The view from my bathroom at Hoa's Place, Non Nuoc Beach.

I've realised something recently: that I am more than happy to suffer a little diarrhoea in order to eat well.

Gia Loi Dried Fruits Shop
8 Hang Duong
Old Quarter, Hanoi

Today as I was showering in my local municipal pool after a swim, my nostrils caught the unmistakable whiff of vinegar. I'd smelt vinegar here before, and had always assumed that it was being used to clean the drains or something. Today though, when I looked around for the source of the smell, I noticed a tiny old lady pouring capfuls of a dark liquid from an old soft drink bottle onto her hair.

'Is that vinegar?' I asked her, to which she answered 'Yes, it's very good for your hair!'

After a little Google sleuthing I came across this article, which states that rinsing with vinegar leaves your hair 'shinier, smoother, and easier to manage'.

Seeing as I'm heading off to Langzhong, Sichuan's vinegar capital, tomorrow morning, maybe I should try it out for myself; unlike some other alternative uses for food that I've seen...

UPDATE: My very own mother has just emailed me saying that when she was 'a young lass' (her words not mine!), she frequently used vinegar in her hair to help it shine - so there you go.

Cam’s friend Mike is in town at the moment, and comes bearing mouth-watering tales from his current home New York. In addition to veg boxes, the Park Slope Food Coop, and Mexican food, he also showed us this photo of a recent dumpster diving haul. Apparently they got about three times as much as what’s shown in this picture.

When I was a student I also used to dumpster dive with my housemates, and it was amazing some of the goodies you could get – I remember we once got several huge fruit pies (which would probably sell for at least 10 pounds a piece) from a Kosher bakery in North London. Here in China too, where just a few decades ago people were starving, I am often amazed at how much food is wasted. With this recent report revealing the disgusting quantities of food wasted in the UK, and the grim outlook for our planet generally, it makes me mad that so-called 'developed' countries like America and Britain are setting such a bad example to poorer countries like China. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed for a more environmentally-aware attitude to food in the future.

Last night at about 11pm, as we were about to go out, there came an insistent knocking at the door to our apartment. We opened it to find our neighbours, a middle-aged man and his 14-year old son, who often give us little gifts of fruit and the like, with a woven bamboo basket in their hands. “We’ve got a present for you!” they announced. “Pangxie!”

We didn’t recognise the word, and since the basket was quite deep and the hallway we were standing in quite dark, we couldn’t see clearly what these mysterious pangxie were. Only when the boy said casually “They’re still alive” did we realise that this present was a somewhat different kettle of fish…

It turned out these were in fact Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs, and that a friend of our neighbour had brought them on the plane (a little like in this story) from Shanghai that day. Mid-autumn (ie. now!) is the height of the season for hairy, or mitten crabs, which are a rare and expensive delicacy in China, costing upwards of 20 US dollars per crab.

But what could we do? Cam is vegetarian, and I don’t think I have the balls to cook a crab alive, so we politely refused the present. Since reading about the deliciousness of Yangcheng hairy crabs here and here though, I’m slightly regretting our decision…