It's been a while since I've posted. Not much interesting to comment on in Sao Paulo these days. Same old thing with explosions - but this time in Rio, and more recently at New Years. Thank goodness the explosions at New Years were the good kind: Fireworks!
Christmas we celebrated here at the "white house" with friends and their son. I made Turkey, stuffing, and gravy for the first time ever. It was rewarding, but I'm still weighing up if it was really worth it to have sweat so profusely for only a few minutes of dining pleasure. Perhaps I'm getting sentimental in my old age & yearning for those sweet years of Fondue & Lasagne. I'm thinking of re-starting the tradition for 2007. The japanese squash tart which was brought as well as the balsamic fig dip definitely won the prizes for best x-mas food in my books; perhaps because I didn't have to make them?
After a stint at the beach, we came back to SP for New Years at Eduardo's place. It was wonderful in all the ways I could never have imaged New Years could be before coming to Brazil.
The festivities started at 8pm, and people kept streaming in until around 10 or so. The BBQ was fired up around 9 and you can't imagine how many pounds of salted marianted succulent beef, pork, chicken, sausage, etc etc etc were grilled until well into the early hours of the morning. A group of men took turns attending to the meat, and were never far from the kegger in order to keep cool with a few cool beers. The only accompaniment deemed necessary by Brazilians for this fired-up splendour was a fresh salsa of tomatoes & onions, as well as a huge pot of rice, and a bowl of the most mayonaissy potato & veg salad EVER. Some veg with your mayo? Ecca... I guess that's why they call the salad Mayonnaise.
Fireworks had started the night before, and all through the afternoon you could hear boys setting them off. Things really got going around 11:30 and even in the modest neighborhood were we celebrated the show was phenomenal. The most interesting for me was watching a massive firework go off by mistake on the ground (yes mom well away from where we were standing) and then hear all the people around comment on who they know who had lost digits (and in one particularly macabre story a limb) from setting off fireworks stupidly or while under the influence.
I was liberated by a child who slept from 7pm (in the car on the way to the party) until 11:30 pm. He woke just in time for the show, and it was amazing that as the fireworks started to really go off, he remembered what we had told him last year to calm his fears: Buzz Lightyear was up there.
After embracing almost everyone with kisses & wishes for "tudo de bom" for 2007, we retired back to the house for the secret friend gift exchange in which people provided comical clues as to who their secret friend was. It mellowed out but the men kept on the beer and chilled until the sun rose when they roused all the sleeping beauties for a game of 6am footie. Chris joined the crew and appeared under the window at 9am looking rough but victorious. Big breakfast, lots of super-sweet coffee (a-la-Zilpa) and then things just started again. People flooded back into the house and cranked up the keg again, put coals on the fire, and the volume increased gradually until about 4pm when due to exhaustion and nasty exhausted kids they reluctantly embraced the world, kissed profusely & went home.
All in all a lovely experience. Relaxing. No prizes for best dress. No lipstick. No stress. Tudo de bom.
I hope all future new year's celebrations will be so good.
