"She liked him, they grew close, made love. From that conjunction of empty sensuality Dona Plácida came into bloom. It must be believed that Dona Plácida still couldn’t talk when she was born, but if she could have, she might have said to the authors of her days, ‘Here I am. Why did you call me?’ And the sacristan and the sacristaness would naturally have answered her, ‘We called you to burn your fingers on pots, your eyes in sewing, to eat poorly or not at all, to go from one place to another in drudgery, getting ill and recovering only to get ill and recover once again, sad now, then desperate, resigned tomorrow, but always with your hands on the pot and your eyes on the sewing until one day you end up in the mire or in the hospital. That’s why we called you in a moment of sympathy.’”
Book: The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria
Recipes: The Brazilian Kitchen by Leticia Moreinos Shwartz
Caipirinhas
Limes
Sugar
Cachaça
Seltzer
Ice
I would include the recipe in here, but it was more frustrating than not and may have resulted in sugar and lime juice splashing all over the kitchen table. This is a great summer drink. Once you've worked out the proportions of lime and sugar to your own taste, you'll want it all the time. Here are my suggestions for making it up: Slice a bunch of limes into sixths. Dump them in a plastic bag with some sugar. Let the sugar and fruit marinate until you are ready to use it. This will allow you to make single drinks but not suffer any lag time between them. Then, take a few limes out, squeeze them into your glass, add a shot of cachaça, some ice, and seltzer and enjoy. Repeat as necessary.
After checking out about 4 different liquor stores I finally found cachaça at Fresh Direct, of all places, and had 2 bottles delivered yesterday. Now, all I need to find is some dende oil and some manioc starch and I'll be all set with Brazilian ingredients.
Salmon with Caipirinha Risotto For the Risotto
2 cups arborio rice
1/2 medium onion, finely diced
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup cachaça
6 cups vegetable or fish stock
2 tablespoons butter
Zest of 1 lime
Juice of 2 limes
1 generous tablespoon creme fraiche
For the Salmon
4 boneless, skinless salmon fillets
Salt and Pepper to taste
Olive oil
Heat the olive oil in a wide, shallow saute pan over medium heat and saute the onions until they are transparent. Add the rice to the pan and heat it until it only turns translucent with just a dot in the center. Add 1/2 cup of cachaça, stirring constantly until all the liquid is absorbed. Slowly begin adding a ladlefull of the stock at a time until the liquid is mostly absorbed each time. Reserve at least 1/4 cup of the stock. The rice is done when it is al dente. Add the butter, lime zest and juice, creme fraiche, and remaining cachaça. Hold the remaining stock in reserve until just before you are ready to serve the rice.
For the salmon:
Salt and pepper the fillets on each side. Heat the oil in a pan and cook the salmon about 2 minutes of each side, or until it has the desired doneness (well cooked salmon will tend toward dryness).
Add the last 1/4 cup of stock to the rice and serve as a bed for the salmon.
The recipe in the book made it's risotto in a way that was completely unfamiliar to me. I adapted this from the way Williams-Sonoma suggests making risotto, the recipe I always use, with the exception of adding creme fraiche, which tasted fine. It also said to simultaneously cook the rice and fish, timing it to finish at the same time. This is pretty difficult considering you have to stir the rice constantly and my kitchen helper was fighting with the end of a wooden spoon attempting to make it serve as a muddler for the caipirinhas. That's why I suggest adding the last of the stock just before cooking to avoid your rice coming out sticky. This recipe was received with rave reviews both from kitchen helper Jay, and Ashley, who got a sampling for lunch at work today.
About the book:
Boy, do illegitimate get a bad rap by Joaquim Maria. We've already heard about poor Eugenia who is rediscovered as a pauper, living alone in a tiny room, supported by charity and with the slight implication of fallenness about her. Then there is Dona Placida, "the illegitimate child of a sexton at the cathedral and a woman who sold sweets on the street," whose own, legitimate daughter, ran off with a man, and who's mother questioned why she didn't just sell herself to a "temporary husband." Virtuous in herself, she suffers eternally for the sins of her parents. And Bras Cubas seems to imply that it should be thus. He comes to the conclusion, ruminating on her life, that at least she served some purpose, "If it hadn’t been for our love affair, most likely Dona Plácida would have ended up like so many other human creatures, from which it can be deduced that vice many times is manure for virtue. And that doesn’t prevent virtue from being a fragrant and healthy bloom. My conscience agreed and I went to open the door for Virgilia." And he congratulates himself on saving her. Of course, she weakens later, marries a scoundrel who steals her 5 contos, and dies a beggar in the indigents' hospital.
Other than these reflections, there is a whole section on this made up religion, Humanitism, which I'm not too interested in writing about, but which posits that envy is some kind of virtue. It was invented by a crazy character and doesn't take up too much of the story.
Having finished the book, I can honestly say that it had it's rare moments, but an overall assessment is that while it's not the worst book I've ever read, it surely was far from the best. I think I don't like much of the unfairness of it. The irregularity of wealth, the assumptions about women, fallen or otherwise, the blase disregard for the treatment of slaves and underlings. It surely reflected it's period well; one filled with hypocrisy and the glamor of the few.
