ninetwelvetwentyfive

so hello everyone. it’s been a wee while, no? more than a wee while. a long while.

we have been travelling a bit. first we went to queenstown. it was still quite wintry down there but gosh it was beautiful. we walked along the lake, drank lots of coffees to warm up, ate excellent pizza from winnies, travelled on the earnslaw steamship to celebrate fathers’ day .. it was a good time.

L and i spent a few days in pahiatua with my mum and dad. it’s quite different to queenstown, let’s say. i like it though. it’s friendly. people say hi in the street. the countryside is quite cool. there are excellent op shops. and brockies cafe makes a lemon and date slice which alone is worth the trip.

pahiatua is close to palmerston north – the place to go if you want to do a big supermarket shop. there is not a lot else there, i’m sorry to say.

and most recently, L, the rockstar and i went to brazil. we spent most of the time in brasília which was in the middle of the rainy season and not terribly photogenic, bless it. there was a lot of family time. but we snuck away for a night to pirenópolis, a colonial town about 2 hours’ drive away (in central-west terms, that’s practically nothing). it was good to get away, just the three of us.

and a bonus piece of hee-larious brazinglish for your pleasure and delectation. the best bit: this shirt was spotted in quite a chic store in shopping iguatemi brasília, a very very exclusive mall for those who prefer to not to rub shoulders with the great unwashed (which also happens to be the nearest source of decent coffee to the rockstar’s mum’s house; hence my presence there). binge drinking! it’s the new hip trend from the west!

so yes! i am back. i will write more shortly – right now i have to go and stop L from pulling all the CDs off the shelves and then proceeding to chew the corners. as i write she is nomming down on feminist sweepstakes by le tigre. that’s my girl.

até!

There is no real reason why the name for a hot dog in Portuguese – which is a completely literal translation, cachorro quente – should be so amusing to those of us who speak English.   Somewhere along the way, we decided to give a sausage-in-a-bun such a bizarre name, so why shouldn’t Brazilians adopt it?   All the same, it makes me smile a little bit, thinking about all the other weird names we give to snack foods (angels on horseback, pigs in blankets, mousetraps) and how the names lose any significance until you come across them in another context.   Another language, another country.

And make no mistake, Brazilians have taken to the hot dog with the same gusto that they’ve adopted – and adapted – many other types of street food from around the world.   All over the country, as night falls, packets of franks are slit open in kitchens and hot dog stands materialise on street corners.   Debate rages about the best cachorro quente to be had in any city, and so it is in Brasília – from the chatter of social media to the elevated pages of Veja magazine.

We asked around in Brasília (the rockstar’s home town) and were pointed towards 308 Sul, the shopping area universally identified as the “street with the little church”.   And in front of the little church – actually the Igrejinha de Nossa Senhora da Fátima – we found an excellent hot dog.

So how is this different to your standard New York frank and why does it merit an inclusion in this series?    Well, first off, while this is still a sausage in a long soft bun, Brazilians have taken the concept and tweaked it into something different.

Rather than floating in a slightly rank and oily brine, the sausages for cachorro quente are heated in a tomato sauce which permeates the meat.   The split-open bun will usually be doused with a little of the sauce before adding the sausage.   It’s delicious and it helps to take away a little of the aggressively smoked flavour of your average frankfurter.

Then, the major point of difference:  the toppings.   The rockstar says the very bare minimum of adornments for a cachorro quente should be tomato ketchup, yellow American-style mustard and mayonnaise.  So far, so unexceptional.   But then come the extras .. and this is where it gets a bit crazy.   For each cachorro quente, our maestro dipped into plastic tubs of fillings.   At this cart, a “completo” includes tuna, onion mayonnaise, sweetcorn and fried potato sticks.   And it can get weirder:   the mighty Wikipedia mentions mashed potato, beetroot, toasted cassava flour, even cream cheese.    In my opinion (and the rockstar’s) none of these things have any place on a hot dog.   But it seems we were in the minority:  while we ate, a steady stream of customers came up to the cart and almost all of them ordered all the trimmings.

With this amount of sloppy filling to tackle, it’s unsurprising that cachorro quente are usually eaten standing up in the street, accompanied with plenty of paper napkins.   And the verdict:  the rockstar declared this to be a particularly fine example of the genre.

