Nguyễn Thị Hoa (1938–2020), Bà Nội, left Saigon by boat in 1979 with three children and a bag of rice, spent fourteen months in a camp in Malaysia, and arrived in Houston in 1981. Her phở took twelve hours and was worth it.
Early life
Her mother sold soup on a corner in District 5, and Hoa was making the broth by the time she was twelve.
Family
She married Nguyễn Văn Tuấn in 1958. The family came over in two halves, two years apart, and talked on tapes in between.
Stories about them
“She never wrote anything down. She said if you need a recipe, you weren't watching.” — her granddaughter Linh