had a job as a waitress that lasted a day in a cafe before getting fired for twisting the hot water knob thing the wrong way on the coffee machine, therefore, drenching and scorching the displeased manager. Other than that, my professional catering experience boils down to my first ever Saturday job as a 16 year old down at the Burger King tills. They wouldn’t even let me fry the chips, you’re front of house material, they’d say and shoved me in front of the microphone so that I could yell out double whooper with cheese meals.

Decades later, I get my own little kitchen at The Ivy for the day. The stove and oven are massive and there’s three dumb waiters! One for sending dirty things to be washed and two for stuff the real kitchen would send up. All I had to do was to pick up the phone, ask for something and it gets sent up. Amazing!

My assistant, Jasmin and I spent the afternoon in a blissful quiet content prepping herbs and cooking for my book signing evening at the club. I were to demonstrate and hold a mini cooking class for 40 guests with 45 on the waiting list! I had waiters and tablecloths and posh glasses.What a dream!

It was nerve wracking to have hungry eager eyes on me and I didn’t know if I made any sense or if I waffled. I felt a bit lost, out of my comfort zone, where I wash all the dishes and place every plate but really enjoyable to expand a little knowledge into people about Vietnamese cooking.

Thank you so much to Katie and everyone in the kitchen at The Ivy Club for having me,  to my dear friend Nathan whose a member there and has set it all up and to Jasmin for always assisting with a full heart.

My mother & father on their wedding day in 1976

Last year, my little cousin Thuy got married and I went back to Vietnam for the occasion as well as to photograph for my book, My Vietnamese Kitchen. It was not long ago that we sat by the sea’s side sucking coconut water from it’s shell with a pink coloured straw and wondered, whom out there will have us, marry us and give us children. We longed for the day that one of us would finally find our prince, like girls do. Like with all finds, you find it when you find it. From one day to the next, you meet someone and your life changes forever. Thuy met the love of her life.

Bride & bridesmaid getting ready

In Vietnam, the most traditional thing you can do is marry. People marry very young, in their early twenties and if you are approaching your thirties or are in your thirties and haven’t married, you can more or less consider yourself, left on the shelf, like in a shop, no one wants to buy you! It is as blatant as that and no one will be shy to remind you!

As a child I used to stroll through my parent’s wedding pictures every day and made up stories in my mind about all the people in the photos and what it would have been like. Attending Thuy’s wedding was like seeing what my parents did in their twenties when they married each other. I had no idea about the traditions that are set and also no idea about how long (or how little time) the ceremonies and receptions took.

In the photographs here, my cousin Thuy is still in her in nightie waiting for the groom to come to the family house to present her with a dress. The groom’s family would bring traditional gifts to present to the family of the bride and to also present her with gifts such as jewellery. Only immediate family are invited to this occasion, but that could be quite a lot of people, as in the case of our family!My uncles & auntThe family of the bride line up to receive the groom’s family into her homeGifts from the groom’s family

Mothers

Meanwhile, the bride can get dressed into a red dress that was given by the groom

Then we go and have a big 8 course feast at a restaurant together. This takes as long as the food takes to be eaten and everyone departs. In the evening, about 500 people are invited to attend the big celebration. These could be anyone you’ve ever met in your life and their neighbours! Everyone will wear their best outfit and make a big effort. It is also a 8 course feast with seafood, duck, suckling pig to noodles and snacks such as spring rolls. Anyone who comes has to gift the couple with money in a red envelope. And the occasion lasts for about as long as it takes to eat the feast which is about 90 minutes!   I was so shocked when people started to leave after an hour and a half and by two hours and a half, the whole thing was over. Everyone would have left the bride and groom who went to each table to thank the guests and would have been starving and exhausted.

Apart from it being a very happy occasion, it was also a rather sad one because it was the first time Thuy (or a daughter) would leave the family home. She grew up sharing a bedroom with her sister, Thao and lived with the family all of her life. This would be the first night that she would be gone, to her new home with the groom’s family. It was heart breaking for her sister and her mother, who were proud but also so very sad.    My mother, father & uncle Hien

My grandparents & parents

Me, selfies, on Thuy’s wedding day, having a moment amongst the noise.

After the book launch, I had a couple days off in Newcastle. I had been years and years ago, passing through to Edinburgh in my first car, a silver Ford Fiesta. This time, it was more relaxing on a 5 hour train, playing sudoku with train chit chats. We had a cosy stay at The Vermont Hotel and loved walking around the city even though it was blue and grey. It felt a bit like being in Brooklyn, with the bridges high above crossing paths. I didn’t realise how picturesque Newcastle is, how boutique-y it felt and how peaceful it seemed. That was until dusk, then the ambience was full of techno and bass muffled in between the walls and the bouncy echoey cobbled streets.

The view, breath taking, from BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art Gateshead. BALTIC 39. Newcastle upon Tyne. It had a really amazing illusion at the staircase that seemed to go all the way down to the centre of the earth!

