A Mini Gastronomic Guide to São Paulo

 During my most recent trip to Brazil, I dedicated my stay in São Paulo to seeing dear friends while eating great food. In a city the size of São Paulo there are thousands of restaurant options, but is always good to have the insight of the locals.
I hope this mini guide will be useful not just to those who are visiting São Paulo, but also to those who live there and would like to try out a new place.

My first day in SP was very inspiring; I spent it with my friend Xênia, a talented singer and song writer to the Brazilian band Aláfia.  After catching up for a couple of hours, we went out for lunch with another great friend of ours, Samira (about whom I previously wrote a post - click here to see it) and by Julio, Xênia's roommate who is also a musician.

The place of choice was Mercearia (Rua Rodésia, 34) at the Vila Madalena neighborhood. Mercearia is a traditional bar and restaurant in the neighborhood and the hot spot to many Brazilian artists. The main dishes are à la carte, they change according to the week days and come with all you can eat buffet. A simple menu and hype crowd make this a fun place to be.

We had dessert and coffee at the place next door, Café Vintage (Rua Rodésia, 76), a very cute place that also serves food and have a vintage store inside.

In the neighborhood Pinheiros I met my childhood friend Sarinha (about whom I previously wrote a post too - click here to see it). She took me to a place called Goa (Rua Cônego Eugênio Leite, 1152) a sophisticated vegetarian restaurant where not just the food is great but also the ambiance and service. The prix fixe menu of a starter, main dish, dessert and fresh juice changes daily. During weekdays at lunch time the full menu comes at R$28,90 and the executive menu at R$24.

Sarinha also took me for an afternoon coffee and cake at Deli Paris (Rua Harmonia, 484), a french style café that offers delicious sweet and savory options.

Bistrô O Chá (Rua Aspicuelta, 258) was also introduced to me by Sarinha. A tea house franchise from Lisbon, this place is cozy and the menu counts with dozens of tea options from all over the world. Plus the food is great too!

My meeting with my dearest Daphne was fast but delicious. She took me to Be Fresh (Prof. Carlos de Carvalho, 95, Itaim Bibi), a healthy food restaurant, with many vegetarian options. For those who like to combine light food and relaxed environment.

P.S: Just a reminder that everything writen in blue is a link that will take you to the website of the places (I couldn't find websites to all the restaurants listed in this post). Enjoy!

Summer Recipe

It's cherry season! Both Curtis and I love these little fruits and are always trying new ways to incorporate them to our menu, so I decided to share a recipe for those who are also cherry lovers. This salad is great for picnics and barbecues or just for any other hot summer day.

The main ingredient in this recipe is quinoa, a seed which is considered a superfood for it's rich in protein, fiber, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and iron. Quinoa is also gluten free. It is recommended that the seeds be germinated before it's consumption as it doubles it's nutritional value and activate it's natural enzimes. To do so, simply place quinoa seeds in a bowl with cold water for 2 to 4 hours.

QUINOA SALAD WITH CHERRIES

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

1.5 cup quinoa
2 cups spinach leaves
2 cups of fresh cherries, pitted and halved
1 cucumber, peeled and diced
1/4 cup of almonds
1 (15oz) can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup plain yogurt (any kind you like)
3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
3 garlic cloves, minced

METHOD

Roast almonds in a frying pan with no oil or butter for about 3 to 5 minutes or until golden.

Bring 3 cups of salted water to a boil, stir in quinoa, reduce heat and simmer ultill all liquid has evaporated (about 15 min).

Chop spinach by laying about 6 leaves on top of one another, rolling into cylinders and slicing into slivers.

Dressing: Whisk together olive oil, yogurt, lemon juice and garlic.

Place all ingredients in a bowl and pour dressing over, mix well.

Serve room temperature or chill before serving. Bon appetit!

I didn't have any almonds this time so I replaced it with sunflower seeds

Curry with a Story

In 2011 I had the opportunity to visit India with my friend Ana Letícia. As we traveled to several different parts of the country, I think we can agree that one of the nicest experiences we had was a cooking class we took while in Udaipur.
That we were going to learn a lot about indian food we already knew, but we had no idea that we were about to have a lesson in culture, strength and courage from our hostess Shashi.

