Interesting History Break

I'll take "Interesting Brazilian History for 200 please, Jack".

A short break from my musings on Brazil to hear from a few others. I came across two interesting articles today I thought I'd share.

1) Apparently, in the 1930's, Henry Ford started a rubber plantation in the Amazon in an effort to offset rising rubber costs. Due to a combination of rubber tree blight and cultural ineptitude, it was a miserable failure, to the tune of $200 million (in today's dollars).

Henry Ford in the Amazon

2) After the closing battles of the US Civil War, the then Emperor of Brazil sent recruiters to the Confederate states to seek out skilled cotton farmers. Some 10,000 confederates took him up on the offer, and emigrated to Brazil to seek what they considered they had lost at Appomattox. They settled in the town of "Americana", and managed to bring prosperity to the region. Although most of the heritage has now been lost, there are still celebrations reminiscent of the Old South.

Americana

We had talked many times about visiting Americana while we were in Brazil; I believe it was only about 3 hours from our house. I guess we probably should have made more of an effort. It would have been interesting to meet a Stonewall Santos or Paulo Longstreet.

Spiderwebs on a Plane

This week, while returning from yet another business trip, I realized it was the first night flight I had been on since Brazil. And, as I browsed through my mp3 player's directories, I realized I still have No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom" onboard - and inspiration for my next post hit me.

Before actually living in Brazil, I spent a good amount of time flying back and forth - roughly 2 weeks here, 2 weeks there, repeat, over and over, for 9 months. I estimate at least 12 trips in 2004 x 10 hours each x 2 (round-trip) = 240 hours = 10 days in the air. As you can imagine, I racked up some serious frequent flier miles - by 2005, I reached "Executive Platinum" status on American, their highest rewards level.

There are a few flight options from NJ to Sao Paulo. Flying direct, overnight, there was a Continental flight out of Newark and a American flight out of JFK. The flights out of Newark were usually 767s, and the rest were 777s. Takeoff time was around 11pm, and arrival at around 6-8am, depending on the time of year. If you wanted to travel during the day, the best bet was early morning on American out of Newark, stopover in Miami, then onto Brazil. This put you on the ground in Sao Paulo by about 10pm. There is also a direct American flight out of Dallas I took a few times during business trips to the West coast. I even once took a Japan Airlines flight out of JFK. This was a direct flight to Sao Paulo, but the plane was just stopping over - most of the passengers already on the plane were Japanese who had just flown the 12+ hours from Tokyo - so the air onboard was a bit stale, to be kind. The fish-jelly-rolls for breakfast didn't help matters either.

The flight from NJ to Sao Paulo is about 9-10 hours and luckily my company has a policy allowing business class for any flight over 6 hours. I preferred the 777's over the 767 for seat comfort and roominess, but the 767 had the advantage in terms of entertainment. On the 767s, each BC seat would receive its own portable DVD player with an album of about 20 DVDs - which included a well-rounded selection of just-out-of-the-theater first runs, old classics, and even TV series like the Sopranos or Cheers. I remember watching "Animal House" one night and laughing hysterically. I watched The Godfather I, II, and most of III on one flight. On the 767, you could watch movies all night, but on the 777 you were limited to just one-time through on whichever movie you picked from the in-flight selection.

The in-flight routine brought comfort to me, and I got very comfortable with it. Knowing what to expect, nearly minute by minute, took a little of the anxiety of the long flight away.

Here's how a typically flight might go, either to or from Brazil:

10:30 - Pre-Board, Flight attendants hand out choice of orange juice, champagne, or water (usually got the water), choice of newspapers (never got 'em - too hard to fold), menu
11:00pm - Take off
11:20pm - Plane leveling off at 35,000ft.
11:25pm - Flight attendants take dinner order - I would usually get the steak, but sometimes the pasta if I was in the mood.
11:40pm - Flight attendants hand out Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones. (These were great).
11:45pm - Warm nuts and wine. (I never thought about warming nuts before serving, but a few seconds in the microwave makes a difference).
12:00am - Hot towels, followed by linens for the tray table
12:00am - Around this time, the in-flight movies would start. I saw more movies in these 9 months than I have in the past 5 years. "Lost in Translation", "City of God" (not the Val Kilmer one), and this Japanese movie with subtitles that I can't remember the name of stand out as a few good ones.
12:10am - Fresh seafood course - cold crab, salmon meat
12:20am - Salad course
12:30am - Dinner
12:45am - Dessert - my favorite was the sundaes with whipped cream and butterscotch or caramel topping. I felt bad for the people in the first few rows of coach who had to smell all of this and had to be satisfied with the "Famous Amos" cookies or whatever they had.
1:00am - Clearing away the dinner plates and linens, and giving out bottles of water.

