Warming up the soul with food

I´ve always remembered myself as a very skinny incredibly shy boy not very much fond of my mom´s cooking. To be completely honest, I really disliked most of the food I was forced to eat as far as I can recall. At school I was known as spaghetti and that never has been a problem for me. Actually, I used to think that eating was nothing but wasting of time and energy. Even during adolescence when most of us wish to become big and muscular, I was quite happy weighing less than average and not paying much attention to food. Exceptions were to be made to birthday parties, when I would turn myself into an ant and fight for every piece of candy and cake I could put my fingers on.  This blasé attitude towards food came to change only later in life and it was very peculiar the way it happened.

            A couple of years ago I moved to the USA due to professional reasons. I did not plan moving there. It happened that I had an academic work accepted for presentation in one scientific meeting in the USA and then got invited to continue the research there. In less than 6 months I moved to Saint Louis and had my life completely changed.  I still remember the day I got there and my surprise to see that the studio I had rented through the internet had none of the facilities announced. I only knew my future boss, who I was to see only 2 days after (I arrived on a Saturday) and had no bed to sleep on. Worse than that, I had no idea on how to get one. To complicate matters, my knowledge in their language at that time would not allow me to buy a sandwich in Disneyland, as had said my Brazilian advisor a few days before my departure from here.  She was not mistaken.

            After this small ordeal, I was introduced to people at the hospital and shortly after that I was invited to many dinner parties with the colleagues. For the first time in my life, the food I was given together with the potential friendship made me happy.  I would look forward for the next invitation and that went on for a couple of weeks when suddenly it stopped. I could not understand why people suddenly stopped inviting me over for dinner. Had I done anything wrong? Had I said anything unacceptable? Probably someone got offended by the joke I tried to tell the last dinner about Argentineans.  That was one of the top 5 explanations I found for the situation. I was deeply hurt and then decided to investigate what happened with a friend, a very loud Italian guy named Frederico. Much simpler than I thought, he told me that I had been invited to dinner party with a circle of friends and that now I was expected to invited all of them over to return the favor. As I did not ask them over, they just gave up on me for that matter. They were anxious for trying some Brazilian food and I was to provide that if I wanted to keep inside the circle.

            I didn´t know how to make an egg. Out of despair I looked up for Brazilian recipes at Ana Maria Braga´s web site. That saved me. The recipes were easy to follow and after a few tries I was an expert on many Brazilian dishes: fish moqueca, shrimp bobó and obviously feijoada. Back to the circle, I started valuing food and the company it attracts. We would relax a bit from the hard work having a meal prepared by a friend. Sharing the food around a table with friends is the most precious memory I brought from my experience living abroad. And now, when we meet somewhere it is always like old times: the food comes first and the dinner is a mandatory sacred event.