Fribble Friday: Band on the Run (1 Samuel 23–25)

Yup, still running a little late.

Short snarky summary: Team David has gone rogue but are basically supposed to be the good kind of outlaw. They keep running into scrapes with Saul though.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

So this is the third book in a series: its a strict sequel, chronologically and plotwise, to Graceling, and it ties in at certain points to the mostly unrelated work Fire. It is pretty much impossible to write about this book without spoiling a significant plot point occurring about two-thirds or the way into Graceling, so I’ll cut for spoilers.

Bánh mì in Louisville (part 17 of an onging series): Cafe Thuy Van

With this review, I think I may have run out of bánh mì places in Louisville for the time being. Of places I’ve visited, Saigon One, French Indo-Canada, and Morels have all shut down; to fill the food-truck void, Banh Mi Hero has started a mobile operation, running alongside their permanent storefront.

The new tenant of the late, lamented Flabby’s Schnitzelburg may someday get in on the game: the owner envisions a tavern with southeast Asian small plates, and I basically promised that if he had a bánh mì, then I would be there and write it up.

Cafe Thuy Van (5600 National Turnpike) has been on my radar for a very long time, but it’s far enough out of my usual orbit that unless I’m already pretty much at Iroquois Park it’s not worth my while to go there. I’ve noted that they have only what appear to be “breakfast” bánh mì on the menu: one with eggs, and one with eggs and sundry pork bits. Both are considerably above my usual expected Beechmont/Iroquois price point, in the mid-seven-dollar range. The place is pretty sparsely furnished but airy (“minimalist” might be the word), family-run with a real sense of being a family joint. Their main menu item is phở, like most Vietnamese sit-down eateries, and the clientèle is mostly Vietnamese. They do solid and reliable entrees and soups in my experience. I rounded out my meal with a lemonade and a bí cuốn, which ended up close to $15 all told. Oh, well.

As for the actual sandwich: well, it grieves me to say that it isn’t one. Now, admittedly, bánh mì does not mean “sandwich”, it means “baguette”, and there are dishes with names involving baguettes, such as bánh mì bò kho, which are not sandwiches but are simply another dish (e.g. bò kho, a beef stew) served with a baguette. But in this case I am authentically confused, possibly due to some sort of roundeye ignorance. This platter certainly seems to have much suggestive of the essential elements of a bánh mì: there’s a sweet sauce, traditional pickled slaw, cucumbers, and protein. The only highly requisite elements missing are the mayo and the cilantro, suggesting this is at the very least a first cousin of what’s been called a bánh mì everywhere else I go. But it’s completely disassembled! I don’t want to come off all snobby, but if I pay twice the going local rate for a sandwich, I kind of expect to have it assembled for me. So getting something which was Not What I Expected kind of soured me on the deal, and it means that by my usual standards, this was somewhat unrecommendable: the actual sandwichcrafting part of a bánh mì is usually what I go on, and if I build it myself than any balance issues are my fault, not theirs (er, except for the balance issue of no cilantro or mayo. What’s with that?) The actual meat was pretty decent, but it’s the same stuff I’ve had on bún and the like. The eggs were eggs. The slaw was good but not transcendent, and the bread… ah, alas, far too many places neglect the bread. Now, Cafe Thuy Van doesn’t really have a lot of bread-based dishes, so it’s not unexpected, but is somewhat disappointing, to have an airy loaf with no real crust.

So, all in all, I can’t recommend Cafe Thuy Van for bánh mì. Maybe someone will set me straight and let me know that similarity to what I’ve been consuming as bánh mì wasn’t actually part of this dish’s ambitions, but certainly it doesn’t really meet my expectations at all.

Wibble Wednesday: Gimme Shelter (1 Samuel 21–22)

This is what happens when I don’t do my writeup until Tuesday; I end up doing two back-to-back.

Short snarky summary: David seeks refuge various places, feigning madness and accidentally dooming an entire town he stops in.

Tibble Tuesday: Slashfic week (1 Samuel 18–20)

OK, had a bit of travel this weekend, which is no excuse for why I didn’t do this before the weekend.

On the advice of reader and old friend Greg Sanders, I’m supplementing with Robert Pinsky’s The Life of David. It’s quite insightful and almost seems to render my efforts here moot, being a blend of supposition, personal reflection, and scholarly study of David’s life. I’m not sure I agree with him on everything, but he’s worth a read: scholarly but not too dry.

Also, of interest for the last writeup, here’s a well-researched post going into greater detail than I did about the continuity kludges and shoddy editing of David’s introduction to the story.

Short, snarky summary: Jonathan loves David. Saul hates David. The second of these is prone to variation but not the first. Saul’s daughter Michal also loves David. Incestuous, hate-fueled groupsex presumably happens offstage among our four principals, in between murder attempts. Saul “throws his spear” a lot, IYKWIM.