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12/25/03: Boas festas

Probably the coolest thing about Xmas in S?o Paulo is how impressively this giant jackhammer of a city contracts to such a complete silence by the 25th. The streets are all blank sealed storefronts and the occasionally crossing homeless person. I?m listening to the sounds of birds in the trees and breeze for the first time. It's the first time having that giddily strange after-the-bomb feeling since those Sunday mornings of riding my bike into an deserted Loop at 7am to start double-shifts at two jobs. The air in the past few days has dropped down to a cool and breezy 60-degrees giving me a slightly better reminder of Xmas than if it were the blazing 95-degrees that its been most of the month. I?m starving and didn?t have the foresight to buy any groceries for today, so I?m looking for one enterprising lanchonete but settling for a disgustingly dry empanada and a sandwich from a gas station. Xmas in Brazil is celebrated at midnight until the morning, and now the whole city sleeps it off.

For my first Brazilian Xmas, I was one of a few other expatriates adopted by a friend?s exceedingly warm Lebanese family. I indulged the family?s fluent English speakers, most of whom were fascinating at describing their stints living in both the US and the Middle East, but had me pretending to know about American football a few times too often. The food included cuts of lamb, couscous with shrimp and vegetables baked into a sort of cake-like shape, a churasco with a rich shitake mushroom and Worcester sauce, a giant baralho (which my host said was a codfish, but to me was redder and flakier with an unforgettably potent taste) baked with potatoes and soy oil, and and unforgettable heart-of-palm pie. Washed down with a dozen or so flutes of champagne and my yule-tide bliss was more than complete.

posted by jeremy @ 8:17 PM