Acarajé secrets . Post do aluno Greg Grassi
The secrets of acarajé After practical experience Greg felt inspired and decided to share what he learned. By Greg Grassi Sometimes, my constant talk about food pays off. I was supposed to meet Luciana, one of my Portuguese teachers, for an individual class when she sent me a Whatsapp message (the preferred method of communication for most Brazilians) with a simple question: “Have you tried acarajé yet?” While I am fluent in the basics of Brazilian cuisine, I am still a novice when it comes to regional foods so I only had a vague idea that acarajé was something from Bahia. Luciana suggested we meet for a “practical class” instead to try acarajé from a street vendor in our shared neighborhood of Botafogo. Vamos lá, I thought. Let’s do this! Luciana and I met at a cafe in Botafogo (near the subway) and talked about the history of acarajé before we tasted it. Luciana encouraged me to talk to Anna, the Bahian proprietor of the stall and while I was a bit intimidated at first, Anna was extremely patient with my questions (and my Portuguese) and turned out to be a passionate advocate for her native cuisine. We learned other facts about the dish all while Anna helped a steady stream of regulars at her immaculate station. As a result of the conversations with Luciana Anna, learn the following information: Origens Acarajé is a Bahian delight with a long and colorful history. Acarajé has religious origins and represents one of the best known Afro-Brazilian dishes in Brazilian cuisine, although many Brazilians I know admitted they...
The family and the bank
The family and the bank “The bank manager asked about my family!!! What?!? Why?!?” I heard this at a conference for entrepreneurs from all over the world held in Lithuania. The speaker was Simon, an American who is currently one of the world’s largest agricultural producers. He has business in Chile and works with people globally. The audience was made up of many different nationalities and all were really surprised that the bank manager asked Simon such a personal and seemingly irrelevant question when he was just trying to open a bank account. Yet for me, this was not in the least bit strange or out of place, because you’d get the same kind of questioning in Brazil. In the United States it is no longer common to have a bank manager; the whole banking system is online, people are not used to going to the bank in person anymore. In Brazil, I insisted on having a manager for my account, both for my personal and business accounts. When I’m abroad, I often have problems that the call center cannot solve, so I talk to my manager on WhatsApp and he sorts it out for me. My boyfriend is American. When he saw me doing this he couldn’t believe it! When I lived in Australia, I was able to open a bank account in just two weeks. In Brazil, I have students who have been trying for 2 years. I have other students who tried to open a legal account for their company and didn’t succeed. They then open one in their own name only to have it blocked...
How to write a good chronicle
How to write a good chronicle Last Wednesday, the writer Daniel Cariello met with students and alumni of Fala Brasil School who are writing chronicles for the book “The Look of the Other.” The book is a new project of Fala Brasil and aims to gather chronicles of writers from various parts of the world about the culture of Brazil and Brazilian life. The idea behind it is to enable an exchange of intercultural perspectives from different points of view. In this meeting, the writer and chronicler Daniel Carriello, author of “Chéri à Paris – A Brazilian in the land of fromage” and “City of Dreams, Chronicles of Brazil” explained how to write a good chronicle. Here is a summary: – A chronicle will always be the story of a specific event or fact that is the center of the narrative. – In the chronicle the characters are not developed. They have no past or future. They make up the story by helping in the narrative of a fact that should be the central theme of the chronicle. – A chronicle may or may not be personal. It may be an account of an event that occurred with the author himself, an observed situation or something that happened to another person. At this point, the rule is not to have rules! 😉 – Imagination is free! The chronicle can be an imagined dialogue, a hypothetical situation, something that almost happened or happened in the author’s head. It also can mix fiction with reality. – A good chronicle size is between 2 thousand and 4 thousand characters (counting letters, punctuation...
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