That was the last service from the Flight Attendants until breakfast. At that point, I'd just finish watching the movie. After the movie, I'd usually surf the in-flight music options. I listened to a lot of jazz and classical music - I even bought a few CDs of some jazz artists I heard onboard.

Or, I would fire up my mp3 player. Then, like now, my mp3 player carried my standard travelling albums:
- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here" and/or "Dark Side of the Moon"
- a few _Opie_and_Anthony shows
- Shades Apart, "Save It"
- No Doubt, "Tragic Kingdom"
- Other random albums or songs


The album that got the most play was "Tragic Kingdom". I played it so much, it has become forever ingrained in my memory as the soundtrack of my flights to and from Brazil. Hearing the opening drum break and horn line of "Spiderwebs" (first song on the album) places me right back into the over sized seat of business class on an American Airlines jumbo. I became a bit superstitious about this album being on my mp3 player and the supernatural effects it has upon the safe passage of my flight. So, now it has become a standard on my mp3 player - even if I don't listen to it at all during the flight, just having it there brings good luck.

Between about 1am and around 5am, I generally would try to sleep, but I never got much "Quality" sleeptime. Mostly, I channel-surfed the inflight audio selections until it repeated (about a 2 hour frequency), then I might drift into a light nap. I can still hear that hollow whirring kind-of sound of the world rushing by at 500mph. The flight attendants would usually be reading or just chatting.

By 5:00am or so, they'd wake us up for breakfast. I usually just got a bagel and some fruit.
6:30 - begin decent
7:00am - landing and onto the whole customs routine (I'll save that for another post).

Flying business class internationally meant free use of the airline "lounges". My vote for best American Airlines club is Miami, followed by Sao Paulo. All the lounges offer unlimited booze and snacks. The Miami one has a tropical theme, and the one in Sao Paulo became my respite from the chaos after going through customs and the last of Brazil for another trip. The one in JFK is just standard, and it was there I usually felt a little depressed thinking about the long trip ahead and about being away from home for the next few weeks, so I have mixed emotions about that place.

The flight was indeed long (like this post), but the routine made it more bearable. Actually, I miss the adventure of the flights. Each flight meant I was heading to another few weeks of discovering Brazil, and discovering a bit about myself too.

Sao Paulo from window of 777:

Cervejas

While in Brazil, I was fortunate enough to sample some of the local brews. Well, "sample" might be understating it. Brazilian beer is good. Really good, in fact. The beer is always served at the perfect beer temperature - just to the point when little ice-crystals start floating around in the glass. Refreshing, crisp, and delicious.

My favorite local bar was "Dekave", just around the corner from our house. I would say about once a month or so, when we had had just about enough of work for the week, a good friend and his wife, and Sweetie and I would head over to Dekave for a few "baldes de cerveja" (Buckets or beer). Picture this...a shiny aluminum bucket, filled with ice; and nestled snugglely in the middle of their ice blanket are 4 or 5 cold, cold beers. The waiter pours the beer into your glass with skill to leave the perfect head on top. Drink. Repeat. The waiters have this style there of instinctively knowing when your glass is about 1/3 empty, and as if on autopilot, come over to top of your glass. By the time this has happened a half a dozen times, you have no idea how many bottles of beer you have consumed. Oh, well. When the bill comes, you'll have some idea, if you can still perform long division at that point. We all had a lot of fun at Dekave, and although I don't remember every night, some of my fondest memories from Brazil are of those good times, just letting the hours drift by with just the right mix of friends, conversation, and beer. Sadly, Dekave closed her doors a few months before we left Brazil, but given our friends had left Brazil as well, it wasn't the same anyways.

