A Bookalokal Taste of Brazil: Feijoada & Pão de Queijo
Saturday we had our first experience with Bookalokal, a global dining community similar to Airbnb, except that instead of a place to crash you get good company and delicious home cooked meals!
(In case you’re starting to see a theme here, yes, my entire social life revolves around food. Glad we’ve cleared that up. Oh, and if I had it my way, my professional life probably would too! But let’s not get carried away too soon.)
Anyways, back to Bookalokal. It started in Belgium and is now all over the world, only recently including D.C. I hadn’t heard a thing about it until my friend Laetitia announced that she would be co-hosting a Brazilian feast in her home and would love to have some familiar faces around the table. It sounded a bit like Chaos Cooking (well, only in that it involved good food and strangers new friends), and we had a blast doing that last Fall, so I went right ahead and signed us up.
Where as Chaos Cooking was a DIY ordeal, with Bookalokal you just sit back, relax and eat food as it comes your way. While dinner themes vary greatly, our dinner was a traditional Brazilian meal of Fiejoada (black bean stew with all sorts of delicious pork products) over white rice served with collard greens and farofa. Which we kicked off with a caipirinhas, of course, because cachaca gets the conversation flowing.
Vanessa, our chef for the evening, takes great pleasure in sharing the delicious cuisine from her home country of Brazil. Laetitia, who was recently in Brazil for the World Cup, was simply on a mission to learn how to make Pão de Queijo. And seriously, can you blame her? With a hard crunchy shell that tastes like the best Cheez-It you’ve ever had and a soft fluffy center like a popover, the stuff is quite possibly more addictive than crack.
I could have eaten that plate. In fact, had I not wanted to preserve my table manners in the presence of new friends, I’m quite certain I would have. Possibly without using my hands
Oh, and I suppose it’s a good thing I saved room for this:
And of course there was dessert, a light and refreshing passion fruit mousse.
Don’t be jealous. Vanessa will cook for your friends too!
Next up? Hosting! You know, because I was just telling you yesterday how much I like to do dishes.
