Brazilian Holiday Cakes

Our friends from Brazil came to visit this past week. This was the first time the happy couple have visited together. Prior to the marriage the USA consulate, in their infinite wisdom, would not give Rafael's girlfriend / fiance a visa.

Anyway, the Chief and I have visited together with them in Brazil. We have even spent vacation time (in addition to when I was working) and went to the beach with them.

Whenever Rafael has visited the USA he has always brought gifts for us. This trip was no exception. One of the things we liked during our visit to the beach was one of the holiday cakes that you can purchase in the local grocery stores. I think they are available all over Brazil but I have not been all over Brazil to know that for certain, yet. They are nothing like fruit cake. This particular cake is chocolate chip.

They brought us one of these cakes! We are talking awesome!

The only bad thing about this cake is that once you open it you can sit and eat the entire cake if you are not careful.

I'm taking the rest into work tomorrow to share a little bit of the love...

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Chief Chicken Ranch

The Chief does not cook very much. She does not really like to cook and that is ok. I enjoy cooking and I normally make things that she likes even though it is a little difficult with her outlook on food (link). Nothing green is allowed except for lettuce and not a lot of that. Although, recently we have found a local restaurant that has a good Greek salad that the Chief likes. We may eat there every couple weeks.

When the Chief does cook she usually starts drinking. She is not a heavy drinker at all. Normally she will consume a glass of wine or perhaps two, normally is is about 1 and a quarter... She also likes the occasional apple martini which is a vodka martini with Apple Pucker added. She normally cooks when I am not home, perhaps on a business trip. That is ok it is better than eating out all the time. I usually get some of the leftover food for when I return home.

The Chief cooks a number of things that she calls her specialties. These include tater tot casserole, seafood lasagna, chicken and cheese enchiladas, cheesy potato soup and her newest dish is called Chief Ranch Chicken. Actually it is called Ranch Chicken and I just named it because I think she modified the recipe slightly to better suit her taste. I think the dish that I like the best is the chicken and cheese enchiladas.

As far as I can tell the recipe consists of:

• Chicken Breast
• Cheese
• More cheese

The entire dish is then baked until the chicken is cooked and the cheese is slightly browned around the edges.

Now, I like cheese. I think it is tasty. I like baked cheese. I enjoy festivals where you find “fried stuff with cheese.” I will put cheese on breakfast eggs and on salads.

Since the Chief likes this dish and only makes it when I am travelling, it took quite a while before I was able to have some. The Chief made an extra dish of it the last time she made it. When I returned there were two pieces of chicken remaining. I go the refrigerator and take out the dish and take out one of the two chicken breasts and put it on a plate to cut and reheat. The chicken is covered and surrounded with cheese. Maybe, I should call it a cheese crater. See for yourself:

Yum, yum cheesy goodness.

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In other news… I like to make home brewed iced tea and take it to work to drink throughout the day. I make a mint tea that is caffeine free. One batch makes about two liters of tea. I use 4 regular sized tea bags and an iced tea maker.

The procedure is:

1. Fill iced tea maker with water 
2. Fill tea pitcher with ice to the line 
3. Add tea or tea bags to the iced tea maker 
4. Shut lid and press start 
5. Wait until it is finished brewing and pour into a glass and drink

Last week I made tea and this was the result.

I think we had a failure to follow step number 3.

N00b = Me

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Who's Tasting Who

I am not a picky eater by any stretch of the imagination. The Chief is some what picky when it comes to what is put on the table in front of her. When you travel for business to foreign countries you don't always get to eat what you normally would at home. Sometimes you have to eat the local fare. I know there are people that only eat meat and potatoes. That is difficult when traveling in Asia, especially if you don't consider rice to be a kind of small white potato...

Hotels are kind of strange when it comes to food. Especially business hotels in Asia. They always try to cater to the business visitor and have some choices that are Western. They almost always have a breakfast buffet and some of the items strike me as a little odd. I have been known to eat some things not considered breakfast food for breakfast: such as a pork chop and steamed broccoli, or rib-eye steak with sauteed peppers and onions.

