Meat Chips

A long time ago I mentioned meat-flavored potato chips in a post. I did not elaborate. I promised I would in the future, and then I never did. How rude. I hope none of you have lost sleep wondering about the whos, whats, wheres, and mainly whys of meat-flavored chips.

Wonder.No.Longer


Ta-da:

A healthy, but by no means exhaustive, selection of meat-flavored chips.

Let's move in order from those I feel most comfortable with to those I tend to shy away from.

I am fairly comfortable with BBQ Rib flavored chips, although I would prefer if they just used the word "Barbecue" and left off the mention of "rib" altogether:


Then we've got our grilled beef flavor:



For those who prefer roasted beef to grilled beef, there's something for you too:



Doesn't the picture look delicious? Doesn't it make you feel like eating...a chip?



Maybe you're not red-meat eater, maybe you would prefer some nice turkey-breast chips (they also have chicken flavored chips, but I couldn't find those on this trip to the store):



And for the least health conscious, we've got my personal favorite (NOT), sausage chips:




Please don't think I am mocking Brazilian potato chips. The reason this post is so long in coming is that every time I buy the meat-flavored chips, before I can even take pictures of them, my kids wolf them down. I practically had to wrestle these bags out of their grubby little hands this morning. It wasn't pretty. I sent them away, almost in tears, with some much less exciting pretzels.

I should also mention here that Brazilians, in general, do not love chips the way Americans do. The chip section in the store takes up just a teeny little space and the biggest bag you can get is about 2X one of these snack-size bags. Maybe that's why they tend to be thinner than Americans.

Anyway, I've got to hide these bags before the kiddos get home or it will be a feeding frenzy. (Too late, Pedro just came up and noticed them on the couch)

Tchau.

Avocado Revisited and (Unfortunate) Activity on Our Street

The Great Avocado Debate

So, today I tried a avocado/BANANA milkshake after receiving two comments about how delicious an avocado shake could be if it only included a banana.

True or False?

True.

Avocado + Milk + Sugar = Nauseating

Avocado + Milk + Sugar + Banana = Delicious.

Who knew? (other than Stephanie and Lori)

Nefarious Activity on Our Street

This morning our maid opened up the newspaper and called me over to look at this picture:

(photo by Marcelo Carnaval)

The guys standing in the photo are the guards who work at the fancy-shmancy beauty salon right next door to our building. We're friends with these guys. There are super nice. They say hello to us when we walk by, they make small talk about their favorite soccer teams, the weather, and about how cute our kids are.

Yesterday, they caught this guy (the one who is laying on his stomach in the picture) who was attempting to rob a car very near our house. Since they were dressed in their Men In Black work suits, I am assuming this happened during business hours.

This disturbs me.

I called Guapo and what does he say? "That's awesome." Such a guy. I don't think it's awesome we've got car robbers running around our street during business hours, but what do I know???

Not the "Little Pig" Flu

That's what someone called the Swine Flu at church last week, "a gripe porquinha". Isn't that funny?

Anyway, after telling myself I'm not sick the last couple of days I am finally admitting I may, in fact, have a cold.

I do not look like this yet:

...so I think I'm ok. (Sorry, I don't know who to give the credit for this creepy picture, but since it came to me in a forward (thank you Stu) I figure the person probably wants it all over the Internet.)

I went out tonight with Guapo to get some vitamin C as my supply is gone. As Guapo was checking out he asked if I really wanted the vitamin C as he showed me the price tag. I thought it said $18.90, which would have been about $10.50 USD (a rip off, yes, but not surprising here), but it really said $78.90, or $44.00 USD (a shocking rip-off).

For 100 vitamin C tablets ???

I think not. I passed on the V-C. I'll just eat some oranges, thank you very much.

Have a good weekend!

Avocado Milkshakes and Thousand Dollar Field Trips

I can't say my life has gotten anymore exciting lately. Maybe a little busier, but not a lot more interesting.

First up on the list of semi-interesting happenings was the avocado "shake" I had this week. Apparently here where I live, avocados are used more as a fruit than a vegetable. Pedro and I go to our neighborhood juice bar once a week where one can find about every kind of juice you could ever think of. I usually stick with the "normal juices" like orange, tangerine, passion fruit, guava, and an occasional exotic kiwi juice. But, I've always been intrigued by the avocado juice.

It's avocado, a little milk and some sugar.

I decided this week was the week I would forgo a juice that I knew I loved to try something new.

I should have stuck with the old faithfuls.

I really tried to like it; I drank more than half of it all the while telling myself, "it tastes good, it tastes good, it's not just for guacamole." Then I started to feel really nauseated.

I don't recommend trying this at home.

Oh well, at least I don't have to wonder if I'm missing out on anything anymore. Oh and one more Brazilian treat North American tastebuds may want to avoid? Corn- flavored popsicles. Also not good.

**********************************************************

Yesterday I was at school all.day.long attending both the elementary and middle school open houses for my kids. One of the main topics of the middle school portion was the upcoming 6th grade trip to the north of Brazil. The mandatory 4 day trip will cost just over $1,000.00. Luckily, Gaupo's company pays for stuff like that or I'd be a little peeved. But, it's par for the course when your kid goes to a super-rich Brazilian school where money means nothing to most of the students.

Anyway, they opened it up for questions. I was cracking up at the questions that were coming from the 6th graders. It went like this:

"Are we going to the beach?"

"Are we going to have free time?"

"Will our free time be at the hotel?"

"Can we pick our roommates?"

"What time do we have to go to bed?"

"Do we have tv's in our room?"

"What kind of cell phone coverage will we have?"

"Do we get to pick who's in our room?"

"Can I go surfing?"


They were actually better than some of the parents' questions:

"What happens if my child has swine flu?" (Ummm, they can't go on the trip.)

"What happens if my child gets swine flu there?" (Ummmm, they'll get sent home.)

"Are they going to fly on a reputable airline? You know there was a crash a couple of months ago" (No, we just hired some guy off the street who says he can fly who's going to take them in an refurbished WWII plane. But, thanks SO MUCH for bringing up the Air France crash in front of 51 6th graders who are shortly going to be flying without their parents.)

"What if there's someone on the plane with swine flu?" (???)

"Don't you think you should take the school nurse in case one of the kids has swine flu?" (And that would help because?)

Do you see a common theme here? People are just a little bit preoccupied with the dreaded swine flu.

May you and yours (and anyone you may come in contact with) be free of the swine flu. And remember, avocados and corn should be used only as vegetables (except in the rare case of corn bread).

Brazilian Delights: Cheese Sticks

One of the best things about Brazil so far is the delicious food. It’s a good thing there are great places to run, because if not, I could really pack on the pounds.

So, in case you ever visit Brazil, I will be showcasing the best of the best.

First delight: Cheese sticks. Not American breaded-and-fried-cheese-sticks.

I’m talking about cheese that's actually on a stick.

You put these babies on the grill for a few minutes and…

Delicious.