You don’t have to travel all the way to Brasília to experience the cachorro quente, by the way.   Unlike the pastel, this street food is easily replicated at home.   Sweat a sliced onion and a sliced green capsicum in a small amount of olive oil, add a tin of tomato puree and a tin of whole peeled tomatoes, season to taste and leave to thicken a little.   Then add your sausages:   I used Heller’s Continental Frankfurters which the rockstar pronounced “just like back home”, the highest possible accolade.    Heat until the sausages are piping hot and then serve in a soft white roll.    Tomato ketchup, mustard and mayo are, as we’ve already seen, mandatory;   I’ll leave the corn, the tinned spaghetti and the chocolate sauce up to you

Cachorro quente stand, in front of the Igrejinha, entrequadra 308 Sul, Asa Sul, Brasília — and on street corners all over Brazil ..

To start a series on Brazilian street food with anything other than the pastel (or, to give it its proper name, “pastel de feira”, literally “street market pie”) would be folly.   Let’s be clear:  as much as Brazil is one country, she is also many countries.   Each region has its own cuisine and its own traditions .. and of course, its own street food.   The beaches in Rio have the Globo biscuit (which will feature here in due course) and the streets of Salvador have the acarajé (which won’t:  I’m afraid I just can’t eat acarajé as the dendê oil makes me ill, and besides, others have written about it far better than I ever could).   But everywhere – or at least, everywhere I’ve visited – has the pastel.   And with good reason.

The pastel is, in its purest form, an envelope of wheat-flour pastry, filled with something tasty.   The traditional fillings are white cheese, minced meat or hearts-of-palm;  fancy-pants gourmet variations include salt cod, shrimp and cream cheese or even sweet fillings like guava paste or cinnamon-banana.   The pastel is crimped at the edges and fried in very hot oil until the outside of the pastry blisters and the inside is hothothot.

In Brasília, it is always said that the best pastel in town is served at the bus station.   The Pastelaria Viçosa, to be exact.   Ignore the less-than-elegant surroundings;   here, the boys turn out thousands of pasteis a day and their fame is deserved.   The house special, two pasteis and a cup of sugar-cane juice, is just R$2.75 — which is $2.20 NZ or $1.60 US.  In this incredibly expensive city, this might just be your best value calories-per-buck feast.

Turnover here is brisk and the pasteis are super-fresh.  Eaten standing up at the counter, the first bite will be as every first bite of a pastel should be:   a little puff of steam rising as you break the pastry shell with your teeth.   Don’t worry if the locals stare at the sight of a foreigner:  within a bite, you’ll be transported.

In São Paulo, the Mercado Municipal is the place to go.    There are a number of pastel places there but the one we chose was the Bar do Mané.   A cheese pastel here runs to R$5, nearly twice the price of the Viçosa, but it’s a classy affair:  larger, far more cheese and you can actually sit down to eat it, showering pastry crumbs at every bite.

Your first few bites of a cheese pastel will yield little more than pastry but as you work your way down, you’ll hit the mother-lode.   The cheese is like a salty but mild-cured cheddar with the same propensity to separate as it melts .. so you’ll need to watch for the odd spot of oil.      This ain’t diet food.   Calorie estimates I found on the internet say you’re looking at about 250 for an average pastel, but I simply cannot see how this can be true .. I reckon it’s more like about a million calories.   But worth every sinful, salty bite.

Finding a good pastel is a question of asking a local, but visitors can find a good one pretty easily.   The rockstar says you should look for pasteis that are fried to your order, not ones that are pre-fried and left in a warmer;   and my personal tip would be that if the pasteis are good, there will be a crowd of people in the place eating them, any time of the day or night.

Pastelaria Viçosa, ground floor, Rodoviária do Plano Piloto (Central Bus Station) Brasília

Bar do Mané, Mercado Municipal Paulistano, Rua da Cantareira, São Paulo

Imagine the Angels of Bread – Martin Espada

This is the year that squatters evict landlords,
gazing like admirals from the rail
of the roofdeck
or levitating hands in praise
of steam in the shower;
this is the year
that shawled refugees deport judges
who stare at the floor
and their swollen feet
as files are stamped
with their destination;
this is the year that police revolvers,
stove-hot, blister the fingers
of raging cops,
and nightsticks splinter
in their palms;
this is the year
that darkskinned men
lynched a century ago
return to sip coffee quietly
with the apologizing descendants
of their executioners.