The beer we drank was mostly Bohemia. It's one of the most popular beers in Brazil. Brazil doesn't seem to have the limitless variety of micro beers you can find here, but you won't be disappointed by their mass produced varieties. All are much better in my opinion than beers like Budweiser, Miller, or Coors. I would say the lowest on my Brazil list would be akin to an Amstel Light in quality. I'm not a beer classifying expert, but I believe they were all lagers. Also, there is no such thing as a "light" beer in Brazil. "Light" and "Dark" only refer to the color, not calorie count.

My list of favorites:
1. Bohemia - best taste, generally slightly more pricey than the rest, but worth it.
2. Antartica - great taste, seemed to have more of a "kick" than the others.
3. Brahma
4. Skol - at first I didn't like this one, but it grew on me. It's one of the cheaper beers too.
5. Honorable mention: Xingu. Xingu ("Shin-goo") is a dark beer, almost sweet in flavor, it's not one to drink if you plan on drink more than a few in a night, but once in a while it hit the spot.

"Imports" in Brazil are not as popular. You could find imported Budweiser at Wal*Mart, but since I won't touch the stuff here, I couldn't imagine drinking it there. Heineken could also be found, and actually for cheaper than you can in the US (there's apparently a Heineken brewery somewhere in Brazil). There was a German beer, Erdinger , that could be found somewhat widespread in town. It was quite expensive compared to the others, but it was really the only imported beer we drank while there. (Side note, I found this beer today at the local liquor store and bought a 6-pack. Funny that a German beer would be the catalyst for this post about Brazil).

Here are some beer commercials from Brazil. TV in general is quite a bit more revealing than the US (see post on Boa Noite, Brazil), but these are tame and should not offend my more sensitive readers.

These are in Portuguese, so if you don't speak it, you may have some trouble getting the jokes. But, the visuals should be enough to give you the idea. The first two are my favorites.

Basic premise of the first one: This guy goes to eye doctor because everything he sees is square (square used as a metaphor for routine, ordinary, plain). After drinking a Skol beer, he begins to see circles everywhere - it's a miracle! The lovely eye doctor's assistant says "no...not again...he's cured".

In the second one, another guy, hearing about the good fortune of his buddy, tries his luck at the eye doctor's, pretending not to see circles. However, the lovely assistant is on vacation, so a different assistant is on duty. Hilarity ensues. At the end, he says to the lovely model, "Dona Carminha, come back from vacation, for the good of science!" Well, maybe it looses something in translation...

Enjoy.

Discovery Atlas: Brazil

Tonight, the Discovery Channel will be featuring Brazil in their Discovery Atlas series. I'm anxious to see what they cover. From the looks of the website, it appears to focus a on the Amazon, Carnaval, and Rio - the iconic "Brazil". I hope they delve a little deeper..

Here's a link about the series: http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/atlas/brazil/brazil.html?clik=visit_site

Bem-vindo

According to my Statcounter account, it would appear I’ve had my first visitor from Brazil. This person was searching search.blogger.com (the Portuguese version) for “desfile lingerie”, and came across the 11th listing, which was my post on Boa Noite, Brasil. I’m willing to bet my site wasn’t exactly the kind of “information” he was seeking regarding lingerie parades, but he landed here nonetheless. I wonder if he stayed around long enough to read any of my other posts? I’ve had no other hits from Brazil since then, so I guess he didn’t bookmark it.

Meu novo amigo brasileiro, se você retorna aqui, escreva uma nota em “comments” com sua opinião sobre meu blog.

Interestingly, I've been getting about 100 hits per week. Ok, so I'm not exactly waiting around to be bought out by Google, and most of the hits seem to come from me or people looking for lingerie or "Chile presidental parade"; but, still, I'm surprised.

