Cooking spanakopita 6,000 miles from its home

I am not Greek, although Luiz and I have had the joy of spending a couple of weeks exploring several cities in Greece, as well as several Greek islands in the Mediterranean. I have also been to Greek Cyprus and Luiz and I have been to Turkey as well. While the Greeks and the Turks have not gotten along very well in recent history (given that whole unresolved Turkish invasion of Cyprus thing starting back in the 1970s) they share some common ground in their culinary traditions. But – I don’t want to poke a stick at that sleeping lion. I just want to share my recent adventure cooking spanakopita, a delicious spinach pie that I have eaten in various forms over many years and in many countries. This time – in Brazil.

Cooking ethnic foods at home is an ongoing theme among expats in Brazil. So many of us have cravings for international dishes that we just can’t find in restaurants. (Those living in São Paulo have better luck in this regard.) About a week ago I was combing the aisles of Pão de Açúcar, a high-end supermarket near our apartment, looking for Sriracha hot sauce. I didn't find the hot sauce but I did spot phyllo dough (or philo, or filo; fillo in Portuguese) in the freezer section. Eureka!

Living the strategy of getting while the getting is good, I bought a box and started dreaming up the possibilities.

I still use the cookbook I bought in the early 1980s. I've had to put it into a binder but she still gives me what I need.

Spanakopita was the obvious choice. I’ve got a super delicious recipe I learned over 30 years ago and have been pleasing crowds with ever since. Time to break it out and introduce some folks to a Greek favorite.

Like I said, I am not Greek. My recipe, which I LOVE, is not one passed down to me by someone’s Greek grandmother nor was it coaxed out of a family restaurant chef after a three hour meal with new friends on the Greek island of Samos. This gem of a recipe is a proven fabulous Greek spinach pie suitable as a main dish published in the Moosewood Cookbook (plus my personal tweaks). Given the realities of shopping in Niterói I had to make a few modifications. But the end result was just as I remembered it and EVERYONE loved it.

Here we go. Heads up – you will need a pastry brush to get the job done.

This recipe takes about 1.5 hours to prepare (incl. baking) and makes 8 adult servings as a main dish. It is a generous, “double-decker” pie. It could be halved, made in a single layer, and be served as a side.

Ingredients:

- 2 cups (about 275g) crumbled feta cheese. [I have only once seen feta cheese in a store in Niterói and it was sold in a tiny quantity packaged as a crumbled salad topping. Price prohibitive. Others in Rio have had better luck and mention Apetina feta made by Arla (imported) as an affordable and tasty option when it can be found in finer grocery stores. It runs about R$95 per kilogram. The less affordable Brazilian-made feta runs more than R$225/kilo. So – no surprise here – I substitute a firm but smooth ricotta. Choose wisely. Some Brazilian ricottas can be very dry and firm beyond what is right for this recipe. Pick a ricotta that gives a bit when you gently squeeze it.]

- 5 medium eggs, slightly beaten

- 2 Tbs. flour (as needed, to help make a dryer filling mixture)

- 3 Tbs. butter for sautéing

- 1.5 cups chopped onions

- 1.5 cups chopped fresh mushrooms (I know, nobody puts mushrooms in their spanakopita… but I do.) Cremini would be great if you can find them. I cannot. So I used shitake.

- 3 cloves garlic, minced

- 2 cups cottage cheese (500g)

- one bunch of scallions, chopped

- 2 lbs. fresh spinach (1 kilogram) Frankly, you could double the spinach and it would still look like too little after you gently steam it down. I err on the side of going overboard. It is a spinach pie after all, not a cottage cheese and feta/ricotta pie. But there is the cleaning and stemming thing you have to deal with. So just make sure you use at least the minimum. Note to the cooks in Brazil – I’m sure you have noticed the spinach here can be significantly tougher than what you may have had elsewhere. That means you really do want to remove the stems. So if you are buying handy bags of ‘cleaned’ spinach (which here is another silly over statement) you want to go through it and pinch off those tough stems.

- Some fresh basil, chopped [I also added some chopped mint, not too much, to bring a bit of zing. I was worried the lack of feta was going to make things too bland.]

- ½ tsp. oregano
- 1/4 tsp. nutmeg (my secret ingredient when making things like this with ricotta)

- Salt and pepper to taste [Note: I added a bit more salt than usual because I did not have the salt in the filling coming from the feta. Be sure to taste.]

- 1/8  cup sesame seeds (25g or so)

- 1 lb package of phyllo dough, defrosted – Note that the package I found was a 300g quantity, so you will need two of them. More about this early mistake on my part later…

- 1.5 lb melted butter (a 200g pkg will do the trick) for assembly

Procedure:

Preheat your oven to 375° F (190° C or more depending on your oven)

Clean, stem and tear or chop the spinach. Salt it slightly and cook it, adding no additional water, for just a few minutes to wilt it. This is brief. Do not cook it down to a dull green mush. Let it cool some and then squeeze out the excess liquid. Carefully fluff it back to individual bits of spinach (do not leave it in clumps).

Sauté the onions and garlic in butter, salting lightly. Add the chopped mushrooms and cook minimally, but get their wonderfulness into the mix. When it looks and smells perfect remove from heat and combine with the rest of the ingredients. Add the fluffed up spinach. Stir lovingly.

See how that spinach cooks down dramatically?

Mix it all together.

So now you have a big bowl with the sautéed stuff, the spinach, the cheeses, beaten eggs, herbs and spices all mixed together and ready to go. Taste it and correct the seasoning to your preferences.

Here’s my pep talk regarding the use of phyllo dough: Be brave. Be confident. Don’t freak out. It’s all gonna be OK. This stuff looks like a pain (and it is, a little) but it is not as delicate as it looks. It can take a little manhandling. Yeah, it can tear a little and straight-out-of-the-box dried edges which were not your fault can make your job harder than it should have been. Just put on some music, pour yourself some wine, and take it all in stride. Ultimately, in terms of the final product, this dough is VERY forgiving. The layers can be a mess, but with just one intact leaf on top you have a picture perfect spanakopita. How you got there can be your little secret. And who knows – maybe you will get a really cooperative batch and sail through the whole procedure glitch free. It happens.

After your dough has returned to room temperature, open the package and unfold the sheets/leaves of dough so you have one stack. Lightly and evenly wet a tea towel squeezing out all the water. This is your humidifier that is going to keep your dough from drying out while you assemble this amazing pie. Place the towel over the stack of dough leaves when you are not otherwise fiddling with them. If your towel is too wet and you fear it will add moisture to the dough place a sheet of parchment paper (papel manteiga will do) over the stack first, then the towel.

