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The “Eureka” moment

Let’s try, a little harder, every time.

Thom September 5, 2026 2 min read Creativity

This piece belongs to a series of 100 posts written in memory of Thom's grandmother, published on her Facebook.

Reading Angela Duckworth’s Grit, I came to the passage where she tells the story of the moment Julia Child “fell in love” with French cooking (or with the mission of her life, at thirty-seven) in the film Julie & Julia — and I went and watched the film immediately (it is still on Netflix). It is the moment when she and her husband order oysters, sole meunière (sole dredged in flour and pan-fried in butter) and a green salad. And that is where the road began — the road by which Julia Child brought the whole of America closer to French cooking.

I thought about that moment when, this past summer, I may have created a moment like that for two friends of mine from Singapore. A cup of coffee at the café I took them to in Ho Chi Minh City brought the two of them up to Hanoi, and to the decision to import coffee beans from Vietnam.

Let’s try, a little harder, every time.

Looking down at three cups of coffee on a small wooden table: two still carry latte art on the milk foam, one of them a white cup with blue striped trim; the third is nearly finished, with only ice and a little milk left — The three of us having coffee at Reng Reng, October 2023

Remember this — revisit it in a few days.

The “Eureka” moment

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