Back to the kitchen

To my great desperation, my apartment is still kitchen-less. I am forced to eat in local restaurants or buy sandwiches and fruit from the supermarket. The reason for this extremely expensive yet enjoyable state of affairs is that my high-end designer kitchen will only be delivered in about three weeks. I may be living in a scruffy working-class neighborhood, but my culinary obssession is bound to reveal my bourgeois roots. More and more often, I picture myself preparing meals for myself and for friends in my unbearably modern, minimalist(yet minuscule) kitchen, an open-plan 1.80m by 1.50m kitchen. I´m basically dreaming of a capsule that is all white cabinets and black granite worktop and hidden aluminum handles.

Is it because I´m secretly a bon-vivant woman or a gourmet cook? I don´t know. But ever since I moved, I´ve gotten increasingly excited about all the food I´m going to buy and store and cook and consume in my space-age kitchen. By moving to Liberdade, I have willingly and masochistically exposed myself to a myriad of Oriental grocery stores. I say masochistically because I´ll never earn the pots of cash I need to truly empty out those shelves laden with aesthetically-pleasing products. All that curious packaging covered with Japanese characters, all those unique color combinations, all that green and pink and red!

The more obvious things to stock up on in the Japanese shops would be various types of Asian ingredients and vegetables such as fresh tofu, udon noodles, pak choi, Chinese broccoli, shiitake mushrooms, rice vinegar, frozen dumplings (or gyoza as they´re more commonly known here), fresh herbs like coriander (otherwise known as cilantro/coentro etc), and exotic drinks like aloe vera juice.

But this weekend I had a truly orgiastic experience walking into the Chinese food shop for a change. Of course, I was delighted with the endless rows of oyster sauce, roasted sesame oil, dark and light soy sauce, five-spice powder, hot sichuan pepper, canned bamboo shoots and baby corn, and let´s not forget, dried herb mixes for extremely bizarre "health" soups.

But, oh la la! I discovered a Thai section, if one may call it that way. I have really been missing my New York and Geneva days of Thai yumminess. My friend Karla´s timeless Tom Khaa soup immediately springs to mind. How many times have I escaped Geneva´s drab winter weather, or its headache-inducing freezing "bise" wind, to be greeted by Karla´s colorful Dutch kitchen with a fuming bowl of this wonder? How I miss the tanginess of the lemongrass, the sharp green fragrance of the coriander, the sweetness of the coconut milk, the tingle of the red chillies, the meat-softness of the mushrooms, the crunchiness of the unshelled shrimp!

In this very messy and very loud Chinese shop (quite different from the sedate and organised Japanese one) I found all the much-beloved ingredients necessary for a Thai fiesta. Red and green curry. All the coconut milk, galangal and Thai fish sauce I could ever wish for. I really miss the freshness and zest of Thai cuisine. I only know of two Thai restaurants in São Paulo, and they are both beautiful and expensive. So I think the best place to have Thai food will be my kitchen indeed. The fact that I have no dining table or sofa should only add to the Southeast Asian atmosphere that I plan to install in my home. Everybody on the floor! I think my lack of windows at the moment also has the potential of adding a rather simple, tropical yet tasteful feel to my future Thai get-togethers.

But my brand-new culinary journey doesn't end here. In my school´s new neighbourhood, I discovered a whole new food front: European food. When I went in today to explore the "Vila Nova Conceição Emporium", I started feeling as if I were returning to my old life in Geneva.

In the Emporium, there is a gigantic wine section that is suitably cellar-dark. It stocks all the Côtes du Rhône, Bourgogne, Rioja and Tempranillo I could ever want for my future "wine and cheese" get-togethers. As for the cheese... Alright, the gruyère is displayed at room temperature, and has strangely darkish-yellow edges. Not a good sign. But there is a huge refrigerated section entirely devoted to gouda and other Dutchy cheeses. Loads of goat cheese as well...

As for the accompaniments -- tapas, starters or what have you: there is not one, but FIVE brands of dijon mustard. A fresh-olives bar. Reasonably priced smoked salmon. Organic vegetables galore. And, this is key, there is a middle-eastern food display with dried nuts, huge glass jars of vine leaves, tahine, and spices shipped from Lebanon. The translation work on the labels is astounding: I discovered that turmeric is actually saffron (turmeric= açafrão). Which is precisely the ingredient that was missing for my all-Thai shelf in my future kitchen. But as for all those spices, I just need a teacher to help me delve into the whole new world of Arabic food. I´m waiting.