This is the year that those
who swim the border’s undertow
and shiver in boxcars
are greeted with trumpets and drums
at the first railroad crossing
on the other side;
this is the year that the hands
pulling tomatoes from the vine
uproot the deed to the earth that sprouts the vine,
the hands canning tomatoes
are named in the will
that owns the bedlam of the cannery;
this is the year that the eyes
stinging from the poison that purifies toilets
awaken at last to the sight
of a rooster-loud hillside,
pilgrimage of immigrant birth;
this is the year that cockroaches
become extinct, that no doctor
finds a roach embedded
in the ear of an infant;
this is the year that the food stamps
of adolescent mothers
are auctioned like gold doubloons,
and no coin is given to buy machetes
for the next bouquet of severed heads
in coffee plantation country.

If the abolition of slave-manacles
began as a vision of hands without manacles,
then this is the year;
if the shutdown of extermination camps
began as imagination of a land
without barbed wire or the crematorium,
then this is the year;
if every rebellion begins with the idea
that conquerors on horseback
are not many-legged gods, that they too drown
if plunged in the river,
then this is the year.

So may every humiliated mouth,
teeth like desecrated headstones,
fill with the angels of bread.

so i was invited to attend the launch of the twentysevennames s/s collection.  this sounds fancy but it isn’t really;  the wonderful goodasgold invited their clients to come along for drinks, cupcakes and pretty summer clothes.   seeing as the weather is just about allowing us to think that winter might end — one day, one day — racks of pastel deliciousness were just what was needed.   i grabbed a vitamin water and wandered.

there were pretty cupcakes, although i didn’t get a shot of those.  they were disappearing pretty quick.  fun fact: in new zealand, fashion people actually *eat*. scandal!

but most importantly, the clothes.

(all the above photos by me)

the first, i would happily buy for myself and wear it with cropped khakis and brogues (yes, still).   the second look i think might be a little too pale for me — i am dark-haired with a sort of olivey complexion and i’m not sure i can rock that much pale.   but you know?  this season might be the perfect time to experiment.  cast aside the blacks, the neutrals .. after a long wellington winter full of blacks, greys and the occasional bust-out into dark red, maybe a light shade is just what’s needed.  like a fresh sour sorbet after a too-heavy main course.

anyway.  seeing the collection reminded me of the kind of quirky spin that the best new zealand design is able to put on the overseas trends.   yes, pastels are a clear reference to the northern hemisphere summer trends.  but these clean lines, the perfect proportions with only the merest hint of boho, make me happy.

pretty people, pretty clothes.  thanks, goodasgold and twentysevennames.  really lovely stuff.

it is a beautiful day here in wellington — the sort that makes you feel that spring might one day come.   the sort that makes you forgive the dark and rainy day yesterday.   it’s the kind of day we all need once in a while.   i am not sure what i’m going to do with this lovely day.  but it feels like it might be a day to look forward.  to take a little holiday, even if only for a couple of hours.  and to think about what might come next.

i have so much to tell you that it’s almost hard to know where to start.  but for now, at least a start’s been made.  hi, you guys.  hope you’ve been well.   let’s take this ride together .. what do you say?

sorry about that little unscheduled break.  i started a full-time job which i love but has been taking a lot of my time and energy.  but i have been writing and taking photos and travelling and thinking about fashion, because that is what i *do*.  and now that i am feeling a bit more on top of things, i will be around here a bit more.

anyway. in amongst the other things i have been doing, i went to whanganui for the weekend.  i spent my school days there and still have family there.  so the rockstar and i jumped into my mg and off we drove.  we met my mum and dad there.  and we spent a very pleasant weekend eating, drinking, seeing family and having fun.

whanganui, like many small towns in new zealand, struggled a bit through the 80s and early 90s.  but now, thanks to a thriving art school, it’s a cool place to visit.  there’s enough kitsch (the huge plates of old-skool food at the brick house or charming afternoon teas at reflections cafe at virginia lake, a park around which i walked about a thousand times as a kid) and enough sophistication (the fantastic element cafe on victoria ave, where we had an excellent dinner and a truly amazing plum, blackcurrant and marzipan pie!) to keep any city-type satisfied.   there are a lot of good antique shops and a really nice hotel to stay in.  we had a lovely time.

