It’s December 23, 2024 today. Nôi passed on December 23, 2020.

I first met Nôi in the spring of 1975. She was a beautiful woman, with delicate facial features yet strong working hands. Nôi had a comfortable childhood, growing up in a prosperous family in a village in the North of Vietnam. Her family would share their fortune by making porridge and she used to stand in front of her house to scoop the porridge into the begging bowls of the soldiers and the poor. With the battle of Dien Bien Phu, the Indochina war ended in 1954 and the country was divided into the North and the South. Nôi’s family moved to the South, and she lived with her in-laws until April 1975, the end of the American Vietnam War.

Her pride was being a good daughter-in-law. When her husband was deployed to the frontline, she stayed home and took care of the parents-in-law, as well as his siblings. Nôi always believed in the women’s role in a traditional society. “Tại gia tòng phụ, xuất giá tòng phu, phu tử tòng tử”, meaning “When at home, follow your father; when married, follow your husband; when your husband passes away, follow your son.”

She and her family escaped the Fall of Saigon through the help of a relative. They settled in San Diego. My Mom and Nôi went to the ESL Hoover school in San Diego and have traveled together. They were good friends until they no longer recognized or remembered each other.

Nôi was a modest woman in every sense—she dressed plainly, expected little, and thought simple and straightforward. Her only jewelry was the wedding ring that she wore for 70+ years and which carved into her finger as she never took it out. She never had a manicure, almost never wore makeup, never cut her hair. Her husband passed away when she was 31, and she remained loyal to that relationship. Every year, she held a remembrance meal on that last day when he left for battle. She worked to be independent on small projects, babysitting, making fabric swatch books. She enjoyed taking the bus to visit the kids and making their favorite foods. She was opinionated, bossy, hard-headed, stubborn, but she had a kindness and generosity too. She would never spend money on non-necessities and chose to give that saving to charities.

Even her cooking was simple. In Vietnamese, the word to describe it is “thanh”, which means light, delicate. I’ve learned from her the authentic dishes from the North. For hundreds of years, the North was isolated from foreign influences and that showed in the cooking of the region, with fish sauce being the main seasoning.

Tonight, the menu will be some of the dishes Nôi used to make:

• Canh Cai Ngot
• Trung Chien
• Cà Chua Nhoi Thit
• Dau phu chien nuoc mam
• Rau xao
• Chè Ðau Xanh Cà