BBQ, Part II

The last time I posted the picanha had just hit the BBQ, and was cooking nicely. As you can tell from some of the pictures, the BBQ itself is much different than the propane grill type we are accustomed to. It's more similar to a pit-type BBQ.
Behind the grill area, is a wall of bricks with 21 holes each across their face. These holes form a grid-like pattern, and with a couple of adjustable height cross-bars in front, you have the ability to easily adjust the food's location with respect to the heat. This is why there are do many different types of skewers, to accommodate how to best support and position the food. I was better able to control the cooking with this setup, versus my propane grill in NJ.

Now that you know the secret to how the meat was cooked, here are the rest of the details on the picanha. After it chars on both sides a bit, take the meat off the fire and scrape the excess salt off (this is a trick that Pupio, the butcher from the butchershop I mentioned previously, taught me). Then, back to the flame. It took about 45 minutes or so to thoroughly cook a big picanha like this one - but worth every minute of the wait.

The taste of the picanha was really moist, tender, and flavorful. The natural taste of the meat - remember, no fancy sauces here. Can you really tell the difference in taste based on where the beef was from? Absolutely. The meat from Brazil was great, don't get me wrong. Brazil is known for their beef, and I can see why. But, the Argentinian was really special.

So, there you have it. That was a typical Sunday night in Brazil. I usually fired the BBQ up around 4pm, and we'd sit outside and have some quality time by the pool, maybe drinking some Bohemia's or Caipirinhas (look for these in other posts), just soaking it all in.

To bring it all together, here's a quick video.



Click here for FULL SCREEN.

Backyard BBQ

As I started back on Atkins again this week after putting on the "Re-Patriation 10", I've been eating a lot of beef lately. Beef - they say that Americans eat too much meat...obviously "they" have never been to Brazil. Brazilians have some very strong meat-related traditions, and the preferred style is BBQ. I'm sure in another post I'll deal with "Churrascarias", the Brazilian BBQ restaurants. (You've probably seen ads for ones in Dallas while perusing through the magazine conveniently provided in the seat back in front of you.) In this post, I'm going to guide you through what became a near weekly ritual for us - cooking BBQ in the beautiful BBQ pit on our gorgeous indoor/outdoor back patio.

This photo only shows the BBQ pit area, which was great in itself; I'll have to find some more pictures of the whole patio area. It really was my favorite room in the house. On weekend mornings, I would often just sit out there, relaxing, watching the hummingbirds stick their darty-beaks into the Bird of Paradise plants, and thinking "You don't see that in Jersey". I miss it.

Back to the BBQ routine...

A very popular cut of beef in Brazil is called "picanha" (pee-con-nhya). It's a cut you don't get at the ShopRite here, but, hey, it's all from the same beast. This particular cut comes from somewhere near the back end, I won't get too specific. Follow the link. I used to buy Argentinian beef from this great butcher shop in town. Good quality meats are about 1/3 of the price of here, much more than that if you consider that I got TOP quality beef at unbelievable prices. The piece like the one below probably set me back about R$25 - roughly $10. Imagine.

1. First Step: Buy the essentials. The Meat and coarse salt. And, of course, charcoal made from eucalyptus trees.



2. Fill the BBQ pit with the charcoal, and light. Usually the lighting involved copious amounts of alcohol-gel to get it going. In reality, if I had the patience, I could have used one bottle per year of the stuff vs. the bottle that went up in flames every two weekends.

3. Prepare the meat. The style here is minimalistic - no fancy BBQ sauces, no spicy rubs, or "secret" sauces - just meat and salt. Instructions. Cover meat with salt. Pat. Let stand. (for those with high BP, don't worry, the salt comes off later).





4. Choose the skewer. I had many to pick from: Single skewer, Double Skewer, or the "clam shell". I usually went with the clamshell for picanha - the skewer ones poked holes in the meat and I figured would let the moisture out. In the artsy-shot below, you can see the Bird-of-Paradise plant in the background, and our pool.


5. After clam-shelling, it's onto the pit. That's the picanha in the middle. I usually made some hotdogs for Edge, and a basket of mixed veggies, which you can see on the side.



This is getting to be a long post, and I'll admit that I am a bit frustrated with Bloggers ability to put the pictures where I want them without having to adjust the code. So, for now, I'll leave you full of anxiety as to what comes next for our dear picanha.