Page 345 - Thorn In The Heart

Chinh Nguyên

Seven
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Just opening the door, Nguyen smells the rice-cakes, those cakes
his parent made to celebrate the New Year, and to confirm the
oldest Vietnamese's custom. Last year he had helped his father to
make the 30 rice-cakes. The first part was covering the rice cake. He
tries to learn how to cover a rice-cake by the special leaves that used
for the rice-cake cover. Nguyen could not get the perfect square
after he chooses a few good leaves and large.
He puts the leaves in order on the copper tray, gives a half small bow
sweet rice on the center of leafs tray, adding into among the sweet
rice leafs tray two handfuls of peeled split mung bean. Also, he has
few pieces of pork that mix with the papers, again add a haft small
bow sweet rice over them, then cover them by the leaves; those
were ready under and around the sweet rice on the copper tray.
The hard part was how to cover them with perfect of 6 inches square
and 1 inch thick since his father had help Nguyen to finish it. The
second part was cooking the rice cakes. Nguyen chooses an
aluminum pail, put the uncooked rice cakes by the 1-inch side in the
order and close, gave the water until over the cakes, continue to
cook them about 12 hours. Therefore some family must wake late at

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