St. Patty's Day in Manaus

One of the fun parts of living in New York City used to be celebrating St. Patrick's Day. It was always amusing to see how much people (meaning Jay and his friends) looked forward to getting together and going out to celebrate, especially if it fell on a weekend. The last year we lived in the city, Jay and I even marched in a band in the big St. Patrick's Day Parade up 5th Avenue.

As the big day approached here, we didn't really have any plans. Despite this being a country with lots of saint days and holidays, Patrick did not make the cut. I guess not everyone fully appreciates a guy that rid Ireland of its snakes! 

At basically the last minute, we decided to get together with our friends Mark and Debora for a traditional Irish dinner. I made an Irish beef stew, and we put it over mashed potatoes with chicken sausage. We couldn't find any proper Irish beer at the grocery store for the stew, but we managed just fine with some expensive Brazilian made Scottish ale. 

We all dressed in green and listened to hours of traditional Irish music while we cooked and then ate til we could eat no more. It turned out being lots of fun, and Debora got to celebrate her first St. Patrick's Day! 

Cooking the stew, 33wks

Yummy Irish dinner

Don't mind the crazy hair- it gets hot cooking here ;)

Debora and me 

Mmmm... Frog Legs

I'm not sure if it has to do with being pregnant or the fact that I have more spare time now that I am not playing with the orchestra, but I have been on quite a cooking kick lately. Nothing special, just making real food for lunch and dinner more than usual and not going out to eat so much. By real food, I mean we're eating less grilled cheeses and Top Ramen (a favorite of Jay) and more roasts with veggies, paprika chicken with brown rice, etc. 

One of the greatest kitchen appliances I have come to love thanks to living in Brazil is the pressure cooker. I had only heard horror stories about it being dangerous in the States, so I was surprised how many people use one here. You'd think in the US of all places, people would prefer the speedy cooking with a pressure cooker (45 minutes for a 3lb roast with perfect potatoes and carrots) over the slow, all day cooking with a crock-pot. And for the record, I use my pressure cooker about 3-4 times a week and have never had any explosions or near explosions. 

So last week I thought it would be nice to have some chicken with veggies for lunch. I looked to see what I could throw in the pot, and I found some fresh kale we bought a couple days before. I pulled it out of the fridge, washed each leaf, and set it down to start trimming it. At that point, I saw something small and brown under the top leaf and called Jay over in a hurry. As he moved the top leaf, we both saw two little black eyes looking up at us. Turns out a little frog had come home with us on the kale 2 days earlier, chilled out a bit in the fridge, and almost got boiled for lunch! 

Needless to say, we didn't end up eating any kale with our lunch. Hopefully that little froggy enjoyed his break from the heat of Manaus once he thawed out :) 

 

Surprises

Yesterday turned out to be quite a memorable day for us, and not exactly in the best sort of way. 

I'll get the bad surprise out of the way first. As Jay walked me to my last rehearsal for a while, I stopped looking at the sidewalk for a couple seconds. This is never a good idea here because the sidewalks are not only very crooked and very uneven, but there can also be garbage in some spots. Well, as we approached the intersection, I felt something slippery under my foot. I looked back to see what it was, thinking it was just some fruit peel or whatever. If only... it turned out to be a big, dead, hairless rat! And I was wearing flip-flops! EWWW! I immediately got so grossed out that I almost lost my breakfast right there. I made it to rehearsal and washed off my shoe, but it still gives me the heeby-jeebies to even think about it. 

While I was busy counting measures at rehearsal, Jay was taking part in a tv show about sports in our state, Amazonas. His Muay Thai teacher invited him and another student the day before to be part of a segment about Muay Thai. He agreed, thinking it would basically be a demonstration of combinations they've learned in class. He was a little surprised to see a scene set up with chairs outside for an interview, and even more surprised when they told him he would be the one getting interviewed! While he does speak portuguese, this live tv situation was not exactly ideal. So the reporter asked him a question, which he answered to the best of his ability, and then he said the guy just looked at his teacher, kind of stunned, not knowing what just happened, and then never talked to Jay again after that! I tried to find a clip of it, but so far haven't had any luck.

That was definitely a day neither of us will forget anytime soon (though I really wish I could)!