Our street is one of many that are cobblestoned,
They look nicer in the rain but I'm not usually taking photos in the rain. When they needed to work on the water pipes they just pulled up a section of cobblestones and then put them back. Many places the mortar either doesn't really exist or is below the stones' tops. Often they just put sand down and let it work itself between bricks, tiles, or stones.
you'll love the Portuguese word for cobblestones, paralelepípedos
Say it fast three times....
Better bread - I bought some other pans, long metal ones. They look like foot-long loaves but I measured and they are only eleven inches. The oven even stayed fairly consistent in temperature this time. I'm finding that using twice as much yeast and planning on double the rising time works pretty well. Definitely more successful than the slightly curved heavy glass pans. And perfect for my half-recipe and oven size. I do have to turn them around halfway through cooking time.
The temple missionaries found a great restaurant that Durk was a bit leery about since they are big on vegetarian/vegan/organic....but he really enjoyed his meal. The food was new to us but delicious. I had pumpkin (possibly, the same word is used for most winter squashes) with fresh mushrooms! (first time I ever saw fresh mushrooms mentioned or available here) topped with chia and some other crumbly stuff and slivered almonds, Durk had moqueca with hearts of palm and coconut rice (big shreds of coconut). Those that had orange chicken had a gorgeous side of vegetables. Sister Chambers had beet rice and thought it looked like raw hamburger.
They have a market on the ground floor with various "health foods" and we found almond milk! (The local was more expensive than Blue Diamond.) They have some frozen healthy foods that I thought might give us a good option for emergency meals but the price was extreme - one serving of quinoa pilaf for about $5.
I did not have to rig up something with the heavy glass shelf we bought on our big scavenger hunt after all. Our neighbor Jose asked about what it was I needed and went home and built me quite a solid light table! He used things he had on hand, including a lighter but bigger piece of tempered glass. Now I just need to find some free time when I'm not too tired and can do some lettering.
Once in a while I find some pretty nice looking cauliflower (not often) and it is much "looser" than we are used to. And may have lovely blue worms .....
I used some of the veg to make a pasta salad but I had to use different pasta than I planned, due to live additions to the pasta container that I thought was helping keep it safe. I didn't video, if you really want to you can imagine all the dots below to be running around.
eeeeek....they are working on the fire alarm system at the office, they keep setting it off to test and believe me, we are awake. It's a pretty piercing sound. Apparently at least seven months ago the fire alarm went off during a meeting and no one could turn it off so they cut the wires in every alarm box! So he is fixing and testing every single spot where there is an alarm. My ears are ringing.
A few days later, he came back to finish and every now and then we get to hear it again, yikes.
More food, this week we got to try pinhões (the plural of pinhão). Durk remembers tasty wood-stove toasted ones. These are boiled and not particularly flavorful.
They are basically giant pine nuts and are grown and very popular in the south. It takes a sharp knife to cut through the husk.
You can still see the hump of the wood-fired pizza oven back in the corner where they are starting to get a lot more done with the deconstruction across the street from our apartment.
It was sort of a relief to have this mess when they knocked the other walls down because part had become a big trash dump.
Sunday they brought in the big equipment and cleared it all out. Well, not quite all for some reason, but close.
Across the street from the office/chapel there is a lovely house that has been getting repainted. We think we should upgrade our housing and move in. Actually Housemans wouldn't mind living that close but can't convince anyone to buy it for the mission home.
It would be fun to see the inside. We have a new English student who is a realtor and talked to us about it. He says it would possibly rent for about 5000 Reais per month (about $1,250). It wouldn't have central air or clean water from the taps, of course, and may have a century worth of bugs, who knows.... It is bigger than these photos show as it goes back quite a ways.
I grabbed a few shots from a taxi window of places we pass by often, like this interesting building:
Here is one reason why the traffic is not very fast through Recife, an average one-way street, cars parked on both sides, people wandering along, some places there might be a horsecart now and then, but the motorcycles can really get through quickly.
Caja tastes a little like peach maybe....
Say it fast three times....
Better bread - I bought some other pans, long metal ones. They look like foot-long loaves but I measured and they are only eleven inches. The oven even stayed fairly consistent in temperature this time. I'm finding that using twice as much yeast and planning on double the rising time works pretty well. Definitely more successful than the slightly curved heavy glass pans. And perfect for my half-recipe and oven size. I do have to turn them around halfway through cooking time.
The temple missionaries found a great restaurant that Durk was a bit leery about since they are big on vegetarian/vegan/organic....but he really enjoyed his meal. The food was new to us but delicious. I had pumpkin (possibly, the same word is used for most winter squashes) with fresh mushrooms! (first time I ever saw fresh mushrooms mentioned or available here) topped with chia and some other crumbly stuff and slivered almonds, Durk had moqueca with hearts of palm and coconut rice (big shreds of coconut). Those that had orange chicken had a gorgeous side of vegetables. Sister Chambers had beet rice and thought it looked like raw hamburger.
They have a market on the ground floor with various "health foods" and we found almond milk! (The local was more expensive than Blue Diamond.) They have some frozen healthy foods that I thought might give us a good option for emergency meals but the price was extreme - one serving of quinoa pilaf for about $5.
I did not have to rig up something with the heavy glass shelf we bought on our big scavenger hunt after all. Our neighbor Jose asked about what it was I needed and went home and built me quite a solid light table! He used things he had on hand, including a lighter but bigger piece of tempered glass. Now I just need to find some free time when I'm not too tired and can do some lettering.
eeeeek....they are working on the fire alarm system at the office, they keep setting it off to test and believe me, we are awake. It's a pretty piercing sound. Apparently at least seven months ago the fire alarm went off during a meeting and no one could turn it off so they cut the wires in every alarm box! So he is fixing and testing every single spot where there is an alarm. My ears are ringing.
A few days later, he came back to finish and every now and then we get to hear it again, yikes.
Sunday they brought in the big equipment and cleared it all out. Well, not quite all for some reason, but close.
Across the street from the office/chapel there is a lovely house that has been getting repainted. We think we should upgrade our housing and move in. Actually Housemans wouldn't mind living that close but can't convince anyone to buy it for the mission home.
I grabbed a few shots from a taxi window of places we pass by often, like this interesting building:
Here is one reason why the traffic is not very fast through Recife, an average one-way street, cars parked on both sides, people wandering along, some places there might be a horsecart now and then, but the motorcycles can really get through quickly.
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