Indian food is fine. The odor of microwaved Vietnamese food tends to be on the side of pungent I can do without (as much as I love to actually eat it myself).

I grew up in Portland's textile shops surrounded by Vietnamese food in various stages of cooking and reheating (first chicken feet, mmm). So that smell doesn't bother me even though I'm not a big fan of the food (Vietnamese comes the closest of any ethnic cuisine to being just a blanket "don't like").

I wonder what it would smell like if you microwaved a guava.

Well, if you are going to go that route, why not bring in the Titan Arum?

Who knew Alex grew up in a sweatshop?

I'm a lousy garderner! But I do know where I can get Durian! Frozen, but still you can smell it aisles away at Ranch 99 Market!

I did!

While I didn't exactly literally grow up in them I did spend a lot of time in them until around high school when my mom landed an office job at a vocational school.

Oh, I gotta hear more about this. Textiles?

I've seen it, but not smelled it. Is your 99 Ranch using open freezers or something?

Nothing much to say. My mom was 17 when was born. She talked her way onto a sewing machine at Janzen Swimwear then Columbia Sportswear and then various other piecework shops of various quality. I jokingly call them sweatshops and they may have been miserable but just seemed normal to me at the time.

As a white woman doing piece work in these places she was kind of an oddity. Vietnamese boat women were a large portion of the workforce. When she worked at smaller places it wasn't uncommon for her to put in long hours and then me and my sisters would frequently come along. So that was my exposure to Vietnamese food when young. And it was also great to play sword fights using the ten foot long tubes that are at the center of industrial fabric rolls.

It also means that home sewing machines look awfully pissant to me since even at home she used cast off industrial machines.

Nope, open like a fridge door, the durian are bagged in mesh, whole and stinky

Well, I have to agree with that memo. When someone brings a fresh guava and eats it in the breakroom the smell is almost unbearable. We have a lot of hispanics on our workforce, and between that and reheating this shrimp dish with some kind of stinky feet cheese it can smell like vomit in the break room.:eek:

It's a good thing that I have a strong stomach for bad smells.....