Food!

While I am missing certain foods from back home, I've been able to find substitutes for almost everything.  I've even found a few new things to add to the list that I'll have to figure out a way to re-create when I get back home.

First and foremost is pancakes:
The entire time I was in college we made pancakes at least once a month--usually more.  These weren't any normal pancakes, but pancakes with weird combinations of stuff inside that made them DELICIOUS.  For example: a banana, blueberry, chocolate chip pancake, a chocolate batter, chocolate chip, with peanut butter topping pancake, or a chocolate chip and sprinkle pancake. However, Brazilians don't eat pancakes for breakfast, let alone pancakes with so much sugar in them that they will make your teeth rot.  So we've just begun sharing our delicious pancake secrets with some friends and neighbors and we get really excited when they tell us that they like them :)

Second is muffins:
I love muffins.  I'm pretty sure we all love muffins.  But the muffin culture here is just beginning so they're pretty hard to find.  We've made them a few times at home, but I was SO EXCITED when we stumbled upon this coffee shop that we'd been hearing so much about and saw these little beauties...

Third is Oreo's:
Oreo's might be my favorite food in the world.  I brought a ton with me in the hopes that I would never have to go without them, however, my supply is starting to dwindle and they are nearing their expiration date so I'm eating them a little more liberally than I was when we first arrived.  On my birthday Annika and Alisha made me hold a package of Oreo's and blow out a match...it was pretty special.

Now onto the things we've discovered here that we won't be able to live without...

Hot Chocolate:
Ok, I know you're thinking, "Kasey, there's hot chocolate in the states...have you forgotten?"  No, I have not forgotten, this is just a whole other kind of hot chocolate that is more like they took a brick of chocolate, melted it and poured it into a cup with just a little bit of milk.  It's delicious.  The cup is pretty tiny, but it's super rich so you don't need very much.

Juice:
This is no 'go to Walmart and buy a jug of cran-apple-grape juice.' This is the real thing.  We've personally picked fruit or gone down the street to the fruit guy to find the most beautiful fruits to make our yummy juice. Then it's literally just fruit, water, and sugar into the blender and Voila--DELICIOUSNESS. This picture is of our strawberry juice one day.  Strawberry juice is usually made out of frozen pulp because strawberries aren't very common here so our juices are very different colors even though they are the same flavor.

Espetinho:
This word literally means "skewer." Basically it is any kind of meat on a skewer and grilled.  There's chicken, sausage, chicken wrapped in bacon, beef, and a few others.  There's a lady about a 2 minute walk from our house that has delicious espetinho.  It's a good thing she's not there very often because we love it!  And it's super cheap--what could be better?

Pizza:
There are a few major differences in the pizza here and from the states.  One, the crust does not have garlic butter brushed on it.  Two, the flavors are pretty much completely different.  Three, it's always eaten with a fork and a knife.  We've been rebels a few times and eaten it with our hands, but generally you don't eat food with your hands.  Four, if you order it to be delivered, a guy on a motorcycle with a box on the back delivers it to your door.   Five, the typical condiments of choice for topping are ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise--the ketchup is actually pretty good, I'm not so convinced about the other two.

Popcorn:
We don't have a microwave here.  I was pretty concerned about how we were going to make popcorn because I was unaware that there was another way to make popcorn.  (Alisha and Annika were both better prepared in the ways of popcorn and were not only completely aware that there was another way, but had even grown up eating popcorn made this 'special other way.')  One day we were at some people's house from the church and she started making popcorn on the stove and I was entranced.  They all thought I was pretty weird.  When she finished, she poured condensed milk all over it and let me tell you...it is delicious.

Tapioca:
Even though this has the same name as that nasty pudding that your grandma used to eat--rest assured it's completely different.  This is a powder that comes from a root and is completely white.  You put it in a skillet with no oil or butter or anything and it just sticks together.  Weird, right?  Then you can put coconut powder, condensed milk, queijo coalho, or really anything inside and flip it like an omelette and then eat it! Yummy!

(This one actually has a little bit of melted cheese on the bottom just to make it pretty, but most of them are completely white)  o