Arrange your work space so the dough, the melted butter and brush, your filling, the 9x13 baking pan and your wine are all close at hand. Breathe. You can do this.

Brush some melted butter on the bottom of your pan. Place one leaf of the dough, centered, in the pan. It will outsize the pan, just let it climb the sides. Brush this layer of dough with butter, including up the sides of the pan. Repeat this placing of layers and spreading with melted butter until you have 6 or 8 layers down. I say 6 or 8 because you want to use a little more than 1/3 of them on the bottom, then the same amount in the middle and then a few less for the final, top layer. So if you are having trouble with the dough and have had to scrap a leaf of so – don’t panic, just adjust your number of layers so as to keep enough to complete the task.

When your first set of dough leaves is complete spread ½ of the luscious filling all around. Continue with another 8 or so layers of dough. Don’t skimp on the melted butter and don’t worry about the corners that are now getting a little crowded with pleated dough – they are going to be the super-buttery areas of the pie for those who like that sort of thing.

Sometimes the dough will begin to tear when you try to separate one sheet. This is usually because it hits a dry spot/edge or a spot where one layer has been pressed too firmly into the other and they are stuck together. Stop pulling immediately and try to work around the spot from various angles to free it. Tears will only continue and get worse once they start. If separating the layers is impossible without things tearing into two or more pieces – no sweat. Just remove the sheet in bits and reconstruct the sheet in your baking pan. Spread it with butter, sip your wine, and carry on. No harm done.

After your second set of leaves spread the remaining filling over the whole thing. Continue placing layers of dough and butter until you have three sheets left. IMPORTANT: that last one or two layers in the stack are probably NOT going to be flawless. They have been offering up their perfectness to the benefit of the entire stack since the factory. By now they are likely to be a little worse for wear. So – remember I suggested you save a perfect leaf for the top? Plan ahead, because it is not likely to be your last leaf in the stack.

Ready to bake.

When you are about three or four layers from the end, carefully fold over all that excess dough you have spilling out over the top/edge of the pan. Use your butter brush to wet it down. Now use your last few perfect leaves to delicately finish off the pie. Trim to the outside pan size if necessary. Brush butter over the whole top and sprinkle evenly with sesame seeds.

Place the pan into your preheated oven and bake for about 45 minutes – until golden.

Smile. Sip your wine. You did it.

My particular tale this time around, on the other hand, took a bit of a left turn halfway through. Not noticing that the box of phyllo dough contained only 300g and seeing as I bought only one package, I had only enough dough to make one layer of the pie. It’s all good – one layer is probably more common a format anyway, plus my Brazilian friends and family didn't know the difference. But I was stuck with ½ of my filling mixture.

So I returned to the store the next day and bought another package of the dough. This time I made those cute little spanakopita triangles you have probably seen at cocktail parties. Easy-peasy.

Just pull off one leaf of the dough, cut it into three strips, brush the dough with butter, place a small spoon of the filling off to one side at the end of a strip and then fold in triangles like a flag. Place on a baking sheet, brush the tops with butter and bake for about 20 minutes. It’s a little bit of work – but they are so cute! And they taste just as wonderful as the whole pie version.

In addition to those I baked immediately, I put 8 triangles in two layers separated by parchment paper into Ziplock bags and placed them in the freezer for later use.

There you have it. Let me know what you think. Tell me your secret tips for success with phyllo dough. And definitely give this a try on your own.

Adventures of a care package from the States

There are few pleasures as joyful as getting a care package from a friend or family member filled with the stuff you want, really want, or the stuff that’s simply impossible to find where you currently are. Sometimes it is just the idea of a care package that soothes the soul. Oh, a box filled with your favorite things…

It is often the case for many an expat here in Brazil that the emotionally comforting box also promises to save you a bundle of money. Getting any sort of electronics, baby items, specialty bath items, or even some simple kitchen zip lock bags can mean cost savings easily into the hundreds of $Reais over having to purchase them locally.

But – as any expat in Brazil will tell you: care packages are more easily dreamt of than realized. Finding an ally in the States to pack it and make a trip to the post office; paying the crazy expensive shipping fees; passing through customs without being slapped with ridiculous import taxes; or even just seeing a fully realized delivery in an understandable length of time -- believe me, there are bumps in the road in the life of a care package.

Several months ago my beloved iPod Shuffle bit the dust. Luiz had encouraged me to buy a backup Shuffle when we were in Florida last May, but I foolishly ignored his good advice. My iPod is a daily companion while riding busses, standing/sitting in lines, or just going for a walk in the evening. Losing my best electronic friend was motivation enough to try and scare up a care package from the States.

Locally I could buy a replacement 4g Mp3 player (Sandisk) for about R$225 on Mercado Livre, Brazil’s eBay, plus shipping. The same item at Amazon.com goes for $R84, with free shipping within the US. Buying an actual iPod down here would just be stupid expensive… I don’t have a cell phone (by choice), so obviously I cannot use my phone to play Mp3 or Mp4 files.

So I figured I would bundle up some other items Luiz and I would like and leverage it all into a value-filled box of practical and “treat” items. A true care package.

Here’s the story. (Heads up – this is a rather long post. But it is a good one.)

[Note: values in this post are listed in Brazlian reais, not US dollars. I earn and spend reais, so dollar values are really irrelevant. All things considered, residents of the US can just think in terms of dollars and get a feel for the relative costs – i.e. shit is expensive, plus salaries are lower. Unless you earn dollars and are spending in reais, making a currency conversion is misleading. For the record, values here are based on a 1:2.4 exchange rate from dollars to reais.]

In September 2013 I casually inserted an off topic request into a Face Book msg with a dear friend in the States. Actual msgs.:

Me: “Hey - another topic - my iPod died. I went to look at replacements and saw one - super cheapo Chinese-made thing for R$90. Then I looked on Amazon.com and they sell the exact same thing for R$12.”

Unsuspecting friend: “No shit! Really?”

Me: “Any chance I can buy what I want and ship it to you and have you drop it in the mail to me? I could also pull together a short grocery store list. LOL.” Electronics here are shit and STILL stupid expensive.”

Unsuspecting friend: “Sure no problem.”

Me: “Sorry to put you out so much, but there are some shortcomings to being here that get you to lean on family and friends for relief. Thanks.”

Unsuspecting friend: “Happy to help. I love you.”

Hook set.

Feeling only mildly guilty for roping a dear friend into what I knew was going to be more than what she bargained for I went online to shop for a few items and had them shipped to her house. She really does love Luiz and I and she really does have a super huge generous heart. I had my fingers crossed this would go as smoothly as possible. But I had my doubts.

