1. In a food processor or with a knife, mince shrimp with onion. Mix with 2 tablespoons fish sauce and black pepper.

2. Put shrimp mixture in a 5- to 6-quart pan. Stir over high heat until shrimp mixture is pink and crumbly, about 5 minutes.

3. Then add 1 1/2 quarts of water to the shrimp mixture and bring to a boil over high heat.

4. Meanwhile, pare upo with a vegetable peeler (trim zucchini ends, but don't peel). Then cut squash into matchstick-size sticks.

5. Add squash to boiling shrimp broth. Cover and simmer gently until squash is tender to bite, 5 to 10 minutes.

6. Ladle soup into bowls, sprinkle with cilantro, and season to taste with more fish sauce and white pepper. Serve hot or cool.

1. In a 4- to 5-quart pan, bring 2 1/2 to 3 quarts water to a boil over high heat. Add chicken, and when water returns to a boil, cover pan and remove from heat. Let stand until chicken is white in thickest part (cut to test), 12 to 17 minutes. Remove from water and let cool 10 to 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, combine onion and vinegar. Let stand at least 15 minutes.

3. In a 6- to 8-inch frying pan, stir sesame seed over medium heat until golden, about 6 minutes. Pour from pan.

4. Pull the cool chicken breasts apart into fine shreds.

5. With a knife, finely shred enough cabbage to make 6 cups.

6. Drain onion.

7. In a large bowl, combine chicken pieces, cabbage, onion, cilantro, and both mints.

8. Add peanuts, sesame seed, and sweet and sour fish sauce to chicken salad and mix.

Stir fish sauce with sugar, lime juice, garlic, chili paste, and 1 cup water until sugar dissolves.

1. Soak 6 to 12 thin wood skewers (8 to 10 in. long) in water at least 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, trim off and discard tough tops and root ends of lemon grass. Remove and discard tough outer layers of stalks until you reach tender inner part. Cut tender part into 1/4-inch pieces.

3. In a blender, combine lemon grass, garlic, onion, oyster sauce, hoisin, soy, honey, and pepper; whirl until finely ground and soupy.

4. Trim and discard fat from pork. Slice meat across grain as thin as possible, then slice into about 1-inch-wide strips. Coat pork slices with lemon grass mixture.

5. Weave wood skewers in and out of meat strips, down the center, at 1-inch intervals. Loosely push meat together so it bunches up, filling skewers equally.

6. In a 5- to 6-quart pan over high heat, bring about 3 quarts water to a boil. Add rice noodles and cook until they are barely tender to bite, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain, then immerse the hot noodles in cold water. Let stand until cool, then drain.

7. Divide lettuce, bean sprouts, and mint and cilantro sprigs among 6 wide soup bowls. Mound equal portions of noodles in the bowls.

8. Place pork on a barbecue grill over a solid bed of hot coals or high heat on a gas grill (you can hold your hand at grill level only 2 to 3 seconds); cover gas grill. Cook pork, turning to brown the meat on all sides, 6 to 8 minutes total.

9. Place skewers of meat on noodles in bowls. Sprinkle with peanuts. Push meat off skewers and eat with condiments in bowl, adding sweet and sour fish sauce to taste.

1. Pour 3/4 cup condensed milk into a coffee pot or pitcher. Put the ground coffee into a filter cone and set it onto the pot.

2. Pour 3 cups boiling water, in batches, into filter until it all drips into the pot.

3. Mix coffee and milk. Taste, and if desired, add more milk. Pour into ice-filled glasses.