The Beauty of the Pinterest Recipe

I spent some time tonight after church talking with a lady there who is from Brazil.  She and I were comparing notes about my recent trip, and we started talking about food. She expressed how much she missed certain dishes and items from Brazil.  I know what she means.

Why is it always the food that we miss when we leave a place?  Why does what we eat become such an evocative reminder of somewhere we love?

The taste of green tea, good green, always takes me back to Japan.  It makes me think of all sorts of things...sitting and talking with friends, coming cold and tired into the train station in Nagoya and having a bowl of gold-flake matcha, having green tea soft serve ice cream at the annual pottery festival in Seto.

There are other things that take me other places.  Spicy green curry makes me think of Chiang Mai and walking up all.those.steps to get to the temple at the top, the little hotel where I stayed where I slept in mosquito netting, the market where I bought a cheap pair of flip flops and ate coconut balls off leaves, the bicycle with the broken seat I rode around Sukothai.   Oddly enough, guacamole also always makes me think of Japan where I learned to make it from a fellow teacher.  Thanksgiving dinner carries me back to my college days at State when my friends and I commandeered the Wesley Foundation kitchen and made a meal for about twenty people.

There are dishes from Brazil I want to learn to make.  Feijoada, a sort of black bean and pork stew for lack of a more accurate definition, is the first one.  I adore it, and it is linked to both my recent trip and a friend I lost track of a long time ago who introduced it to me.  Brigadero is a sweet that we were served in almost every classroom party we were given.  Tonight, after my conversation, I decided to see if I might be able to find some easy recipes for these things.

God bless Pinterest.  I think everything is there.  I did a quick search, and I found the things I was looking for.  Next week, I am going to attempt the feijoada.  I didn't get to bring home the proper stone pot, but I will substitute my crockpot instead.

I don't know if my plans for getting back to any of the places that are special in my heart will succeed.  Until such time as they do, I will keep my memories of it all alive through my photos, the assorted bits and pieces I brought back, and my kitchen.