Those of us who live here and have traveled back to the States for a visit know the immediate popularity you receive when others learn of your vacation plans. Phone calls, emails and msgs stream in with lists of items people either casually ask you to bring back for them or quite brashly insist won’t be any trouble for you to buy and bring back on their behalf. This is the kind of favor you agree to do only once. You quickly learn that being a mule for others desperate for a bottle of maple syrup or a new notebook computer is ALWAYS more trouble than it is worth. Transporting things is a favor reserved for those on your short list.

But just putting a box in the mail… simple, right?

Let me see if I can shrink this 4+ month saga into a few paragraphs. Yep. You read that right. 4+ months.

Like I said, not long after my friend agreed to help out I went online and bought an Mp3 player plus five rainbow hot air balloon wind spinners. Luiz brought one of these wind catchers back in May and uses it to grab attention at his flowers booth in the park on the weekends. EVERY weekend people ask him if it is for sale. While it costs R$36 online in the US, he can easily sell it for R$110 here in the park. These would be re-sale items to help pay for the box.

As promised, I sent my friend a short list of items to pick up at the grocery store, plus, as is generally the case, I added a few additional items that would require an extra trip to a housewares store on our behalf. Oops- I was acting like the others I have so little patience for. But I repeated time and again that my friend could say no to anything and that I would be grateful to get just the basics. And there was no time rush. Of course my dear friend was happy to tack more errands onto her personal favor for me. The monster had begun to grow its second head.

Before long I was occupying space in my friend’s garage as the pile of items grew. First in the pile were the items from Amazon.com., then the stuff from the grocery store.

I was hoping the things from the discount housewares store would be fun to shop for (keeping Luiz’s smiling face in mind). We did, in fact, have fun with this. Well, I certainly had fun. I hope the feeling was mutual. It became clear to me that my friend and her partner were embarking on a multi-stop errand morning. They were messaging me photos of fun stuff from various stores along their journey. I was giving the thumbs up or down. It was a virtual shopping adventure at Sam’s Club, HomeGoods and elsewhere from the comfort of my home office. My fingers were crossed that they were not too quickly tiring of the whole affair. I certainly had fun.

The pile in the garage (and another head) grew. Once everything was in hand it was ready to be shipped.

Reality check: none of this was “on the way” in the course of my friends’ lives. Making time to accomplish the shopping, the packing, the shipping… That time had to be carved out from an already hectic and tiring weekly routine. That pile in the garage was not going to get to Brazil on its own. There needed to be packing material, shipping tape, boxes (we decided to go with two smaller boxes over one large one to try and avoid unwanted attention from the Brazilian Customs office), and ultimately time standing in line at the post office. The monster continued to grow heads.

For my part, my emails and FB messages oozed with happy talk and words of thanks and encouragement. As the weeks went by I knew my friend was feeling pressure to get these boxes in the mail and harbored a growing desire to get that damn monkey off her back. I assured her there was no rush. I suggested she forget about the whole thing until after the holidays when life would calm down a bit and the lines at the post office would return to their normal slow-moving selves. Keep breathing. Don’t go sour on me.

As my friend would come to discover, there is a bit of a trick to packing a box for international shipping. To save space it is best to remove extraneous packaging from the original items. Shipping costs are calculated by weight AND size. Protect fragile items. Evenly distribute weight among the boxes.

You could write a book on the tips and tricks for getting your box shipped without drama through Customs. Everyone has their favorite method – or wants to learn yours. Gringos here can tag a hundred replies to a post on Face Book trying to help out a fellow care package dreamer. Do this, don’t do that…

Here’s what we did.

The main issues are postage and avoiding import taxes.

It seems like I've heard stories from all over the spectrum regarding shipping. Some folks swear by UPS for a promised delivery, even though it may cost a little more. UPS is supposed to handle the package right to your door, but I've heard tales of it being plopped into the Brazilian postal service for the final bit. If this is so, it trumps any “strategy” to avoid a grumpy Correio (Brazilian postal service) worker who never really attempts a delivery but just fills out paperwork documenting three attempts to no avail and then sends your package back to the sender.

Some folks swear by Brazil’s postal service, citing international comparisons that place their level of service well above average. So for them going with the US Postal Service who then hands things off to Correio is a fine choice.

Everyone, it seems, has a horror story. Folks talk of waiting months for a completed delivery. Many folks speak of pieces of postage and packages alike disappearing into thin air (the common assumption is that they are snatched up by workers along the way, for whatever reason).

For me, actual cost trumps real or imagined tales of woe. I go with the US Postal Service.

Then there is the concern over if and/or how much the package(s) will be taxed by the Brazilian Customs office for the contents therein. Scary tales of ridiculous taxes assessed on boxes of used clothing and such abound. How do they discern what is in the package? Mostly you tell them by whatever is written on the required Customs Declaration form that gets affixed to the outside of the box. The form requests a “detailed description of contents” and their value. Plus they guesstimate further value if you have paid for extended insurance coverage. And many times if a tax is assessed they will include the cost of shipping when totaling the to-be-taxed value (go figure…). The tax is 60% of the value of most items.

Generally speaking, shipping veterans encourage you to be more general in your description and to try and keep declared values below US$50 to avoid drawing the attention of the tax man. So for example, we chose descriptions like: “kitchen ingredients” and “party decorations” to generally describe most of the items being shipped. If particular items fail to make the inventory, well, sometimes innocent mistakes can happen.

We divided all our items into two boxes so that a smaller value could be declared for each. Shipping costs would go up, but if import taxes were avoided then we would save in the end. General inventories were made and the value of each was kept well below US$50.

As an extra bit of “strategy” to avoid a randomly tired or irritated Customs worker who might be therefore choosing to be especially stern or strict in the execution of their duties, we prominently taped a number of pictures of Jesus, the cross, and some common prayers to most of the surfaces of the boxes. I listen to countless people go on about Jesus, Mary and the Father around here, why not work that to our advantage? Kinda like the survivors on The Walking Dead smearing rotting flesh all over themselves to avoid being seen by the “walker” zombies. Make our packages invisible.

Around the last week of January my by now weary dear friend found her way to the post office to wait in line and finally peel that monkey, now entering adolescence, off her back. At this point we had done all we could to make this whole care package folie à deux a good experience and avoid it turning into a super expensive shipping and tax adventure gone wrong. Everything was in Jesus’ hands, if you will. Note: the postal worker in the States looked at our piously adorned boxes and asked if they were being shipped to a missionary. My friend bit her lip and said “No, we just want the Lord to look after them along the way.” With that the packages were sent. Done. Multi-headed monster slain. (Thank you!!)