Some of the stranger things that I found for breakfast on this recent trip to China are:

Spaghetti along side hashed brown potatoes. The potatoes look good with the peppers and onions added.

Macaroni and cheese along side yams.

Some of the items are a little more regional: such as the Taiwan Sausage or the Morning Tea Sausage. I don't know which is which but they were both pretty good.

Sometimes there is what I would consider bar food for breakfast such as pumpkin pie. But it is not traditional USA variety pumpkin pie. This is deep fried pumpkin pie along side deep fried radish cakes. I did not try these. I am not a huge fan of traditional pumpkin pie due to getting an upset stomach after eating too much (all the pie except one piece - with extra whipped topping, of course).

I also found another use for a coffee mug tree. Note the use of the first versus the use of the second at the breakfast buffet at the hotel.

Sometimes I eat some strange things. My philosophy is I will eat it if others at the table also eat it. If it is something odd and I'm not sure how to eat it, I always let someone else eat first. This is somewhat easier with Chinese style dining since many different dishes are placed on the table and you can take what you like from each one. That gives some time to watch others eat a particular dish before you try it yourself. The other difficulty comes from dining utensils. I don't like to look like a n00b from the USA, even though it is inevitable, but I always use chop sticks. I'm not too bad using them but I'm nowhere near as good as a "native." 

This trip showed me two new items, one beverage and one main dish. The beverage is baijiu. It is a distilled liquor. The version we were drinking was 55% alcohol or 110 proof. It is pretty strong stuff. The way you drink it is by putting it into a small pitcher, maybe a third or a quarter of a cup of liquid. Then you pour it into a small miniature shot glass. The small shot glasses are about one fifth the size of a normal USA shot glass. This is good because it spreads out the alchoholic goodness and prevents severe drunkenness.    

The second thing I ate that was new to me was the following. Do you know what it is?

  

It is duck tongue. Shown are at least 6 duck tongues. They were kind of pickled and had a bit of spice to them. There was also a nice piece of cartilage down the middle of the tongue. You ate the softer part off the outside. It wasn't too bad. I ate three or four of them before the night was over. While I was eating them I was wondering if the duck could taste me too. 

If you look at the top right hand corner of the picture with the duck tongue, you can see the pitcher used to hold and pour the baijiu into the small shot glass.

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On an unrelated note... Happy Birthday to Ashley on Sunday... she asked for it.

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Many Moods

When I visit other countries I normally exchange some money. Some countries that I go to I don't change much money because I can use credit cards for everything. I normally exchange a small amount of cash for incidentals.

One neat thing about foreign money is the variety of different styles and decorations on the money. For example, the Euro paper bills are all the same regardless of the country printing them but the coins are all different. One side is the same for all member countries while the other side is as individual as the country minting it. I didn't know a lot about the Euro and I found out this tidbit by accident when looking at money I brought back from a recent trip.

On this last trip to China I changed US$120 initially into Renminbi or RMB. I got 700 RMB for my US$120 which is a bit of a screwing. There was a 50rmb service charge and the exchange rate was not so good. That is what I get for exchanging money at the airport. Normally you get a decent rate at the airport...

I expected to need some money for some food, like a quick lunch, subway ticket or something at a train station or a souvenir here or there. I did not know that I needed to use my own cash for the train tickets we would take. For that reason I needed to get some more money from an ATM. The first ATM I tried was a Bank of China ATM and it did not work. I would input my card, type in my PIN and then the only option in either the checking or savings menu was to check the balance. There was no option to withdraw money. OK, so I tried to check the balance... FAIL. That did not work either.

