Grandma´s birthday and addictions

Today is my grandmother´s birthday - she is 85. This is the first time I will be celebrating her birhtday with her since I was 7 months old. AND in exactly one week my parents will be here. I haven´t seen them in FOUR months. I haven´t gone this long without seeing them in over 10 years. I only get four days with them but I´m going to make the most of it. I am truly sad about saying goodbye but I am excited to go mass in English, about my job interview on the 4th, about my first party in my new apartment MLKJr. weekend, and about getting around a town that is a little more manageable.

I haven´t been up to much. To clear up any confusion I did purchase the Earth Lodge boots. I´ll need them since Boston occasionally gets like a foot of snow. Crazy. Mooshoes has some other snowboots I am interested in but I will wait until I get to NYC to try those on and buy them. The folks told me yesterday that my financial aid has gone through and I have a fancy pancy debt riddled check waiting for me. Woohoo!

I have been baking brownies (over, and over, and over) and I did make the mandioca bread. I love making bread - I love kneading, I love yeast, I love the rising, I love the mess, I love the taste. I love it all. When I grated the mandioca I was struck by how much it looked like mozzarella. The bread came out beautifully, the recipe called for a bread pan but my kitchen equipment is very limited at my aunt´s house. I like the texture of the bread, it reminds me of foccacia. The thing is that mandioca really has no flavor so it requires a lot of seasoning - much more then my recipe called for. The maid thinks it needs more salt - but Brasilians are a tad insane about salt, and sugar (beware traveling diabetics and those with high blood pressure). I think it needs herbs - like rosemary.
So the recipe: 3 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of yeast
2 cups of raw grated mandioca
1 tsp. of salt
1 cup of warm water

I proofed the yeast in the warm water for 10 minutes - BUT - the recipe doesn´t call for this. Mix together the flour, salt, mandioca, and yeast/water. Knead the dough until soft and stretchy, a minimum of 10 minutes. Make sure to add flour to table and hands and dough as needed, to avoid sticking to the surface. Put the dough in a pan, well covered, for 2 hours or until doubled in size. I lightly oil the dough and cover with a towel. Divide the dough in half and place in two oiled loaf pans. I used only one pan (the type name escapes me right now - it has a hole in the center, kind of like a bundt pan without the ridges). Bake for 30 minutes in a medium heat oven. None of the recipes in this book have pictures OR temperatures. Crazy. Remove the dough from the oven and place on cooling rack. I used the knock test to check for doughness - when you knock on the bread it should sound hollow. I highly recommend seasoning with herbs of your choice.

I have developed two addictions while living her in Brasil. I´ve been working out tons - I think I have reached the stage of addiction. I am already thinking about where I will work out when I visit DC. I run three times a week - from 35 to 45 minutes. I aim for 8.5 kilometers - which is about 5 miles. I do intervals ranging from 10.0 km/h (5.8 mph) to 12.0 km/h (7 mph). It is amazing how the body rapidly adjusts to speed. I feel very fit and I love workingout. I should since I do it at least two hours a day, 5 days a week. Besides running, I take pilates, a trampoline jump class, stretch class, and fitball - ALL twice a week. And I´ve lost one kilo (2.2 lbs). That´s it. I think I need to add weight lifting and decrease eating. But I LOVE to eat. Especially paçoca. It is to the point that when I go to the grocery store I buy the whole box. I am going to try to smuggle in as much as I can. I don´t know how I will live without it. This is a maternal family trait - when the women in my family like a food we REALLY like a food.
I´ve eaten MANY types of paçoca - and Flormel peanut and oat paçoca is the BEST by far. When I open a bakery one day this will be the house speciality.