To wrap this part up… the shipping time was actually quite surprising. Once they were dropped off at the post office they were dispatched to a sorting facility in another city. The online tracking details reveal that it took 4 days for them to pass through that facility and be sent to Brazil. Seven days later they passed through a sorting facility in Brazil, clearing Customs. The very next day they were both delivered to our door by noon. Just 12 days! Record time.

Plus, there were NO TAXES applied to our care packages. Whoo hoo!! Big score. Thank you Jesus!

Now – to run the math. Was this whole rigamarole worth it? The willingness on the part of our dear friend and her partner to help us out was simply priceless. That value cannot be put into the equation. But I can give you a general idea about content values and overall expenses.

Our total shipping costs were R$396 (about US$165). That seems like a high bar to get over to recoup a savings on items shipped. But don’t forget, we are talking about Brazil. Shit is expensive here.

The money we saved over just three items: the Mp3 player, a single 120 count bottle of 1,500 mg glucosamine dietary supplement caplets, and a collection of 12 boutique bath soaps MORE than paid for the shipping. The Mp3 player was R$141 cheaper in the States. The supplements were an unbelievable R$304 cheaper. And the soaps were about R$125 cheaper. Everything else was gravy. And a valuable gravy at that.

Opening the care package was like Christmas in February. In addition to things already mentioned there was stuff for Luiz’s flower design activities, Thai curries for me in the kitchen, other beloved spices and extracts, and more. Yeah!

All in all it is a process worth doing, if only once. But be careful. And hope for some luck. If we had been hit with import taxes this whole tale would have had a sour ending. Be creative. Buy a Christian wall calendar and use the images… hahaha.

If you are a dear friend back in the country of origin of your good buddy abroad – have a heart. Be patient with us. We really, really appreciate the extra effort it requires to make a care package happen. And if you are coming for a visit, consider bringing an extra piece of luggage – care package express.

Maintaining our hippie street cred in Brazil

Luiz and I share a parallel path through the 1970s and early 1980s of emulating the hipsters that forged a path before us in our respective countries: me demonstrating against nuclear power and South African Apartheid while living in a vegetarian housing cooperative at Michigan State University and Luiz smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, bucking the military government, and pushing the boundaries of gay life in Rio.

Luiz - Bell bottoms: check; platform sandals: check; photo of Che Guevara: check.

Rocky Horror Picture Show T: check.

Much of the hippie heavy lifting in the States had been done by the time I came along. The struggle to get the USA out of the Vietnam War had been won and it was then commonplace for young people to experiment more openly with sex and drugs. For me, in addition to my stints on the board of directors at the local food and housing cooperatives and cutting my activist teeth on pro-feminist and other social justice issues, I was hit broadside in 1978 when a man named Harvey Milk was assassinated in San Francisco – thus setting the stage for those many years to come.

Brazilians, on the other hand, were still very much in the thick of things. The late seventies and early eighties saw growing opposition to Brazil’s oppressive military dictatorship, which had been installed against a left-leaning president with the backing of hard-line capitalist politicians, media moguls, the Catholic church, landowners and businessmen in 1964 (funny how this motley crew is so often on the wrong side of history). In 1979 forceful student and trade union struggles against the government bore some fruit with the government’s passing of an amnesty law that allowed previously exiled (and often tortured) activists to return to Brazil (however, in the trade-off it also shielded pro-government human rights violators from prosecution) and relaxed restrictions on civil liberties. It was not until 1984 that a democratic election would be held with civilian candidates setting the stage for the passage of Brazil’s current constitution in 1988.

The number one song in Brazil in 1979 was O Bêbado e a Equilibrista ("The Drunk and the Tightrope Walker") which made famous the lyrics sonha com a volta do irmão de Hefil ("dreaming of the return of Henfil's brother"), referring to the return of artists and other activists sent into exile by the government. Listen below - and for a translation of the lyrics go here.

Gaining the right to free speech is not exactly ancient history here in Brazil.

For his part, Luiz walked a fine line between giving voice to gay pride and liberation and getting the crap beaten out of him by homophobes and corrupt cops. As you might expect, his push back was always outrageous and highly fashionable.

Luiz (center left) with his grrlfriends at Carnaval.

Nowadays things have calmed a bit. Gay folks in Brazil are mostly afforded many of the same rights as our straight counterparts, with notable exceptions, and the last two presidents have been left-of-center populists that have, for the most part, overseen an economic and social resurgence that enjoys widespread support by the electorate, again, with notable exceptions.

The current climate of push back against government corruption and incompetence should not be mistaken as general dissatisfaction with progressive politics, but rather impatience regarding how slowly this thrice elected, preferred political strategy has resulted in real change on the ground in local communities and the widespread desire for the radical (as in, “by the roots”) expulsion of corrupt politicians and many civil employees.

Aside from our deliberate and unmistakable “out” lifestyle and my utilizing (sometimes surreptitiously) my position as teacher to encourage students to think through the value of political engagement as a strategy to improve Brazil for all, Luiz and I feel the love of our hippie days in the kitchen (and through sex and drugs J ).

My early vegetarian/crunchy/granola days continue to shine through, much to Luiz’s dismay. Meat is now definitely on the menu in our household, but so are homemade yogurt, bread and peanut butter. My efforts to learn the art of Brazilian cooking from Luiz have been slowed by my insistence on maintaining some old favorites in our diet. While I feel that my hippie street cred is definitely bound up with my cooking habits, Luiz is happy to continue to eat just what his mother used to prepare for him as a kid and focus on living a party lifestyle.

There is a happy medium here somewhere. But while we struggle to find it, I am delighted to explore the world of organic street markets, mountain goat farms, home grown tomatoes and natural food stores. Luiz is mollified by my tossing him a bone in the form of homemade rich and creamy chocolate ice cream. There is hippie bliss tucked in among the cheese, vegetables and fresh desserts.

Brazil is a Third World country, remember?

Lately all eyes have been on Brazil. Whether you are a fan of the pope and watched as millions descended on Rio while it stretched its capacity to host enormous crowds, or an international travel agent already booking lodging and sightseeing packages for upcoming World Cup and Olympics visitors, or an ambitious investment fund manager making exciting new inroads into the Brazilian market that has (until recently) been outperforming many of the tired and failing options in your home country – chances are you have been wide-eyed about Brazil and its explosion onto the world stage as an all around powerhouse and emerging world hot spot.