One of the best meals in a long time was enjoyed during lunch at The Broad Chare on Broad Chare. I was seduced by their Ocktoberfest menu, the schnitzel and all but then just went for their regular menu, a few pickings from small plates and sides. It was amazing, the scotch egg, done to perfection, the goulash was just like the ones I enjoyed in Budapest, crispy pigs ears, curried cauliflower tempura, crispy cod cheeks tempura, potted shrimp and the most beautiful bread and butter. Love it! It would be the first place I’d go back to. The Italian restaurant, Caffe Vivo next door was brilliant as well! (Thanks to Maunika Gowardhan for the excellent recommendations).

The real reason for being in Newcastle (was to stay overnight) but to visit Sunderland’s Northern Gallery For Contemporary Art & Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens which is showing You Are The Company In Which You Keep until Feb 2014. It is an exhibition showing works from photographers and lens based artists.  It was such an enjoyable and engaging show! “Many of the artists might be described as working in anthropological or ethnographic ways, observing how our experience of the world is mediated through the camera lens”.

I particularly loved the video installation by Julian Germain of Classroom Portraits of an entire classroom in different classrooms around the world. The class was asked to sit perfectly still for a couple of minutes to camera. So when the wind blew or someone blinked, it looked really freaky!

I really enjoyed the wall of portraits from his book, United Kingdom by James O Jenkins, who travelled from Cornwall to Scotland shooting portraits of people during traditional British cultural rituals and the costumes they wore.

A brilliant art show. I highly recommend visiting it, even to travel especially for it.

Photo by James O Jenkins

I loved the found photographs from a studio in Malaysia by Yee I-Lann, showing a portrait of an entire community in the seventies. It was gorgeous but also moving, funny and full of stories.

The Vermont Hotel

Castle Garth, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear NE1 1RQ

www.vermont–hotel.com

Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art
City Library and Arts Centre
Fawcett Street
Sunderland
SR1 1RE
www.ngca.co.uk

All photography here has been taken with my iPhone. I should really start carrying my [D]SLR around some more!

It took 6 months to write, photograph, test recipes and edit the book. Six weeks to organise the book launch and it came a went like a click. My friends, peers and loved ones came to celebrate one of the most important nights of my life. My first book was finally out and it made me feel nervous, proud, anxious, happy, terrified, excited.

I had so many wonderful and heartfelt messages. Some made me feel incredibly happy and lucky to be thought of by my heroes. I could blush for years!

Raymond Blanc
“I am sorry I can not be with you, my schedule is crazy and I just can not be there with you to help celebrate this meaningful moment for you.”

Yotam Ottolenghi
“Looking forward to seeing your book and cooking from it. Good luck!!”

The book launch was held at Hurwundeki, its a Korean cafe with a hairdressers. It also has a beachy shop front with tables, sands and rocking horses! If I were you, I would get myself down there for 2 courses for only £10, BYO and get your hair cut too!

Thank you to Naked Wines for sponsoring the event with prosecco, white and red. We all loved it and it surely did top the night off with tons of smiles.

Thank you to Donald Russell for the generous gift of ingredients of beef, chicken and pork that were in the summer rolls and banh mi.

Thank you to Ryland Peters & Small for supporting the night and Hurwundeki for the most quirky, fun and off the wall venue.

Thank you to everyone who passed by to buy the book and for being there to celebrate a night I could never possibly forget. I had the most amazing time. I hope that everyone will enjoy the book as much as I loved making it.

Photography by William Timbers, William Overstall, William Pandocchi, Nada Bajagic, Seb Ratcliffe & Uyen Luu

The women of Vietnam seem  to run the whole country. They start from the kitchen and work their way out by any means to feed the family and to keep it together. Apart from what you already do for a living, you will do something extra to earn money. No part of the day goes un-wasted. Má (Mother) Lien lives next door to my cousins in Phan Thiet. They have a shop selling alters and buddhas but in the evenings, they also sell offal for their famous bánh mì. But you wouldn’t have to have it in a baguette, you can buy a bag and have it with rice or in a noodle soup or simply just to snack on with some beers.

The pigs trotters, intestine, liver, hearts, kidneys etc are poached and flavoured throughout the afternoon in a big stock pot with a list of secret Chinese spices and medicine.

Phan Thiet

10 Nguyen Du

Amazon are dispatching my book, people are tweeting pictures of it on their kitchen tables and book shops from London to Singapore! I’ve been going on about my book this entire year and it feels strange and wildly exciting that for the first time people can own it and have a look through it and cook with it without my presence. The thought of it landing on someone’s door step or sitting on a strange kitchen surface makes me wildly thrilled and nervous at the same time. I can now officially call myself a published author, a childhood dream has been met and I am thirsty for more.

I hope that everyone will like the book and will be eating many delicious meals from it.
The book will also be sold in Waterstones, Daunts, Blackwells & Foyles. I will also have copies of the book to sell at my supper club and cooking classes.

PLEASE NOTE:  These photographs may not be reproduced on any media online without permission of Ryland Peters & Small, please obtain permission beforehand.