Life in a Tropical Depression

I'm suffering from a phenomenon that I had completely forgotten about: cabin fever. But this isn't winter in Massachusetts or central Ohio; rather, it's summer in Miami. But, but, you migh ask, didn't you USE to live there? Well, yeah, but in those days I had a regular job. I spent my days in a freezing museum, complaining about the cold, wrapped in the only sweater I kept when I moved to South Florida. I wasn't cooped up alone in an apartment, turning into a chair potato in front of my laptop. This city is not exactly the cultural capital of the world from November through May, but in the summer I guess they assume that your brain is too fried for anything above beach reading or elementary-school-level blockbusters. This means I can't even go to the movies (the films I'm interested in seem to play exclusively at the University of Miami and I don't have a car). The cherry on the cake of the dumbing down of the neighborhood: they're closing our Surfside library. Or what's left of it, since they're operating right now out of what looks like a container and most of the books are in storage. Good job, guys!

Naturally, my thoughts turn to Rio and its cultural centers and world-class free museum exhibitions, the art cinema houses cum bookstore and café in the lobby, the fabulous concerts and shows. Year-round brainy stuff to do, mind you, and especially in the summer, which is not as long as ours, but equally scorching. But, that comes with a price, as anyone knows who's lived there or reads O Globo Online with a breakfast cup of espresso: the shady or better, dark, side of my favorite city. I'll give you one scary statistic: in the past two and a half years there have been more than 18,000 violent deaths in the State of Rio, 530 occurred as a result of an armed robbery. I suspect that a very high percentage of those happened in the capital. I remember a woman who was killed one night as she stopped her car at a busy intersection in the fashionable neighborhood of Leblon. She was taking off her watch to give to the young man when he shot her. When people ask me if it's safe to travel to Rio, I always tell them to take the usual precautions. What else am I supposed to say? I'm unscathed, even though stuff like this was going on all around me. Am I just exceptionally lucky? Anyway, my friend Ellen in Pennsylvania and I were discussing this subject the other day. Is there a cultured city in this world with a decent climate (meaning temperate, no snow and ice, please, and no sweaters in August either, before someone mentions Vancouver, Canada) and a safe environment? Perhaps Melbourne, Australia?

In order to keep my kind of tropical depression at bay, I'm volunteering at the Wolfsonian Museum as of tomorrow. I'm helping with the new exhibition opening in October, "Styled for the Road: The Art of Automobile Design, 1908-1948." Can't wait to see if they are featuring my dad's Plymouth...And, before I forget, I'm taking a coat and my beautiful wool scarf from Rio Grande do Sul (pictured here) with me. You can read about it in "Around Brazil in Four and a Half Hours."

Of Julia Child and Cod Fish Balls

I think I can honestly say that I haven't cooked in over a decade. You see, I don't call tossing a salad or scrambling eggs or making vegetable soup or even occasionally roasting potatoes with rosemary in the oven for myself 'cooking.' Not really. I do, on the other hand, have wonderful memories of cooking for my family, friends, and students all those years ago in Boston. Not that I was ever a great cook, but I loved having people over and feeding them, so I worked very hard at perfecting a few recipes and can proudly write that I made a mean feijoada and pudim de leite and passion fruit mousse and...well, cod fish balls. And this is where Julia Child comes in. But how, you may ask? Well, I went to the movies last night and saw the preview for "Julie & Julia." So, I remembered...When I first met Julia Child I didn't know who she was; this was in the early seventies and I had just arrived in Cambridge, Mass. from Costa Rica. She gave a cooking class at MIT in the lobby of 77 Massachusetts Avenue; she said she was going to teach us to make a proper omelette, since it was something easy to prepare and you could throw almost anything into it and make a meal out of it. She didn't see why students couldn't eat decent food...She proceeded to chop some tomatoes and ask us if we knew why men were better cooks than women. She had been talking all the while and at this point we were in stitches (That day I found out firsthand that Julia was a total ham). She told us it was because men were not afraid, they grabbed the knife and dice, dice, dice, chop, chop, chop. You get the picture. Years later, I added a little step she recommended in a recipe called "Aunt Priscilla's Codfish Balls" to my Brazilian one and have never since tasted a better bolinho de bacalhau.

I saw Julia a second and last time before I left Boston almost exactly 20 years later. I went to a button shop downtown near Filene's and in she walked with a friend. She seemed a bit frail and not as tall, but that unmistakable voice was as strong as ever. At that point, my daughter was moving to Europe, my marriage was on the rocks, and the cooking was, pardon the pun, on the back burner. The recipes survived, though, and were collected (during the years I lived in Ohio) on the website I created to keep in touch with my birth country.

This is more or less the story I told my daughter and her friend when we left the theater. So, now you know what Julia has to do with cod fish balls, which, technically, are Portuguese, but have become a Brazilian food par excellence. If you ever find yourself in Rio de Janeiro, there are a few bars that serve cod fish balls that rival, but not equal, my own: Jobi in Leblon and Bacalhau do Rei in Gávea are two that come to mind.

Coincidentally, a few minutes ago I clicked on the link to a blog from Rio I like very much and saw pictures of some of my favorite foods...ah, I DO envy you, Constance!