Outside perceptions and media generalities can be deceiving.

A lot of people don’t like it when you refer to Brazil as a Third World country, especially some Brazilians. My experience, however, has been that it is Brazilians in particular that default to this kind of language. Some residents seem to use this expression as a way to explain away or justify some of the current national shortcomings and others, especially those now living abroad, would seem to use it to justify to themselves why they left their country in the first place.

I have steered clear of this label in favor of the more politically correct “developing country” mantle. My intention is to be accurate (i.e. not including Brazil among the so-called First World nations) while also trying not to give an exaggerated impression of undeveloped or backward that people may imagine when hearing “Third World.”

As described in Wikipedia, “Third World” and “developing” are seen as interchangeable terms when describing Brazil, but the term Third World is a bit antiquated since it originally simply referred to countries not aligned with either NATO (First World) or the Communist bloc (Second World). Over time the term Third World has come to be used as an economic term to describe poorer countries that have struggled to attain steady economic development.

There are no universal, agreed-upon criteria for what makes a country developing versus developed and the term Third World is rather squishy. I have come to be comfortable with the term “developing country” to describe Brazil because it seems (to me) to imply hope and real progress, leaving Third World to those times when I want to be deliberately provocative.

As long time readers of this blog know, I love Brazil. Luiz and I have never had second thoughts about our move to here nearly 6 years ago and we have no intentions to relocate any time soon. My blog is filled with all the reasons you might want to join us in this mid-life change of adventure we have created for ourselves. Here there is no shortage of daily wonders to soothe the soul and reinvigorate one’s zest for life. Brazil and Brazilians have a special kind of wow that we have experienced in few other lands – and we have visited many, many places. But yeah, when you peel back the travel brochure cover and look for the fine print, there it is: Brazil is still a developing country.

This comes as no surprise to those of us living here. While the television coverage of the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games may focus on shiny new sports stadiums and grand openings at fancy new resort hotels, a peek behind the scenes reveals promised modern airports still in the early stages of construction (one still lacking paved roads to and from) and public policies that are displacing poor residents to make room for temporary international tourist conveniences. Rumors of political corruption, stolen public funds, illegal construction code violations and broken promises that urban development for the games will include vital infrastructure improvements for permanent residents take no one by surprise.

Persistent political corruption at all levels and shameless kowtowing to international capitalist pressures spawning shiny new millionaires at the expense of true democratic self determination and shared prosperity are the unfortunate tell tale signs of a “developing country” trying to get sturdy legs under itself. Generations of Brazilians have reluctantly grown accustomed to and somewhat hopeless regarding the stench of this political sewage and the oppressive economic inequality it sustains. Plus there are the pervasive legacy costs of political and family dynasties that have concentrated power and wealth over the years. [According to the celebrated Brazilian economist Marcio Pochman, published in the book “The Rich of Brazil” (2004), the assets of five thousand ‘very rich’ families, which account for 0.001 percent of all Brazilian families, amount to approximately 40% of the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product.]

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that Brazil is, indeed, developing. This development has been at a rather impressive pace in recent decades. Modernization in urban areas, in the commercial sector, in all areas medical and, more slowly, concerning the infrastructure that links vital population and resource centers across the country has been steady and persistent. Political reforms, while slow and somewhat limited in scope, have also been steady. Both dynamics have resulted in real and tangible improvements in the quality of life for tens of millions of Brazilians. And just like everywhere else on the planet, the internet has transformed nearly everything among those with access and among those who benefit in secondary and tertiary ways. Things are definitely looking up (i.e. developing).

What this means for Luiz and I is that, while we live in Brazil, we live in a comfortable two bedroom  apartment just down the street from a beautiful, mature urban park. We wash our clothes in a 10 kilogram capacity washing machine (although, it does not have a hot water option and we do not have a dryer, but hey…) and our refrigerator has a separate (although quite small) freezer compartment. Wireless internet service and an over-sized flat screen TV (with 3-D capability, although there are no 3-D signals in our area) as well as an imported, firm, queen size mattress round out or creature comforts.

Most of our banking is done either online or via an ATM machine, although Luiz has developed a meaningful friendly relationship with our branch manager in case of difficulties. Luiz has a cell phone, while I have eschewed said ball and chain. Most of our transportation needs are covered by bus and ferry services but our friends drive chic new cars that run on gasoline, alcohol and/or natural gas.

Regarding medical needs, we live in an insanely convenient part of town chock full of doctors’ offices, labs, ambulatory clinics, critical care facilities and full-on hospitals. We pay a relatively small monthly fee for supplemental private health care insurance that sweeps us up and over the inconveniences and limitations of the public health system, although in any possible circumstance we have medical care available.

If you squint a little and don’t try too hard to find any cracks, it looks a lot like a First World lifestyle. Most of the time it even feels like a First World lifestyle. But then, if you insist on seeing the glass half empty there is plenty to remind you that things are not all that they might first appear to be. For a listing of daily inconveniences and nearly unbelievable tales of stifling bureaucracies I kindly refer you to other blogs.

Mainly what affords us our comforts is that first and foremost we live in a modern, urban area that has been developing as a Brazilian city for more than 300 years. At some point you get paved roads, clean reliable drinking water, backup electrical power at hospitals and a police force with at least a minimum of training and support [key word: minimum]. Second, there are employment options in the area that provide a livable wage or better, and schools and universities are plentiful [even if they often lack a full complement of functioning light bulbs or ceiling fans].

Not bad, overall. But this is certainly not the case for the multitudes in the population that live in less developed cities and towns, favelas adjacent to rich urban areas and the more desperate rural parts of the country. This is where much of the Third World reality exists.

In Brazil as a whole about 35 per cent of the population lives in poverty, on less than two dollars a day. This is most visually represented by the various favelas, or slums, in the country's metropolitan areas where residents suffer with economic underdevelopment and below-par standards of living. In Brazil’s rural areas poverty affects about 51 per cent of the population. This means that Brazil has about 18 million poor rural people, the largest number in the Western Hemisphere. Poor rural communities live in disadvantaged conditions: education and health facilities are not readily available, water supply and sewage systems are generally inadequate, and rural people face severe constraints in accessing technology and infrastructure. [sourced here]

The degree to which you feel the “developing” part of living in Brazil is directly related to your place on the class ladder. Here people with money generally have A LOT of money and can buy their way into a pretty good facsimile of a First World lifestyle. Poor folks, as usual, are shit out of luck. The oft-touted newly emerging Brazilian middle class (myth for a future post) tends to enjoy just enough of an income to buy into a look-alike First World lifestyle without the political/economic/consumer goods quality underpinnings to back it up. [Aside: the vastly expanded consumer credit market in this regard is a ticking time bomb.]

