Sunday, January 11, 2009

A Great Dinner with our Brazilian Friends-



Yesterday we spent a great day/early evening with our friends Joao & Regina from Brazil. Here is hubby, Joao (we call him John) and Regina after we'd finished dessert.

It's fun when we get together, because our conversations are a mix of broken English, Spanish & Portugese... and the food, well it is really, really good! Yesterday we had lasagna with chicken & veggies and regular oven roasted chicken, beans and rice... I SO wish I could cook as good as they do!

The last time I went to visit though, I wasn't impressed with hubby. See, Jose knows I have never eaten venison and would never eat it IF I knew I was going to eat it. So he didn't tell me that John cooked venison (which was delicious, by the way!) and we all sat down to eat the "beef" and other good stuff. Hubby kept watching me and smiling, but never said anything until we got home. THEN he asked me how I liked eating deer meat. I could have killed him at that point, but it was useless. Now I have learned just NOT to ask what I will be eating.

It reminds me of the time I went with him to get tacos on a Sunday morning when we lived in RI. After a night out at the bar, the guys would be suffering a major hangover but couldn't legally buy beer on Sundays in RI. So they'd head over to the taco guys house (who I am sure did not have a permit to cook in his kitchen and definitely didn't have one to sell beer!) and buy beers and tacos and eat and drink. (The taco guy is still around, he just has to keep moving alot as they keep arresting him for selling beer illegally lol... what he should have done is sell the tacos for 5 bucks apiece instead of a buck apiece and give the person a "free" beer to wash it down with-but now you can get beer in RI on Sundays, so his business has dropped a bit too.) Betcha didn't know people make money selling beer after the bars have closed down there and people still wanna drink, did ya? Yup, if it's 3 am you give him a call and he will deliver to you what you want for beer-as far as I know that still goes on and he pretty much makes 100% profit so it's not bad money. Anyways, Jose would always bring these awesome tacos home, just meat, double tortillas, cilantro and onions with a side of limes to squeeze the juice over it...wicked good. Can't tell ya how many I ate of them. So one day, he decides to take me to the taco house which is traditionally men's territory (except for the man's wife/daughters) I go there and get my tacos on a plate, but I don't drink beer so I bring my own Diet Coke, thank you. Hubby starts in talking to all of his friends who are in varying degrees of hangover or getting drunk all over again. I ask one of the ladies to go to the bathroom, which is by the kitchen. In the kitchen, they are preparing the tacos. I made the mistake of looking-and there in the sink, grinning in all it's glory was the skull of either a cow or a hog that had been boiled and THAT was the taco meat.

I politely told hubby we had to leave-NOW. And that was the end of my delicious tacos every Sunday from the taco man. I still go to RI and eat tacos, from restaurants and sometimes bakeries will sell the things and other foods such as tamales, chiles rellenos etc... on weekends. I just don't ask any more, I prefer NOT knowing, lol. (this can happen anywhere, I remember when I worked for the state and a local Chinese restaurant was closed by health inspectors after serving up Fluffy in their chicken fingers. I can't tell you how many of those I ate on lunch break. Even my son, to this day calls his chicken fingers Carne de Gato-cat meat)

Yesterday we had a great meal, and I was thankful to be with our friends. They are super nice people and lots of fun to be with! Thanks Joao & Regina for a great meal and some great company as well!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ha-ha-ha! This is a funny entry, Michele.

Just think this way...as long as your husband eats the same meat you were given must be good or your husband won't be touching it with at 10-foot pole.

I have food experience with my hubby, except I'm on the reverse end. He, of the meat and potato kind of guy, won't eat sushi. And yet he will eat smoked salmon. That's a puzzle to me.

And I, of the brave and crazy, exotic food lover kind, will sometimes ask first what's being served at the most exotic restaurant or friend's home as there are still some totally bizarre food I won't eat. Even more so, I am not gung-ho drinking alcohol, ever.