The Life Changer (6 of 10)

I learned about food! And Generosity!


Feijoada
Desserts!
Churrasco's and Antartica Guarana!
The Piñhao

I learned as much as I could about the food! I loved Brazilian food. Especially Curitibano Brazilian Food. Because that meant Italian-like gnocci and noodles and wonderful homemade sauces over polenta.
My birthdays were both celebrated by large parties with cakes and gifts. Too kind! The members were so nice. One found out my family likes to have lasagna for Christmas Eve, guess who had us over? Guess what she made? How nice is that. Very generous indeed.
The lunches were also generous. Large portions of beans and rice. But, oh the beans! I'm still trying to figure out how they tasted so good, I've gotten closer, but it is tough. I had a lunch every day just about. Every day!! Seriously, I paid for my lunch less than a dozen times the entire time. Now that I'm a wife and mom I realize, it is a lot to have people over for dinner-but they didn't seem to mind. They took a genuine interest in us and were very generous with their talents and time. I love them for it!
One memory I have is of us eating lunch, then dishes washed, then them eating lunch. They didn't have enough dishes or space for us all to eat together. The meal was just chicken, rice and beans. The kept apologizing. I was serious when I told the sister, it was delicious and to please not worry. Other times, the members were busy and the maids would make us lunch. Lots of class diversity in Brasil.
Feijoada is the traditional dish of Brasil. I love it too. I don't care for some of the nasty pig parts included, but as long as you could fish your own it was yummy! And the oranges are so good with it! It was if they dished it for you when you might run into trouble! Also, I have a visual of someone sucking a chicken's foot, to get off all the meat, that toe suck--ewww, for some reason that bothered me, more than other things.
Lots of fruit. Mangoes taste better there! Hands down. And I miss them! And specific to Curitiba in the pinhao from the Araucaria tree. The last two pictures above show the large pine cone type thing and then the actual nuts. Interesting-and tasty!
What a great experience. What good food. What a generous and loving people. Who showed love to me, a spoiled American.
A companion and I went to give some small gifts to a family for Christmas. One of the children was saying to her brother, "this is yours, this is yours." I realized she was trying to give him her candy and I corrected her and told her she got more than one in her package. She was trying to give away the candy because she had never had two pieces of candy at once, she thought a mistake had been made, and she was concerned someone didn't get a piece.
Imagine.
and how much will we throw out after trick or treating?
I'm still learning....