Visitors to Brazil quickly notice the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. Years of government investments in the tourism sector has bolstered the infrastructure for travelers so they can have more of a modern, convenient experience. Tourists who never leave the beaches in Rio and who cannot understand the Portuguese newsprint or television reports may never know they are vacationing in a developing country.

We who live here know Brazil is in a state of development. The struggles to develop are not subtle or inconsequential to our regular lives. Political push back from the general population against governmental corruption and incompetence has been on the rise. The growing number of people lifted out of poverty in recent years (thanks to some good governmental action) has created a new class of citizens who have no intention of going back to the desperate poverty they left behind. At this point it is develop or bust. But it is not easy and it will take more time.

So if you are among the throngs who will be coming to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup or the 2016 Olympic Games, be patient with us. We really are trying to provide you with a comfortable, drama-free adventure. But we are also trying to get reliably clean drinking water and doctors on call to millions of our fellow countrymen and their families.

A gringo in a Brazilian super market

There are 10 grocery stores and many street fruit vendors within five blocks of our apartment.
These are photos of some of them.

One of my great adventures/challenges in relocating to Brazil has been to adapt my cooking and eating habits to fit the local reality. I don’t mind saying that I was a bit of a ‘foodie’ when I lived in San Francisco. The food realities in SF are nearly unmatched, as a group, compared to most other cities in the world.  The plethora of bakeries, open markets, restaurants both casual and fine,  ethnic grocery stores, fish and meat markets, cheese stores and quality wines on the cheap are mind blowing. While I always appreciated the choice, quality and value of the food experience in San Francisco my new reality has definitely been a striking case of “You don’t know what you've got ‘till it’s gone.”

This is a post about my learning to shop and cook abroad when my brain still eats out of my kitchen in San Francisco.

** Long post alert**  Once I got into this topic I could not break free. Go get yourself a bowl of frozen açaí with granola and sliced banana ouro and settle in for a good read.

Let me clarify, and try to avoid the slings and arrows from those who will be quick to point out the myriad of regional dishes and immigrant cuisines found in Brazil. I am posting today to point out some of the shopping/cooking/eating challenges as I have come to experience them over the past five and a half years living in the Rio area – as well as some local treasures. This post will focus on shopping and cooking to satisfy a craving for international foods or just the day to day foods previously cooked by this down-home hippie-type from the USA who loves ethnic foods.

Food options in Brazil vary from city to city – region to region, as you might expect. That said, I think it is fair to drop out the very best as well as the most challenging realities to try and get a handle on cooking in a Brazilian kitchen. That means taking much of São Paulo off the table. Sorry guys. It is just a totally separate reality from most of the rest of the country. Including the ethnic and international grocery options found in São Paulo when looking for an average grocery shopping experience is like including the salary of the Wal-Mart CEO when looking for an average salary among company employees.

Bite your tongue Paulistas. I know there would be “solutions” to some of the dilemmas I present if only I lived in São Paulo. I am describing my experience in Niterói / Rio and other places I have traveled to, not the optimal food Disneyland of those with a hearty income living in exceptional São Paulo.

Similarly, in a country where 26% of the population lives below the poverty line and 8.5% (more than 16 million people) live on less than US$1.30 per day, many, many people are eating from a very limited list of foods indeed. So for the sake of discussion, I’m going to lop off the top and the bottom and just take a peek at what seems to be regular foods for regular folks in Brazil.

This whole dilemma of not finding the ingredients I want would be solved if I just cooked more local Brazilian fare. Tasty appetizers like bolinhos de bacalhau, ceviche de salmão na banana de tarra (!!),coxinhas de galinha, empadinhas de camarão, casquinha de sirí, and salada de agrião e palmito (to name a few) rock!

Brazilian entrées from all over the country satisfy this corn-fed Midwesterner, not the least of which include a piping hot cozido, empadão de frango, carne seca com abóbora, muqueca de frutas de mar (!!), coxas recheadas and a million others.

Did I mention couve, pão de quejo, farofa Mineira, aipim frita, pirão de anything, pastel de anything, churrasquinhos? And on and on.

And then there are the sweets. Don’t get me started. Brazilians know their sweets.

For a really big collection of Brazilian recipes (in Portuguese) go here.

Regionally, I adore the food from Minas Gerais and I especially like the spicy seafood stews of Bahia and the North East. For me, Rio offers some of the most boring and unimaginative meals. If you like fried beef, fried potatoes, black beans, rice, a little diced tomato and onion vinaigrette and plain farofa – welcome to my world. I love Brazilian food, but I do feel a bit stuck in boring food land here in Rio.

But, ahem, this post is about what I cannot have. Or at least what I have to be creative to have. It’s about trying to make meals from my youth and home country with foods bought in a strange grocery store and prepared in a foreign kitchen.

Eating so-called “American” foods accounts for less and less of my weekly caloric intake. Between warming up to local customs and letting go of rare, expensive or just unattainable ingredients I have morphed into a budding Brazilian home cook. But some cravings die hard.

Challenges

Some of the basics of cooking my favorites are just different here.  Flour is one example. All of the flour options I have been able to find on grocery shelves have a pretty low protein content. That is to say, they have less gluten in them. They are like “pastry flour” in the States. I cannot find anything called “bread flour.” There is a baking flour option with a bit of leavening added, but that does not get at my dilemma. I have a bread machine and I enjoy baking all sorts of hearty breads. My search for vital gluten at health foods stores has been in vain. In fact, I get blank stares from store clerks who try to correct me and say they have many gluten-free products. Fail. But I recently brought back a package of gluten from a grocery in the USA and PROBLEM SOLVED! Now my bread stands tall with exceptional structural integrity. But this is not a local solution. If you have seen gluten on the shelves here, please let me know where (and a specialty store in São Paulo is not helpful unless you are offering to mail me some).

I LOVE this mom & pop bulk and natural foods store.

Speaking of bread, two ingredients I enjoy baking with are soy grits and buckwheat groats (I told you I have hippie pedigree). I know – not fair. I should entertain no illusion such items would be available, but a guy can dream, can’t he? No luck finding them at the natural foods store. Maybe I am not describing them right. Does anyone know the Portuguese translation for these yummy items?

Also – tempeh starter. Ok, ok – back to reality, Jim.

