Back in the kitchen?

The bad thing about being at home everyday during the whole day is that you MUST do some things as an obligation. The domestic tasks are the worst for me and I will include cooking here. Yes, I love cooking but I wish I could choose when to cook. Having to cook every single day is not that easy and I still don't have the oven to help me (and I realized that I used to cook a lot of meals that need a working oven).

Since we moved I have a lot of things going on and wasn't thinking too much about what too cook, so we are having trivial meals, nothing special at all. But yesterday I decided to cook something good - but still easy to prepare. I have to confess that I was thinking more about the pictures I could take than in the food itself. I'm attending the module Photojournalism in my Master course and I'm very excited about my final project, which will involve food. I know how hard is to take pictures of food and I don't have a very good camera (or a professional one). So I need to practice with the tools I have.


Well, I cooked white rice, mashed potatoes, zucchini with olive oil and shoyo. I added a cherry tomato in the end and that was our lunch. It was easy to prepare and tasty. Maybe I'm getting back to the kitchen and will have nice recipes ans pics here in the near future.

Overstate

Sometimes I miss playing more than anything.
But life is made of choices.

I'll be there for you

Since yesterday I'm thinking about writing here about one of my best friends and the relationship between friendship and distance. As everybody I have just a few real friends. I learned (the hardest way) that this is the right way to have friends: they are few but they will be there for you forever, no matter what.

Tathi is a friend of mine from Sao Paulo. I've known her for more or less ten years. We got in touch because of the hardcore and two important values that we still share: the straight edge and the veganism. When you are into the hardcore scene you know a lot of people around your country and also around the world. A few of them will turn friends and start to share more than hardcore with you. Tathi is one of those precious friends. We had never lived close to each other (Sao Paulo is 7 hours driving from my city, Belo Horizonte). We were used to see each other 4 or 5 times a year. And even with the distance, our friendship grew up with the time. She was present in the most important moments of my life, including my wedding. In many other occasions we couldn't be together, but I know that she (always) cares.

Now she is passing through some hard times. It's not a new problem and it is a really hard situation that involves somebody that she loves (more than everything in the world). I wish I could be there. Close, not just with my positive thoughts, but close enough to hug her for a long time. But I can't and it's not the first time. I wish I could take her to have some coffee and to talk about all the stupid things and have the laugh together. I wish I could bake her a lot of vegan cupcakes and give her a little bit of sweetness now. But all I can do is to write her and to keep on thinking that everything will be fine. And I know it will. She deserves that.

Tathi, no matter what, I'm here for you.

Matteo's famous salad

The College

2010 started in a different way for me. After one year being basically at home (which doesn't mean that I didn't have a lot to do), I'm going out every day now because of my Master in Journalism and Media Communications. I'm loving to be back in College and I'm enjoying the classes and also the fact of meeting different people. My course is a part time one, so most of my colleagues are Irish. Besides that I'm still collaborating with the German magazine Kochen ohne Knochen (I'll have two articles in the second issue) and writing my column for the Brazilian website.

I'm also loving the new house and the neighborhood. Now I feel like really living in Ireland!

Our street

On the other side, I'm not baking because I still don't know how the oven here works and I'm not cooking as much as before because I don't have the same free time anymore. But we still have some delicious meals around. I don't know if I wrote it here before, but Matteo is also a good cook. And he has some specialties. One of my favorite ones is his beans salad. I'm not a salad-person but I really enjoy this one! I know that most of vegan people are not that interested in find salad recipes around the internet, but you should try this one. As he says, the recipe is very flexible. There are four ingredients that are mandatory: beans, onion, tomatoes and olive oil. The rest is up to you! I love the version that also has salad and chickpeas ;-) And don't forget to eat it with your favorite bread too.

Matteo's "famous" salad

The end of the era "Dublin 1"

The view from the apartment - Dublin 1

This is not a post about food, but it's something that I'd like to share. Since December of 2008 we are living in the area called "Dublin 1" here in Dublin. It was good because it's like 10 minutes from the city center and we didn't know a lot about the city to choose a good area to live. But since we moved to this apartment, in October of 2009, our lives are being a hell. We can't live with the neighbors. Loud music every day and every night, parties every weekend. Matteo works at home, so it's being crazy for him. So we decide to break the 1 year contract and move. We're going to live in a house in an area called Kimmage (the house is in Dublin 12). I'm super excited because I just lived in a house when I was a kid, in a very small town in Brazil. It's not that usual to Brazilian people to live in houses.

We're moving today and I don't know when I'll have internet again, but I hope it will be soon. Also, I just started my Master in Journalism and Media Communication and couldn't be more excited!

See you soon ;)

One of the best risottos I've cooked in Dublin 1