Everyone that knows me personally would know that anything I do would not be complete without food involved!  And if you don’t know me personally, well…. now you know I LOVE food and everything involved with food.  I love to shop, cook, eat, find new recipes, eat, eat and. … …Well yeah … eat !!!  In fact when brainstorming ideas about my site, I considered doing just a site all about food.  Which I may still do in the future, when my daughter is a little older and I have more time on my hands!

So on behalf of my love for cooking and food, I will dedicate every Friday to FOOD!   I will cover everything from traditional Brazilian recipes, to translations of produce, herbs, and ingredients found here (for all of you that are either here on vacation, or just moved here, and have no f***ing clue what to make.  No worries, I was once there.) to interesting food facts of Brazil, to strange foods, restaurant reviews and everything in between.  If you would like to see a traditional Brazilian recipe on my blog or would like to know something food related, please leave me a comment or contact me.  I love to talk food !!

First let’s talk table talk of Brazil. Breakfast in Brazil is quite light.  Usually consisting of fruit, bread with ham, cheese and butter, cake, juice, and of course coffee.  There are always exceptions to this rule but most likely, not.  Brazilians eat their main meal of the day for lunch, followed by an hour of rest. Well at least this is true to my area.  Everything is closed, even the supermarkets, between the hours of 12 to 2 for lunch.  The first hour for preparing and eating, and the second hour for resting. I have to say this can be quite annoying sometimes.  But well, I’ve adjusted.  In the cities of Brazil, this is not always the case.  Dinner is usually something quite light .. Or leftovers from lunch.  Now, all this makes sense to me, but for some reason I still hate to cook during the hot ass days and prefer my larger meal at night.  So at our house we do what we call “Ameri-Bras” a little bit of both worlds, switching it up from day to day.

Now let’s talk etiquette .. If you are ever eating in Brazil, in a formal setting with Brazilians, there are a few things you should know.   First, ALWAYS use your silverware, no matter what you are eating .. yup that’s right, even with pizza and sandwiches.   Thank god I live in a laid back surfing village, cause I just can’t eat pizza without folding it and using my hands.  Here, no one looks twice.  But if I were in a formal setting, I would use my silverware. Second, ALWAYS go devagar, slow with the petiscos otherwise know as appetizers. Brazilians LOVE to graze on one plate of petiscos for an extended period of time.  I know it’s hard, I’ve had to hold myself back a few times.  And third, the toothpicks that come with the petiscos, they’re not for your teeth. These are intended for picking up the petiscos.. And again, if you are in a formal setting with a Brazilian, USE them !

Now let’s talk guardanapos, napkins.  You don’t even want to get me started on napkins here.  I think I would become a millionaire in Brazil if I created one good- quality, cheap, guardanapo.  Ok well maybe not a millionaire, but I would probably do well!   Most of the napkins SUCK here.  If you go to one of the various salgado stands (a savory pastry usually with meat and or cheese, fried or baked), they will always serve your salgado in a nice hard, crunchy, wax paper like, guardanapo!  When you try to wipe your mouth you never really clean the mess on your face, but move it around instead.  And you may even end up with a few scratches on your face at the end of it all.  With all that said, the nice guardanapos do exist, I guess they are just a little more expensive and everyone tries to cut costs!  Oh my, how nice it would be to have nice guardanapos everywhere I go to eat.

Yummy Salgados

That’s all my rants and raves for today. Brazil has some wonderful food and recipes.  And I can’t wait to write all about my food euphoria’s.  So if you like food, be sure to check my blog every Friday for great recipes and fun ideas.  I am already so excited about next week.  I will share a delicious recipe with all my readers .. so stay posted!

Well let me start off by saying that I wanted to share my notes scribbled in my little purple book with all of you, whom I hope will follow me for a long time to come.  Over the last few weeks I have been thinking…  Hmmm …what should I include in my first post. And this is what crossed my mind …

Things noted for the first post.

**Why I am in Brazil ….. no, this needs its own individual story/post

**What I do here in life, work, on a daily basis, etc.  … you will hear tid-bits of this in some or all of my posts

**My family. Again, will talk about this throughout my stories

** Inspiration … ding, ding, ding, ding …you get the point. I will let you all know, why ?

So, why did I start this blog?

In September 2008, I was pregnant with my first child and living away from all of my friends and family.  I then thought it was a great idea to start a blog for my unborn child, so that when my sweet, little soul arrived into this world I could share my joy with all of the people I loved.  So this I did.  I started blogging about the last months of my pregnancy, posting photos, and sharing the ups and downs of my days.  Then my daughter was born in December and it quickly turned into her “baby book”, so to say.  The more I sat here and started writing and looking at other blogs, the more I got inspired to write my own blog, in a different manner than just a dialogue of my daughter’s life.   There was something more that I was craving to share with the world.    I was craving to write about all the things I experience on a day –to- day basis, to share with others, Brazil through my eyes. To share the beauty, the grotesque, the humor, the enchanting, and the occurrences of this place that I call home.  Then the ideas for a blog started racing through my mind faster than lightening, and I couldn’t  slow my pondering.   Nor could I remember anything the next minute, that’s how many thoughts I had. But let’s not forget the fact that I am a full-time, breast feeding mommy, hence the fact for “mommy-brain” (terrible memory loss).   At that point I knew I would need to invest in a nice little book to start writing down all of my thoughts and visualizations.  That’s what I did. Well actually, in the process of buying one, I was given a very intelligent looking one (Thanks Laura, I will blog about “us” later ).  And the writing began.

It is my desire to bring to you in this blog, Brazil through MY eyes, as a foreigner, as a mother, and as a woman.   I will cover all topics from politics, parenting, traveling, food, current events, investing, inspirations, language, culture, music, artists, photos, humor, nature, and many other things.  It is my intention to write with all honesty, and sometimes that doesn’t always interpret the beautiful things in life, but the raw reality of the world.  It is my hope that you will read my stories and leave comment “love”!    Tell me what you think, but please be honest and relevant to my post, no direct advertising. (if you are interested in exchanging links I am more than happy to do so, but please contact me directly) I look forward to hearing all feedback.  I will try to get back to comments via email, but keep in mind that I have a VERY busy 7 month old, that doesn’t always allow mommy to type:-)

Beijos, Tanya