anyway. how are you?  i’ve missed you.  it’s good to be back.  and i’ll have fashion silliness next time i post.  promise.

xoxo

things i am really into today:

- watermelon juice.  a brazilian delicacy and best made now in NZ while the watermelon is still fairly cheap, locally grown and plentiful.  here’s my recipe:  cut a quarter watermelon into large chunks .. seeds in (you can remove the seeds if you like, of course, but brazilian healthy types believe they’re good for the circulation. and also i am lazy).  put into blender.  add filtered water until it reaches 750ml on the side of the blender.  (less water makes for a thicker juice, but it will be more like a smoothie and not so much like a suco brasileiro).   blend.   add a decent drizzle of honey (i usually add a two-count of squeezable arataki).  blend again.   pass through a sieve to get rid of the seed residue.   serve.  accept compliments.

- the men’s section in vintage stores.  i scored a wonderful men’s dress shirt yesterday at fin in newtown.  the whole front and cuffs is made of this fine honeycomb-weave cotton, and it was precisely the right size for me.  another great score:  men’s oxford bags from savemart in upper hutt.  think laterally about men’s vintage:  wide waists can be cinched, long sleeves or legs can be rolled (and in fact often look better that way).  if the fabric is good and the drape works, you will look elegant.   (yes, i need to do an outfit post.  i will, i promise.)

- wednesday nights on tv3! new zealand’s hottest home baker (grayson, i love you!  i so want you to win!) followed by project runway.  you know, i am not sure this ever made it onto the main networks in the UK .. it was always buried away on some obscure satellite channel .. so i had never seen it.   oh my god, best show ever. [edited: dayum, it's actually thursday nights! pox! but i have already set the mysky box, hehe]

- cute iphone apps! my current favourite is one called 30 kittens per second.   cute and bonkers.  and i’m kind of tempted by this.  if only because the first line of the description made me LOL, as i believe the kids are saying these days.  ”Does your iPhone need more kittens? We understand.”

so, erm, yeah.  about that gap in posting.  here’s what i’ve been up to, in pictures:

(this photo was not taken by me but by my super-talented mum.  i love it, so i have posted it here.)

first two brasília, at the sound shell;  last four padre bernardo, which is where the rockstar’s family have a farm.  and where his party was.  more coming, promise.

by the time you read this (isn’t scheduled publishing grand?) i will be on a plane on the way to brazil.  i don’t think i will be taking these shoes, as they are not quite brazil-style, really.  brazil does not encourage dressing like a parisian schoolgirl, in thick black tights and short black skirts;  it is more colourful, more fluid, more relaxed.

things i am looking forward to, in no particular order:

• watermelon smoothies, made with ice and a dash of sweetener
• shopping for melissa shoes, possibly several pairs
• sun-warmed skin, hair going lighter at the ends
• seeing the rockstar in his natural habitat (heh)
• showing my parents around my adopted home (well, one of them) and watching them fall in love with it just like i did
• learning how to cook more brazilian dishes, with a view to a possible project (!!! very exciting)
• seeing my friends!  gorgeous television presenter friend, dashing superstar lecturer friend, hopefully even the bbcbrasil posse at our favourite rio-style bar in são paulo (yeah, i know, contradiction much?)
• seeing my brazilian family!  gosh, i’ve missed them so much
• just being in brazil, the one place on this beautiful blue planet where i feel properly at ease ..
• .. with the rockstar, the one person who could make it even more special.

oh me, oh my.  it’s like the two halves of my life .. the dislocation between which has caused me so much disquiet .. are finally coming together and becoming one.  it’s the strangest and yet the most natural thing.

anyway.  posts will be forthcoming, just as soon as i figure out a good place to post *from*.  there is a lot i want to say about brazilian fashion, about globalisation of style and how brazil seems to firmly resist it .. and, of course, about my beloved melissa shoes.  i’m already dead keen to buy a pair of the vivienne westwood lady dragons .. because, well, come *on*, i resisted when i was in rio in april and i’ve regretted it many times since .. but would i be brave enough to buy the scent?  we shall see .. xoxo