We were welcomed with enthusiasm by her, to her simple home, and after she placed a bindi on each of our foreheads, she started to tell us her story. She was married by her family to a complete stranger, a man that didn't even speak the same language as herself. They had two kids, and by the time the oldest one was 9, her husband died. Forced to follow his culture's costumes, disallowing her to ever remarry, she was also put through an extensive mourning period where she was not allowed to leave her house. During this period, the late husbands family constantly checked on her to see if she was doing as she was expected but never did they help her and the children, financially or in any other way.
She started doing laundry for a nearby guest house during the night in order not to be discovered, till one day the guest house owner came over to her place while she was cooking one night and ended up staying over for dinner. He loved the food and suggested that she would start teaching cooking lessons, as many of his guest always asked for it. She didn't speak English at the time and her first answer was no, but her son reminded her that she also did not speak Hindi when she first married her husband but that she later learned it.
She gave it a shot, and her first students were a couple of Australians. She had to mimic her way trough the whole thing and wrote instructions in Hindi in a piece of paper. The next day the couple came back, with the whole thing translated onto a CD, so she would only have to print out the recipes for the next students.
Today she has it translated to French, German and Portuguese. One of her students later on started her blog, by which way we found her.
Beside all this the food was delicious! Here is Shashi's curry recipe that is always a big success in my kitchen:

INGREDIENTS:

Me at Shashi's kitchen

- 2 tablespoons of oil
- A pinch of cumin
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 large onion
- A piece of ginger about 1 inch long
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 teaspoon of coriander powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of red chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- A pinch of turmeric
- A couple of vegetables of your choice, some of the most common combinations are:
*cauliflower, potato and tomato
*peas and potato
*eggplant and tomato

METHOD:

My friend Ana learning from the master

Cut the onion in half, dice one half and put the other half in a food processor with the ginger, garlic and a pinch of salt until smooth.
Add oil to a large pan over medium-high heat. Add cumin and diced onion and let it cook for a minute.
Add to the pan the food processor mixture and cook until the onion starts to turn golden.
Add coriander, red chili, turmeric and salt to the pan plus 1/2 cup of water and mix well.
Add the vegetables of your choice (but not the tomatoes) and cook for 5 minutes with the pan covered.
Add tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes.
Check a piece of vegetable to see if it's cooked, otherwise keep on adding water little by little until it's done.
Serve with white rice.

The result - kohlrabi and potato curry with white rice. I also used the kohlrabi greens to make a side dish.
Bon appetit!

A New Way to do Groceries

I’m one of those people who hates supermarkets. While I love selecting my own fruits and vegetables, I just can’t get into the supermarket ambiance, the a.c, the line at the cashier, all those plastic bags, it drives me nuts. But I love a good farmers market, I can walk around one for 5 hours and not get tired.

And I think a lot of people agree with me on supermarkets as many of my friends and aquaintaces are now doing the home delivery thing where you go online, choose what you want from a menu and they deliver it to your door. It is a lot more convenient, even though you can’t select your own potatoes but I can’t stop thinking where are all these products stored at? And I immediately think of a huge climatized warehouse, with a bunch of refrigerators and neon lights, very much like a supermarket.

In January, Curtis and I moved to a new place. Right on the first week as I was walking our dog I saw a poster of a group called Next Door Organics and I took interest on it. You basically sign up for the program and they deliver a bag of groceries with your name on it to a participating business near you. The size of the bag is based on the weekly amount you choose to pay.

For this you became a member of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), which means you are buying a “share” of a local farmer’s produce. The best part is that all the produce is seasonal and organic. You can also ask them to include eggs, cheese and bread to your basket.

For us it has been a great experience. Every week we get our surprise grocery bag. As the products are seasonal we don’t get to choose what we want, the good think about this is that while we always tend to grab the same stuff while doing groceries, we never eat the same anymore now that CSA select our produce.

During the winter we got a lot of root vegetables, winter greens, dried fruits. They also aways send grains, herbs, mushrooms, and sometimes prepared foods from locals like pickles or chocolates.

An example of what our variety pack looks like

It is so good to know that none of my veggies pass by a supermarket before getting to me, instead they all come straight to our table. Couldn’t be better.

Check out the NextDoor Organics website www.nextdoororganics.com

P.S: A lot of people told me they were having trouble posting comments on the blog, so I changed the settings so a pop up window should come up when you click on comments. I hope that solves it.