A handful of magic beans

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Ah! We had gorgeous weather today – finally some weekend sunshine. I got up early and decided today I would do things. A half-built trellis has been taunting me for weeks and so today I thought I would finally put it in its place (up on a wall). I set to work and everything was going fine until I realised that I needed a thicker drill bit. This trellis has been an ongoing saga for so long now that it seemed only natural that there would be another hurdle. I wandered off into Catete (an nearby neighbourhood) on a long-shot mission to find a shop selling drill bits open on a Sunday.


I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to hear that after an hour and a half of wandering I found my drill bit in one of those shops that sells a bit of everything. I was delighted and probably overreacted a little – no one should be that excited about finding an 8mm masonry drill bit…


On my triumphant way home I stopped in on the Glória street market and picked up a few things. One item I really didn’t need but couldn’t resist was this:

 

Cacau – where chocolate comes from.


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Cock on the Moutain Top

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Well, as usual for Saturdays in November/December, it rained again today. This made it impossible, once again, for me to do a job I’ve been meaning to do for ages (putting up a trellis since you ask). After glowering at the rain for an hour or so, I decided to go and do something else that I’ve been meaning to do for a while – a food mission! 


One of the things I really miss about London is the great variety of world food available. In particular I miss the zingy flavours and spice of Thai, Vietnamese and Indian food. The few Southeast Asian restaurants I’ve seen are either mediocre or expensive (or both!) and the supermarkets don’t stock the ingredients essential to these cuisines, so until today I have had to go without.


Then, a couple of months ago, we were riding on the bus through the neighbourhood of Flamengo when we spotted this:

Although I pass this place everyday on my way to work, I'm always late and so never have time to stop in. Today I made it my mission to go and check it out.


And so, with the weather alternating between light drizzle and heavy downpour, I set off to check out what, as far as I know, is the only Asian market in Zona Sul. I had no idea I was going to find cock on the mountain top…


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Acarajé

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Last weekend we had a friend from London to stay. This was fun, not just because our guest was nice and not only because she brought us all kinds of yummy goodies from home, but also because her presence pushed us into doing a whole bunch of sight-seeing things that we probably wouldn’t have bothered with otherwise. We wandered around a favela, we went to see some samba and spent a fair bit of time eating and drinking in Santa Teresa. 


One of the places we ended up was Armazém São Thiago, a really nice old bar that dates back to 1919. The bar itself does pretty yummy food, but even better than that, on Sundays there is a lady just outside the bar cooking Acarajé. 

A delicious bundle of spicy goodness. I am designating acarajé as an essential food – see the others in the list by clicking the ‘essential food’ label on the right (Photo: Leonardo Martins).

 

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Shrimp Festival Disappointment

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The Portuguese word for shrimp is camarão (in England we use the word ‘prawn’ for big shrimps – in America it is the other way round apparently). Well regardless of the name, I love them! So you can imagine my delight the first time I went to my local kilo restaurant on a Friday and saw a sign saying “Festival de Camarão”. I love food, I love camarão – the idea of a festival dedicated to these delicious morsels of the sea set my mouth a-watering! 

 

Not the sign I saw. Not the scene that ensued.

 

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Churrasco

I Heart Churrasco

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Back in September I told you a little about the Churrasco, the Brazilian Barbecue. I was writing it coming off the back of our first ever churrasco held on our roof and I was still marvelling at the different way that they do it over here. The things that I was most struck by were the way the food was cooked so high above the coals, that the meat was so amazing, and the way that most of the meat was cut into small portions and shared amongst the group, enabling every to keep eating for hours…

Vegetarians look away now.

Well since that first barbecue, winter has turned into spring, and I’ve been to quite a few more churrascos. And recently I got to try something I had heard about but never tasted…

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