Brazil - Volume 1

Brazil is wonderful. Warm, slightly humid weather. Amazing food. Excellent drinks. Picturesque, in that beautiful scenery sense that is only possible on a beach.

The trip started a bit bumpy - I arrived, despite a cancelled flight, my luggage did not. Note to all traveling in the third-world: unless you go to the airport to collect your bag, no one cares whether your bag has been delivered. Alas, all is well, United will be paying for a few new sexy dresses and most importantly, my bathing suit, clean underwear and the tequila and triple sec arrived intact.

A few highlights thus far:

Moqueca: A traditional Bahian dish, with a base of coconut milk, a few veggies and fish and seafood, cooked with dende oil, the African/Bahian equivalent of our olive oil, but from palm, not olives. The dish is served with rice, a pasty, slightly starchy side and manioc, a flour that serves to bind the flavors together. Much like ceviche a year ago in Panama, I've made it my mission to taste moqueca at various locales throughout my stay.

Aracaje: The ultimate street food, aracaje is fritter fried in dende oil, slice open, stuffed with hot sauce, a few sides (including that same starchy side served with moqueca) and baby briney shrimp, and then eaten like a sandwich. Sooo tasty and good.

Meat. The churasco is impressive and abundant. Boi Preto is the best in Salvador. The huge salad bar, which is a salad bar in name only, features everything from sushi to cooked dishes to cheese to almost anything else. Several waiters are constantly in circulation, each ready to carve a different cut of beef, chicken, pork or fish for you instantly. The meat is amazing; the very nature of grass fed and no hormones means that the meat tastes as it should really taste, rich and succulent and delicious.

Capirinhas: I've been drinking this sugar cane alcohol, cacacia, at almost every opportunity. In its pure form, it's undrinkable. Mixed with fresh limes and sugar into a capirinha, it is amazing, refreshing, tangy and a bit potent. Bruno, my favorite beach bartender/caretaker, makes the best in the city.

More as the trip goes on.

Thanksgiving at the Ancestral Estate

Thanksgiving was at the Olhava's in Napa this year. The location should impress you, or not, if you know me and have heard stories of what I call the "ancestral estate".



Ed and I cooked dinner, a process that began the day before. Much of dinner was similar to the previous year, with the brined turkey, buttery stuffing and rich gravy. I made two types of cranberry sauce, a sweet sauce slightly modified from the directions on the back of the package and savory cranberry chutney. Other dishes: brussel sprouts, steamed, then roasted with garlic and olive oil; mashed sweet potatoes; and buttermilk mashed potatoes. I made ginger spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for dessert (notice the spider webs) and Jan brought two different types of pumpkin pie.



I think my favorite part of the meal was stuffing soaked with the buttery and rich gravy. Soooo utterly delicious.

It,Aeos worth noting a few other food items from my few days in Napa. I ducked out of a funeral reception to eat at the taqueria around the corner ,Aei Las Platas ,Aei which was absolutely fantastic. Just so that you all don't think that I'm heartless, I knew very few people at the funeral, I really wanted Mexican and the clock was ticking down, and while the cold cuts would have been delicious, a fabulous Napa taqueria was around the corner. I inhaled a pork enchilada with red sauce and shrimp enchilada with green sauce, practially crying. I so miss good Mexican food. Mom also bought homemade tamales from somewhere, which were great snacks. Again, more delicious Mexican food.

The night before Thanksgiving, we ate raviolis and malfattis from Lawler,Aeos, a Napa market famous for its homemade Italian food, liquor selection and for rent adult video collection.

Again, be impressed. I was in Napa.

A Housewarming!

I keep moving, which means several housewarming parties. And since I,Aeod been in the Vertigo long enough to unpack my boxes, paint at least one wall and make it feel like home, it was time.

Usually, I spend the day cooking, preparing food, arranging trays, making drinks. Time was short, and I made an executive decision: I ordered trays from Whole Foods. This was definitely a good idea - the food was delicious, and while I still spent time in the kitchen, the party prep wasn,Aeot as stressful as it has been in the past (even though Carrie and Pete may disagree with that statement). And, since Carrie was in town, it gave me more time to hang out with her (until I think I gave myself a concussion, but that,Aeos a whole other story).

I did make dessert: chocolate cupcakes with coffee frosting, chocolate chip cookies (from Elizabeth Falkner,Aeos new and excellent Demolition Desserts) and almond cookies. Carrie assembled the requisite cheese tray and a I threw a warm artichoke dip in the oven. From Whole Foods, a charcuterie tray, grilled veggies on bread and mushroom skewers with aioli. I also made French 75 cocktails (champagne, gin, lemon, something else), which disappeared in about 5 minutes.

Carrie attempted the newest Cooks Illustrated pie crust involving flour, salt, butter, shortening and vodka from, in order to make her famous caramelized onion and blue cheese tart. It,Aeos always interesting to watch others in the kitchen ,Aei our methods differ, but the end always turns out. Sadly, the pie crust didn,Aeot come together that night, although we did make the tart the next night, and it was simply amazing: layers of flaky pie crust that crunched nicely in the mouth, with the sweet onions and tart blue cheese.

The party was a ton of fun. Cleaning up bottles the next day, I realized that it was a fairly hard drinking crowd. Several bottles of beer, a few bottles of wine, a bottle of vodka, 5 bottles of champagne and some other assorted liquor were consumed. Someone told me that when she left at midnight, it was clear that the party wasn,Aeot ending anytime soon.

Happy Housewarming!

Some Paint

I realized that I'd never posted pictures of the newly painted walls. So far, I'm partially there.

Here's the living room. This is exactly the color that I envisioned when I first purchased the unit. I found a very cool color wheel tool on the Miller Paint web site: it allowed me to input the primary paint chip number, and then spit out various combinations of the complementary colors. It doesn't really show in the picture, but the claret/plum has a lot of blue, so the color scheme is set for the rest of the place.



And here's the entry way, in blue green.



I'm going to paint the kitchen with two different shades of blue. And, I think I am settling on a patterned backsplash tile in blue, green and white, for contrast. I'll probably fill in many walls with a combination of accent colors and soft white, something that has a bit of blue in it. I'm quickly realizing that I dislike the toasted almond color that came with my unit. Color is so much more fun.

Tecnical Issues - Now Resolved

We've had some technical issues over the past few months, something about new servers and snafus and migrations. Richard, my technical knight in shining armor, has fixed everything.

Lots to write about - new entries soon!