I did not tell my bank that I was going to be travelling and that I might need to withdraw some money. So I get on the phone and call. They look up my account and tell me there was no request to withdraw money, duh, big red truck... I didn't have that as an option. The banker guy told me that I should try to find a different type of ATM. Later that day I found another ATM at the train station. This time it was a Citi ATM and I was able to get more cash.

In the United States we have dead presidents' pictures on our currency. In a communist country the money has the picture of the current head of state. I saved some of the money so I could share. Here are some of the paper bills.

In this first 5 RMB note, you can see by the portrait that he was obviously having a good hair day and that I think his request to his personal hair dresser was to "make it poofy on the sides." I think the hair dresser was probably executed... not for lack of skill but for making the most benevolent leader's hair too poofy on the sides.

The next denomination of cash is obviously a 10 RMB. The current exchange rate makes this about US$1.50. We can also clearly see that while posing for this portrait the benevolent leader was obviously a little upset. Perhaps he misses his hair dresser.

A 20 RMB note shows the benevolent leader as surprised.

A 50 RMB note shows his anger, or maybe that is constipation.

Finally the 100 RMB note (US$15.50). The emotion here is obviously laughter. He probably heard some type of joke where a Priest, a Rabbi, and Chuck Norris walk into a bar... roundhouse kicks ensue.

Here is also a sign that I found during my various visits through the Chinese factories.

This can only mean one of two possible things.

1. You cannot go through this door if you head is not attached.
2. No dancing next to the door.

No one did anything when I danced next to the door...

Next post will be about food.

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Found Him!

For all of you hunters out there, both amateur and professional, I have to say that I beat you. I found him first.

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The Foreign Market

One of the things I love about traveling abroad is the strange use of the English language. Of course there is the fact that besides English, I speak only a little Spanish and because of that I sometimes feel like an idiot – or at least ignorant. That being said, I took some pictures of strange signs. I had to wait until I returned from China before I could get to some of the pictures because my phone is lame and cannot send or transfer pictures when in foreign countries.

I visited a supermarket in China while I was here. I think it was pretty cool since it is obviously not a place the tourists frequent. This store has some of everything, clothing, house wares, electronics and food. The food section was very interesting. There are the traditional canned and boxed foods as found in supermarkets in the USA. There are aquariums with the freshest selection of foods. This is not altogether unknown to me.

There are a lot of restaurants in Asia that have aquariums when you walk in and actually pick out the fish you want to eat. Then it is prepared for you while you are waiting. Here is a picture of the Chief’s ass when we were visiting a seafood restaurant on the beach in Malaysia, note the aquariums beside her.

This supermarket had the traditional fish fare as seen in this first picture. The main difference is people take the live food home and prepare it. Talk about fresh. It also give you a better appreciation for where our food comes from. 

In addition to the normal fish, they also have some things that I consider non-standard such as turtles and some squid packed on ice.

But what else is that in the picture? Frogs? Yes, frogs.

I have had frog legs before but I don’t think they have ever been this fresh… even when my brother and I were snaring them with fishing poles at pond next to our home growing up. Eventually we caught enough to make it worthwhile to clean and eat them.

While walking though the supermarket one other sign peaked my interest. I think it is instructions on how to wear a bra but I’m not sure. It also seems like this would be better placed in a dressing room (I did not see any of these or dressing rooms).

OK. So let us see if I understand how to put a bra on. I don’t have any experience with that, my limited  bra experience is in taking them off and tossing them to the floor or using them as a hat after the Chief has finished the laundry… So now we can go through the steps as I see them:

1.   After putting on the bra it looks like you need to punch yourself just north of your kidneys using both hands in a kind of "thumbs up" fist. 

2.   Then you need to punch yourself above the right breast using your left hand. Use your right hand to make sure you don’t punch too high.

3.   Scratch your lower back using both hands in a twisting motion.

4.   Cut off your right hand wrist and fondle your left breast using your left hand while holding the top of the left breast with your bloody stump.

  

I kind of feel sorry for the right breast… it gets left out of the fun.

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