Mai in the Media
Selected articles of Mai Donohue in the media.
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Mai in the MediaSelected articles of Mai Donohue in the media. |
Vietnamese Food for a Good Cause Mai Donohue spent her honeymoon in a concrete building in Vietnam in 1969. She and her new husband, Brian, a lieutenant in the United States Navy, spent four days there with the distant rumble of bombing a constant presence. A day after they left, they learned later, a Viet Cong squad came looking for them. Yet at the time, they barely noticed the war around them. "The war just stopped for us," Mrs. Donohue said. Earlier this year, near the end of a 2,500-mile hiking journey that took her from North to South Vietnam, Mrs. Donohue returned to the same home, in the southern village of Danat, to find it changed forever. Now a boarding school for the deaf and hearing-impaired, the building is drastically changed. It is now home to about 127 children, ages 9 to 17, and its occupants are extremely poor. Though the school trains its boarders in menial tasks — sewing, knitting and the like — it is grossly underfunded by the Vietnamese government, she said. Children there have barely enough to eat, no privacy, and basics like hearing aids are in short supply. The school needs help, she said. Here's a meal that includes some extras People who had been to Vietnam before me told me that I would get sick at least once. The food is just too different from standard American fare. There would be some rejection. But during the two weeks I spent traveling from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in February, I probably ate better than I do at home. A driver, an interpreter and I would settle into some very open places where the breeze blew through and an occasional dog wandered in. And the table would be covered with vegetables, fish, noodles, chicken, wonderful soups, sticky rice and lots of Tiger beer. And I never felt better. Which brings me to Mai Donohue and the dinner she is planning at Barrington High School on Nov. 18. "I will use the ingredients of Vietnam," she says, "and the luxuries of America."
One alumna who can attest to the need and the flexibility of CCRI’s Providence programming is Mai Donohue (’97), an immigrant from Vietnam who waited until three of her six children had gone to college before pursuing her own dream of higher education. As guest speaker at Tuesday’s ceremonies, Donohue mesmerized the crowd with her personal achievements. Vietnamese Cook Blends Memories in Her Cuisine As Mai Donohue's children were growing up in Barrington, R.I., she was the all-American mom, bringing guacamole dip to school parties, making lasagna for soccer banquets, baking Portuguese bread as gifts for the teachers. The community knew her as a talented and generous cook. Yet at first, not many had tasted the extraordinary dishes of her native Vietnam. Bernard "Brian" Donohue was a U.S. Naval officer when he and Mai (pronounced My) met and married in Saigon. He brought her to America in 1970, and his mother in Brockton, Mass., introduced her to Irish-American cooking. At first, Mai was reluctant to serve Vietnamese food, thinking it too highly flavored for American tastes. Instead, she cooked American style. But gradually, she was persuaded to serve some Vietnamese dishes. "When I cooked Vietnamese food for my family, the smells would go out and neighbors would ask to come in to taste," says Mai. "Children asked to stay for lunch."
But they are. When you meet this tiny dynamo with the warm manner, the thoughtful eyes and the ready grin, you wonder why she doesn't wear the weight of the world on her face. She has every right to, given her history. |
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