Pho-ever
Pho-ever
The loudest memory.
While American kids have mac & cheese, I grew up with steaming bowls of nui, or Vietnamese macaroni soup. And there’s this unspoken rule: you have to slurp, loudly! It's our way of saying "this is delicious" to whoever cooked it. .
Bitterness.
Food can feel like a religion, like bitter melon soup, which translates to “passing the hardships” in Vietnamese. For every Vietnamese kid, it’s their first taste of struggle. The older I get, the more I actually appreciate the bitterness. Now, bitter melon soup has become my ritual whenever life gets tough.
Serendipity.
I first met Monica at Brandcenter's PB&J Challenge where we made these crazy PB&J noodles together, and we hit it off right away. By some stroke of luck, we both ended up interning in Miami that summer and had an amazing time. I can't imagine going through two years at Brandcenter without having Monica around.