Salt. Regular table salt here seems to be much stronger/saltier than what I am used to. It appears to be of a finer grind, which would explain things a bit. If I follow my baking recipes from the States things definitely come out too salty. I have come to cut back by about ¼ (or more) of the measure called for. But then – I am a light salter overall. Nearly everyone here adds salt to my foods once served at the table. We recently brought back some terrific salt collected from Inca-constructed evaporation pools in the mountains of Peru. It was more like Kosher salt, mild and a larger grind - perfect for last minute salting of vegetables and salads. But alas, we just pinched our last of that supply.

Baking soda. This one is a mystery to me.  While most cake and cookie recipes here include a teaspoon of baking soda (bicarbonato de sódio) along with the typical two teaspoons of baking powder (fermento em pó) you can only buy baking soda in relatively expensive tiny little packets, while baking powder is sold in useful little resealable plastic containers of a greater quantity. I have ‘fixed’ this situation by saving an emptied baking powder container and filling it with baking soda bought in bulk at the natural foods store – for 1/10^th the price. Buying in bulk also lets you put a large quantity in a bowl in your refrigerator to absorb odor. The local solution is to put several pieces of charcoal in a bowl, but call me loyal to Arm & Hammer…

Beef – or better put: cuts of beef. I have never been a meat kind of guy.  Luiz is the master chef beef cooker. But I am often given the duty of going to the butcher to buy the meat. As you might expect, butchers in Brazil have their way of cutting up a cow and butchers in the States have their other way. It is not the same. Things look/are different. And obviously Brazilian butchers do not know the US English language names for various cuts of beef. This is just a learning curve you have to get over. Here is a graphic that might help a bit.

Cheeses. There are some fantabulous cheeses fresh from the farm available at supermarkets everywhere. Queijo Minas comes in soft, firm and cured varieties that taste different, have varying levels of saltiness, and behave differently in recipes. Sample your way around to find your favorites.

Ricotta cheese is typically drier and firmer than the smooth variety I was used to in the States when making lasagna, for example. It does not really translate. There is a whipped, creamier variety of ricotta sold in little plastic tubs that works great as a substitute in some cooking situations.

Cream cheese is sold in slightly smaller blocks than in the States, so be careful when buying it to match recipe requirements. Smooth cheeses like requijão and its richer cousin catupiry are sinfully delicious. But alas, sour cream is the Holy Grail not found in any but the most international of grocery stores, and then with an expensive imported price tag. Fellow expats have found that mixing a teaspoon or so of lime juice into firm yogurt or the sweeter coalhada and then letting it sit for an hour makes for a near passable sour cream substitute.

While queijo prato is a favorite cheese for melting on a ham sandwich or a burger I find it pretty mild in flavor. It’s like a super mild cheddar or Colby cheese. Best to buy the pricier versions for stronger flavor.

There are deals to be had on some brie or gorgonzola cheeses, but once you move into harder cheeses or any imported varieties, break open your wallet. And feta – poor lonely feta – sorry baby, but you are just too expensive to crumble over my salad these days. I have been experimenting with making some at home but have yet to get a breakthrough result I can share.

Canned and frozen vegetables. Sad, sad state of affairs. I’m not one to use canned vegetables, except tomatoes or tomato sauce and paste. But given the tough and flavorless nature of fresh corn here I now use canned corn for my salads. If I want peas with any flavor (besides salt) I go for the frozen variety over the canned. For some reason frozen vegetables are expensive, but I don’t use a lot of them anyway. In terms of canned beans I have used them in the past to save cooking time when making refried beans, hummus or when making a salad. Here they are either not to be found, or are just stupid expensive (for a handful of beans!), so I just wake up in the morning and put some beans on the stove to be used much later in the day. A pressure cooker is a life saver in this case.

Frozen fish. Call me spoiled. The flash frozen and vacuum packed fish that filled the freezers at Trader Joe’s in San Francisco have not made it to Brazil. Actually, in Niterói we have an AMAZING municipal fish market with more choices at great prices than I could ask for. But when I want a bag of frozen, cleaned shrimp for a quick recipe – forgeddaboutit. Almost everything in the frozen food section at the grocery store is not vacuum packed and thus fish fillets, shrimp and seafood bits are always freezer burned and generally ultimately soggy and a disappointment. For me, cooking ‘fruits of the sea’ is all about advance planning and making a trip to the fish market downtown (and the street farmers' market often has great options for just a little more $). We are lucky enough to live on the coast so eating fresh fish nearly always eclipses any idea of buying something frozen.

Ice cream. Now here I have worked a fantastic solution. But first, the situation: your garden-variety Kibon or Nestlé brand ice cream sold in supermarkets is gross. I’m prepared to venture a guess that it is 35% puffed air. Creamy? No. Don’t mistake that melt-in-your-mouth dynamic with creaminess. It is melting fast because there is nothing there. And the flavor leaves you wanting as well. All for the scandalous price of R$20 per 2 liters (about ½ gallon). Want real ice cream, like Häagen Dazs? Ha! Try doubling the price and cutting the volume to 25% (or worse).

My work-around? Luiz and I got an ice cream maker last time we were in the States (thanks for the birthday present Di and Dody). Since we have such a tiny freezer we got a maker that has its own compressor, so it freezes the ice cream in the machine. Actually, it’s best to put the finished product in the freezer for about an hour to really get it frozen, but it does the trick. Now we are in business! I can make fruit ice cream, doce de leite, chocolate, vanilla, sorbets, you name it. It is WAY creamier (all milk and cream, no air), I can use sugar substitutes so my diabetic husband can indulge his weakness for triple chocolate ice cream, and it comes out to less cost than the cheap stuff at the grocery store.

Ethnic foods. While Brazil is certainly a country with immigrant populations it is not common to see ethnic neighborhoods or grocery stores (again, São Paulo is a notable exception here). Here in Niterói I have found one Arabic store that sells some foodstuffs (but not Israeli couscous, unfortunately) and one tiny storefront that sells a very limited number of Japanese cooking items. Some natural foods stores have some things that can fill a gap here and there, but there is really nothing like a full-on ethnic grocery. In Rio there are a few mom & pop Chinese grocery stores and places to buy Japanese ingredients as well. I have found one wholesale shop in Rio with a good selection of Chinese ingredients. Outside of a few Chinese restaurants and some sushi joints, finding ethnic food restaurants is difficult as well (so tracking down where they buy their ingredients is out). I will comment on eating out in a future post.

It would seem that there is simply not enough demand for food items outside of the Brazilian cuisine box to support the sale of these foods considered specialty items by most locals. In this case I rely on the natural food store for dried foods, spices and the occasional seed or flour to piece together an ethnic meal.

