Tag Archives: Pho

Mother’s Day

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I ordered a nice bouquet of flowers and scheduled them to be delivered at Tary’s work place in time for Mother’s Day. I never ordered from FTD.com before but Tary had mentioned their name so I figured it’d be okay to order from there. Big mistake.

Thursday came and I received an email confirming the delivery. A few minutes later, I received a text message from Tary saying that they must have messed up the order because she was delivered carnations and she knows that I would never order those for her. On top of that, some of the stems were bent. My card was there but the rest of the bouquet was all wrong.

Note: Daniel, don’t ever buy your Mommy or your girlfriend carnations because it’s the equivalent of saying, “I don’t think too highly of you or I’m too cheap to buy you nice roses.” So don’t do it if you know what’s good for you.

Anyways, I was so embarrassed. I wanted to do something really sweet for Tary for Mother’s Day so she could enjoy it with her co-workers but a bouquet of broken penny flowers were delivered instead. I called Tary and she seemed to handle it better than I was. I had to make it right!

I called FTD’s customer service and I was greeted by a woman with a heavy accent (probably from somewhere in India). I can’t stand it when customer service has been outsourced to a foreign country so my blood pressure was already starting to rise.

I started to voice my complaints when I was interrupted to give the order number. I paused to do so and continued to voice my complaints. Again I was interrupted to get my first name. Then my last name. And my address. Then something unintelligible.

“What?” I asked. Then more unintelligible sounds.

“WHAT?” I repeated. Again she uttered something even more unintelligible.

“WHAT?! I can’t understand what you’re saying!” I paused. Then I realized she was saying “What is the RECIPIENT’S NAME?”

Okay, my patience ran out and I sternly reminded her that I already gave her my order number which is all she needs to pull up my order and all of the required info. All I wanted was the correct flowers to be delivered in time for Mother’s Day. Instead the best she could do was redeliver them the following Monday. What good are Mother’s Day flowers which arrive AFTER Mother’s Day?

That was unacceptable. She kept interrupting me and saying, “Let me have the opportunity to make this right for you.” I kept telling her Monday was not good enough. I demanded to talk to her manager. She repeating her previous statement as if reading from a script. Have I mentioned that I hate outsourced customer service?

I finally got in touch with her manager and unfortunately it was another woman with a heavy accent. I repeated my story in vain. She tried to offer to redeliver for Monday and give me a 30% discount off of a future purchase. Why would I ever want to order from FTD again?

She said the best she could do was contact a local floral shop and deliver something comparable if I picked out another bouquet from their website. I refused to go back to my computer and go through the effort of picking out another bouquet when they were the ones who messed up. I told her that she already knew what I ordered to and for her to figure it out. She reluctantly agreed and said she could have it delivered on Saturday. Sigh.

I called Tary and gave her an update. At this point she felt bad that I went through all of this trouble and would be okay if she didn’t get flowers. In fact she wanted me to call them back to cancel the redelivery and just get a refund. Shortly after our phone call, she let me know that she called them and got it taken care of. Wow, that was fast. I love it when she gets tough.

So that all happened in the days leading up to Mother’s Day. As for Mother’s Day itself, we started by going to church. Pastor preached that mothers are probably the closest thing to Christ on earth. Mothers are loving and forgiving. They are nurturing and caring. Daniel and I are blessed to have Tary in our lives.

After church we went home and played with Daniel in our living room. We all were tired from his birthday party the day before so we all fell asleep passed out as a family on the floor.

Later that evening, I starting making Pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) just for Tary. For some reason she prefers the taste of my Pho over even my mother’s. The broth was rich and flavorful (and full of beef meatballs, Tary’s favorite part). I think this may be the start of a new Trinh family tradition. Pho for Mother’s Day, pho real.

Weekend Recap – Part 3

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It was now Sunday. We had so much food left over from this past Friday that I decided to make some Vietnamese beef noodle soup called “Pho” to help cook off the rest of the sliced beef. I figured that since I was making it, I should just go all out and have everyone over again to enjoy it with me. We ended up having a BYOB Party…Bring Your Own Bowl. I didn’t have enough large bowls to serve everyone so I just texted my friends to bring their own. Hehe, what a great idea!

I went to the Asian grocery store and picked up some ingredients. When I got back home, I got started on the broth. It takes a long time to prepare the broth and we were on a limited time schedule. In a large pot of water, I threw in some beef bones, some chunks of beef shank steak, some star anise seeds, cloves, an onion, a cinnamon stick, and some salt and fish sauce and then let everything just simmer.

Tary and I then briefly left the house to drive into Boston for our 3D/4D ultrasound appointment. It was a bit of a hike to get there and parking wasn’t that easy to find through the downpour. We were both very excited though to take a sneak peek at our little guy! The whole experience was definitely worth it.

When we got there, we had to wait about a half hour for the previous couple to finish up. When it was our turn, we went into a large room with a bed, the ultrasound machine on the far side of the bed, a sofa on the other side, a projector over the bed which was displaying an image on a screen toward the foot of the bed, and a computer monitor on the wall next to the sofa.

Tary hopped on the bed and the nurse (attendant?) started with some normal ultrasound imagery and we got to hear Baby’s heartbeat again. The sound is distinct, a little weird, but it never gets old. We also got the nurse to confirm that Baby is a boy. Finally, some actual confirmation!

The next part was unforgettable. The nurse switched on this 3D/4D mode and I was pretty much speechless. I can’t fully describe how we felt as we saw various images of Baby but I guess the closest thing is an overwhelming feeling of love for him. I can’t wait until he’s finally born! Tary kept commenting on how much he looked like me. Hehe, hopefully he only has the good parts.

3D Ultrasound of Baby Trinh

3D Ultrasound of Baby Trinh

When the session was over (which flew on by), they gave us a DVD with a recording of the entire session. They also gave us some still photos of Baby that they took throughout the session. It’ll be exciting to show Baby one day when he’s older what he looked like before he was born. It’s kind of crazy for the mind to take it all at once. Haha, my friend says it’s like Total Recall.

So back home we went and when we got there, I quickly started simmering the Pho broth again. Normally you would let it simmer for many hours. We only did it for about 3 or 4 hours due to our time constraints. I was a little worried that the broth wouldn’t have a chance to extract all of the flavors out of the bones and meat.

Well, my friends started showing up. Actually, I think 12 people showed up in total, each with their own bowls in hand. They all waited patiently for me to finish cooking everything. I was being a little bit of a Pho snob when my friend A.D. kept trying to suggest things to cook in the broth and I kept refusing. Cambodian people call this dish K’tieu and I often find that when Khmer people eat it, they often add things to the broth to make it much sweeter than how it’s typically made. Pho is all about the savory broth and the thinly sliced meat that goes along with the noodles. When you are given a bowl of Pho, you are supposed to taste the broth first and then you add fish sauce, fresh lime juice, hoisin sauce, and hot sauce to taste. When you add all of this extra stuff to the broth before even tasting it, I think it is slightly insulting to the person who worked so hard to make the broth.

Anyways, my friend A.D. was really helpful in other areas (when he wasn’t trying to K’tieu-ize my Pho). He helped me cook the rest of the noodles while I precooked the sliced beef. When that was all done, everyone came and ladled the broth into their respective bowls. Then everyone found a place to eat, whether it was around the kitchen table or standing by the counters. I was pretty nervous how the Pho would be received. It was only my second time making it…ever. And this was a lot different than the last time I made it. But from the sounds of everyone slurping the noodles and broth, I think it went over pretty well. Hehe, hopefully they weren’t trying to spare my feelings. I know where I can make improvements next time. Just remember to BYOB!