Hamburgers & Hummers: Restaurants, War and Replication.

A few news items tie it all together.

It's been noted how strange wars end up. The President of Vietnam came to the US recently to strengthen the economic ties between the two countries. He's the highest ranking official to visit the US since the war; the war they call, "The American War." The Vietnamese President was here on the heels of Vietnam this past January becoming the 150th member of the WTO. Trade with US is up.

The second item, is the news of Vietnam's tourism statistics for the first half of 2007. Travel is up 15% to 2.1 million foreign visitors just in the last six months .

Tourism is up; trade is up. Good news for capitalism in a somewhat communist country, right? Perhaps, but there is another segment whose numbers are increasing, too. In recent years the number of street kids in Vietnam continues to climb.

We've traveled there many times, able to see first hand -- as most have come to realize -- that Vietnam could not have been a strategically important domino in a game of communism vs. non-communism. It is a country full of surprisingly gentle, warm, welcoming, resilient, quiet and primarily poor, agrarian people. The markets are simple, undeveloped, exotic, colorful and there's delicious noodle soup on every corner. There are green rice paddies and water buffalo, cities bustling in maddening transition form bicycle to motor scooter.

But there are also kids, lots of kids, all around, hustling to sell postcards and shine shoes. They make, if they are lucky, $1 a day from these new waves of tourists. Those are the ones you see; others unseen, make their livelihood in prostitution or drugs. This is a real legacy of the war. This is what brings the pangs of guilt, for having done so little then to stop the war and so little now to help repair it.

But where do restaurants fit in? Several years ago, we heard from culinary friends and colleagues about a remarkable program in Hanoi providing housing and professional culinary training for street kids in their own restaurant ... KOTO - Know One, Teach One. The restaurant for this remarkable program has hosted international guests, including President Clinton during his visit to Vietnam and most recently, First Lady Laura Bush. More impressive, however, is its success rate; 100% job placement for the graduates, in many of the international hotels and restaurants in Hanoi, HCM City and some even opening their own restaurants.

So, eager to see this ourselves, we went and had lunch. It was the best in Hanoi, actually. We met Jimmy Pham the founder and director and spoke many times.

We felt the guilt and empathy as he gently reminded us that the eyeglasses we wore cost more than the average Vietnamese made in a year. We asked, "What we could do?" He asked us to help in the US. Let them know about us, what we're doing, about the kids ... "after all, it's all about the kids," he repeated. "Can you help develop support in the US?"

It was the least we could do ... selfishly, an elixir for the long held guilt, perhaps even for a little cowardice for not doing or saying more then ... perhaps now, too.

So, KOTO USA was formed. A group ... mostly culinary people, foodies, educators, entrepreneurs ... top restaurateurs and educators on the East Coast, Google's executive chef on the West Coast, came together to create this organization. We recently celebrated its launch with the first US fundraiser at the Institute of Culinary Education in NYC.

There are lots of street kids all across the former war zones of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia ... we want to do more. We know how to roll out this program that Jimmy Pham began. After all, it's the US. We are pretty good at invading and replicating. Eventually, we are redemptive; good at repaying old debts.