Spices are often the key to success here. The regular spice display in most supermarkets is very limited and rather expensive overall. My bulk foods natural foods store really saves the day here. They have a great selection at reasonable prices. I just have to keep track of the powders, seeds and crushed leaves once they are in my kitchen. I find it best to store these items in the refrigerator.

We expats who love Mexican food have been conspiring over the years to find solutions to our Tex-Mex cravings. Hot sauces are doable, but the selection of fresh hot peppers is limited (but oven roasting everything goes a long way toward getting the flavor you want). Guacamole is definitely doable, even though most avocados here are of a different variety than we are used to - plus our friends often balk at eating it since avocados are considered a sweet dessert food here. I have a seriously delicious refried beans recipe using fejão carioca. Experimenting with available spices makes fajitas and tacos very much within reach as long as you stick to flour tortillas. Corn tortillas are near 100% unavailable in stores (there is a wholesaler in Rio, but you have to buy 120 corn tortillas at a pop). Crispy taco shells often cost R$2 a piece (imported) and Doritos dippers is as close as you get to tortilla chips, no matter the price. While, as I mentioned, there is a work-around fix for sour cream, you cannot use regular corn flour to make corn tortillas. Masa harina, the corn flour with lime sold in Mexican grocery stores in the States, is not available here. Quite simply, without a care package of masa harina from afar – no luck on the corn tortilla front.

For Indian curries and Thai sauces I have relied on spice packets from abroad. I think I could gather most of the spices here, but I’m inexperienced in making these flavors from scratch (I do use prepared “curry powder”).

Sugar-free items.  There are many varieties of sugar substitutes and artificial sweeteners here. Luiz relies on them. But he will tell you that distinct flavor differences exist and you should taste your way through a number of them to find your favorite. Prices vary a lot. Luiz has rejected almost all of them in favor of Splenda, which we have never seen available here. This is an item we stock up on when friends travel abroad.

Luiz thinks there is a market niche that is ready for exploiting regarding sweets for the diabetic. While there are some really fantastic chocolate purveyors in Brazil, none of them has a grip on the sugar free market. It is typical to find one or two items in the entire shop that is sugar free and in many boutiques there is nothing available. Other sweets of the sugar free variety are also in short supply: jams and jellies, prepared desserts, hot chocolate, candies of all kinds, etc. Luiz picks up what he can find, but mostly I prepare stuff at home to fill the need.

Joys

Cooking in stone and clay pots. I love this. There is just something magical about going from the top of the stove to the oven and then to the table with a beautiful pot made of clay and mangrove tree sap. Our big pot is perfect for moqueca and our small one makes perfect rice every time. Our pots made of soap stone, bought in Minas Gerais, simmer our feijoada flawlessly for hours. Plus the pizza stone cooks a perfect crispy on the bottom pizza without fail.

Brazilians are among the world’s most brilliant bean cookers. Feijão (literally: beans, but commonly used to refer to a flavorful creamy cooked bean almost-stew) has as many champions as there are mothers and grandmothers. My MIL cooks up black beans in such a way that you would swear you were eating warm, creamy chocolate. Regional bean varieties are black, brown, white or somewhere in between.  Talk about working magic in the kitchen. This is it. Most grocery stores have a whole area dedicated to a myriad of animal parts (knuckles, hoofs, organs, ears, noses, skin and ‘lesser’ cuts) that can transform the humble dried bean into a family favorite and daily mainstay. Wherever you are in Brazil it is worth your while to master the local approach to beans. This is poor people’s food brought to a whole new level. [Dried beans are dried beans, so they work as you expect in your favorite recipes. But do take the time to explore local methods.]

Fruits. Wonderful, wonderful fruits. For this I typically rely on street vendors and the farmers’ markets in our area. It’s all about buying what is in season and being adventurous with some pretty strange looking things. Bananas, mangoes and papayas come in a number of varieties – all of which are worth trying. Strawberries, tangerines and pineapples sing with flavor when perfectly ripe. Ask your grocer/vendor to explain their orange varieties. Some are good for juicing, others not so much. Just let go of your want for seedless oranges - or grapes for that matter - better to just go with the flow. There is a terrific little lime with orange pulp (limão galego) typically with a green and orange rind or green with crusty grey blemishes that makes amazing lime-aid. Guava (goiaba) comes in a couple varieties. Buy it when it is totally ripe, but beware of over-ripened fruits that can have squiggly intruders inside. Star fruit (carambola) is another one I like when super ripe. It looks a bit blemished, but tastes all the sweeter. I love me some persimmon (caqui), again, when super ripe. Figs are often available and cheap when in season. Lots of people love passion fruit (maracujá), the juice, the pulp, in tarts, etc. but personally I give it a miss. Similarly I find jackfruit (jaca) an acquired taste, although it can be stupid cheap when bought on the side of the road. A fellow blogger who loves an adventure and a good deal just blogged about the virtues of mangosteens (mangostão), check it out here. It seems like watermelon is ALWAYS in season. Regarding fruits - get a good blender (that can crush ice) or a juicer and experiment. Take good advantage of this lush edible resource.

Naturally, it is the stone fruits, berries and some apple varieties that never really show up on market stands, or when they do they are very pricey. Things like peaches, plums, cherries, cranberries, blueberries, etc. require some cold weather to complete their life cycle. These are rare fruits and are most often frozen or imported. Too bad for me that I grew up with peach and plum trees in my back yard as a kid in Michigan (saudade). We would go cherry picking and buy fresh apple cider at the orchards. Here kids grow up nailing a coffee can to the end of a long stick and climbing giant mango trees to knock off a few choice fruits. I’ve pretty much changed gears in the fruit department, totally enjoying the local options while still pining over missed cherry pies and blueberry cobblers.

To live locally you have to cook locally.

Now that I've lain out a bit of my experience cooking in our new environment I see that it is not so new anymore. My desire to replicate US American foods against the tide of available ingredients has calmed over the years. More and more the foods that jump into my mind when thinking about entertaining friends or celebrating a holiday are Brazilian in nature. I’m more excited now about getting it right on the Brazilian front than testing out yet another work-around concoction to simulate a dish that nobody has ever heard of (except me).

Some old favorite recipes will never fade away, like my fabulous cheesecake or my spinach lasagna. But just as my Portuguese has evolved over the years, so has my taste for delicious food. Nowadays I am more inclined to want to prepare a Brazilian seafood stew or a chicken stroganoff for my US American friends. 

Living local. Eating local.

Fellow expats, I’d love to hear where you are on this food journey. Work-arounds? Favorite Brazilian dishes you cook? Tips for others?

[Told you it was a long post.]