Welcome to my Kitchen

Posted on October 5, 2007. Filed under: Brazil, food, more food | Tags: Brazil, cooking, food, kitchen, Latin American cuisine, local ingredients, Rio de Janeiro |

Welcome to my kitchen in Brazil. I am an American living in Brazil for quite sometime. I am creating this blog to capture some of the interesting things that we do with the treasures from our butchers, bakers, green grocers and on really special occasions our garden. I feel extremely fortunate to live in a small town in the state of Rio de Janeiro where we have access to a great variety of locally produced materia prima, from meats and poultry, to year round fruits and vegetables and local fresh dairy and eggs. There is even a nearby cremerie making a french style chevre. It is ingredients paradise.

I am not a trained chef, but I have worked in kitchens. I teach cooking and do a culinary spot for a local TV station. My greatest experiences in the kitchen have happened in trying to bridge the gap between the world I left and the world in which I live. For instance when I learned to make my own tortillas in a world where there are none, or walked a local butcher through Martha Stewart’s Pork Crown 101. And, I have learned so much from Brazilian cuisine, since attempting a Brazilian recipe for the first time. It was João Ubaldo Ribeira’s fish moqueca. My pocket português-inglês dictionary couldn’t help me make a dent in his subtle ironies.

I hope that anyone reading these entries will come away with something new, something they didn’t know or only assumed about Brazil, or living abroad or cooking with local ingredients, or whatever comes out of this. I hope that the recipes are clear and easy follow. Most of all, I hope that what I have written will inspire the reader to cook with love and joy.