We’d packed spaghetti sauce packets in our luggage and that
was to be it; spaghetti and meatballs with some salad and fresh bread.
Home-cooked, even if it was a packaged sauce mix. All of us were anticipating
the first home cooked meal in Brazil.
Margie and I walked to shop for food at the little stores in
the neighborhood. First to the little veggie shop for salad stuff, then next
door to the bakery for French bread and then next door to the meat market.
We could just point to what we wanted at the first two
stores, but had to say what we wanted at the meat market. They understood that
we wanted ground beef. We forgot the difference between kilos and pounds and
watched wordlessly as they ground 2 kilos (4.5 lbs.) of beef. We had decided
that kilos were half a pound instead of 2.2 pounds. We forgot how to say stop!
We couldn’t explain and were too embarrassed to do more than watch and pay. We
didn’t break into hysterical laughter until we got back into the house.
The new refrigerator hadn’t been delivered, so we had to
cook all four pounds, eight ounces for that one meal. The kids loved that for
once they had enough meatballs to go with their spaghetti! (From Jenny’s Daughter by Jaqi Wade)
http://tinyurl.com/nk37akr
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