Athena

Athena was the first person I texted after watching Padma's Taste the Nation. Because she's always down to talk about race philosophies with me. But mostly because the first episode focused on El Paso. We found ourselves driving around El Paso on New Year's Day of this year looking for open establishments, wishing we had our passports while staring in awe at the border crossing zone into Juarez, and playing a couple rounds of Words with Friends after finding an open brewery. Damn, that feels like a life time ago. Athena identifies as American with Viet spices. We met at Kevin's lowkey brunch bbq that I decided to go to on my own knowing I'd only know one person (proud of my shy-introverted self). I don't think I've ever said this out loud, but my first impression of her was that I thought her wide brimmed floppy summery hat suited her v well.

So Athena's heritage bun is ostensibly a take on her all time favorite Viet soup - bun rieu. Bun rieu is a Vietnamese rice noodle soup with a crab (or fish) and tomato base. Apparently, it's traditionally made by pounding crabs and using the mashed up crabs to make the soup base. 

To be honest, I've only had this soup once, and it was so savory and spicy and sweet, but I wouldn't have been able to pick apart the flavors, so I found this recipe at random as my guide. The filling is pork and tomato, seasoned with dried shrimp, fish sauce, garlic, onion, and sugar. Garnished with scallions, perilla, and mint leaves.

I also snuck in a small dollop of pork liver pate into each bun as my tribute to Athena's love for pate in banh mis.

In an ideal world, crawfish would've still been in season so I could sub a memory with her sister in for the crab in bun rieu filling, but alas, I had to make do with shrimp. As I was browsing the aisles for pate, I came across minced shrimp in spices and decided to give it a try without really processing that the can literally says.. bun rieu. My instincts are good.

All wrapped up in a fluffy yeasted wrapper and steamed.

But then I dredged the bottoms in flour and fried it in an attempt to give it a fried chicken-esque crunch as an homage to Popeyes chicken - apparently there was a Tuesday deal that someone couldn't resist.

Things I would do differently: wayyyyy more tomato... maybe roast it next time, chunks of shrimp for texture instead of minced shrimp (my instincts were not so good after all) but ideally still crawfish.

Athena's complete list:

banh bao, especially the sausage ones

banh mi, especially bbq or anything with pate
cajun crawfish with sister
che song bo luong dessert
viet coffee
pennyworth

popeyes
cinnamon toast crunch
mama noodles, dried or cooked
hot cheetohs, especially before a game
cookies n cream snow storm from the neighborhood ice cream truck
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