Bought a mint plant at Checkers today, so I could have a nearly authentic meal of rice vermicelli with pork, mint leaves and peanuts. Your average Vietnamese would have eaten all those leaves at one sitting, but here, I have to ration myself. Actually, I can just buy all the mint plants at Checkers! Seeing my mint plant, my Indian landlord said he already had three in his garden, but their leaves are tiny.

The pork is supposed to be grilled, so slightly burnt, with the burnt sugar in the marinade giving it an extra kick. Woe me, my pork was stir fried.

Rice vermicelli, fish sauce, peanuts and mint leaves were all bought at Checkers, with only the garlic chili sauce purchased at the Chinese grocer.

Covid is accelerating the phasing out of this cosmopolitanism.