Salvador: The Grub

Bahia is the last stop of my trip and I can’t imagine a better place to wind down after months of constant movement.  The beaches are beautiful, the people are warm, and the food is well, take a look: 

1. Acarajé. A bean cake fried in dende (palm tree) oil and stuffed with a variety of stews, dried shrimp, hot pepper sauce, and/or tomatoes. Served by Baianas on the street, I would’ve liked to have done a citywide taste test but time and rain would not permit. Anyway, I would like to say that I LOVED it, but I didn’t. I just thought the idea and layout was really cool. Apparently the Baiana in Rio Vermelho does it best.  

2. Crab! Cheers to the happy hour crab spot! Enjoy your cheap beer and $2 crab while listening to the sounds of an entire restaurant pounding crab shells with plastic mallets. These crabs are small so you have to pound and crack extra hard to get the meat. A little more work for my food than I like to do normally, but it’s kinda fun to put back a beer and pound away at your food. 

3. Pastel de Camarao. I know, you’re bored of me talking about empanadas. I’ll stop. I just wish you could taste it with me.

4. Potatoes and catfish. Disclaimer, this is not Bahian food. This is me wandering into Gaby and Nadia’s capoeira school and being invited in to have breakfast with the group. There was a guy from Bermuda making breakfast and no one would allow me to refuse a plate. A magical plate, that is. Catfish with onions and tomatoes and potatoes and bananas and avocado and a huge spread of fresh fruit. An amazingly tropical breakfast that is apparently called something as simple as “catfish and potatoes.” 

5. Moqueca. Even the name is delicious… Muu-queh-caaaaaah. Mmmm. A stew made with dende oil, coconut milk, shrimp, and tomatoes, among other ingredients and served bubbling in a clay pot. This was my favorite meal. Accompanied by rice, farofa, and that squishy yellow gooey stuff that I like.

6. Brigadeiro. Chocolate balls filled with chocolate and condensed milk?? Hell yes.

 

7. Rosti. Like a big hash brown pie with shrimp, meat, cheese and/or veggies. Hearty.

 

8. Aipim Frito. Kinda like french fries but less greasy and sweeter! Goes well with…

8. Caipiroska! Like a caipirinha with vodka. I gulped up three of these made with acerola, a cherryish fruit. By the way, all of this street food is sold by vendors who are part of an artisan institute called MAUA. They were closed the day I wanted to visit, but their artisans were at every plaza, fair, and mall I went to. Seems like artisans pay a fair amount for placement and do pretty well for themselves. I was super impressed and towards the end of the night at one fair I saw that someone from the organization was passing out questionnaires to all the artisans (Jenna is excited, Jenna is very excited). Anyone who works in the microenterprise industry may also be impressed by that. So…if you go to Salvador, support your local artisans, drink caipiroskas!

Got the travel bug?
Crab & Moqueca: Caranguejo de Sergipe in Barra
MAUA: http://www.maua.ba.gov.br/

Safe in Salvador

It feels weird to head East as Chile tumbles down. Everyone I know is fine. Scared and anxious at the most. Most of my friends, in typical Chilean style, have responded to my frantic emails with humor.

It's ironic, two weeks ago, as Mikael and I walked on the beach in Curanipe, a small beach town close to the epicenter of the quake, I thought about taking a picture of the house we were staying in. It belongs to the family of my friend Cote and smells like pine, sea, and my favorite memories as a teenager. I'm trying to limit the number of photos I have of lone buildings, they just gather cyber dust in my computer. So, did I take a picture of the bright purple house on the shore? Naaa. It'll be there when I come back. 

Cote says the house is somehow still standing and her family had already returned to Rancagua by the time of the quake, but Curanipe and the surrounding coastal towns were hit the hardest by the Tsunami. Nearby in Pelluhue , where we sat in a beach bar drinking beer, a bus of retirees was swept away and over 300 homes have been destroyed. 
That moment in front of the house served as a lesson to not take the beautiful places and people I visit for granted.  That being said, I've had two days in Salvador, Brazil and have been blown away by how colorful and beautiful it is here. It's the kind of beauty that doesn't try hard to impress you-- just a sunset with the neighborhood kids and ice cream next to the full moon. I'm staying with Gabriela, one of my oldest friends, and if this wasn't a welcoming enough place, she only makes my stay here more warm and comfortable. I'm taking lots of pictures. 

On the beach in Barra my first night.

That really bright light is a stage in the water. We plan on buying floating thingys and  swimming to the stage next Saturday. 

Outside of the Igreja do Bonfim, where people tie ribbons around themselves and the church gates and make three wishes with each not.

Gaby helping me make my wishes. 

Sunset at Ponto de Maita.

Ice cream at Sorvetería da Ribeira (that's Gaby's bf, I didn't pick up a cute Brazilian boy at the ice cream shop).

Beiju and chocolate at a street fair. That strawberry fell on the ground but he still wanted it, hence the expression on the vendor's face. 

Pelourinho - Centro Historico. 

And now to the beach!

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