Last week I had a little dinner party with my new friends. The house I’m staying at has a lady who comes each day to cook and clean for the family. I had not asked her to cook anything for me yet, aside from my lunch salads. But as I was having a dinner party, I thought it would be nice if some things were made ahead of time so the house wouldn’t be so hot (and so I wouldn’t have to cook!). I attempted my Portuguese. The simple meal was going to be pasta and salad and what I thought was chocolate brownies from a box. I would have asked her to make them from scratch, but I couldn’t find any cocoa powder at the local gas station. (where you buy the “exotic” ingredients!) I did however, find what looked like a brownie mix in a box. It was in Portuguese, but there was a picture on the front of this delicious looking fudgy brownie and the instructions on the back said two eggs and oil. Done! Not exactly…:-)
I studied up the key words I needed to ask the cook to make a red tomato sauce, (I wanted to make meatballs but trying to find ground beef is another story! The grocer wanted to sell me what looked like beef patties – which I guess could have worked if I reshaped them) a big green salad, fruit salad, and the brownie mix. I told her I’d cook the pasta when I came home. I had the ingredients out on the table. She replied in Portuguese and we seemed to have understood each other – all except for the brownies. I gave her the box and she didn’t know what to do with it. I turned it over and showed her the instructions – only after did I think to consider she might not be able to read. We found the baking pan and the few ingredients to add. She gave me a hesitant smile and I went off to work.
When I came home at noon, she ushered me into the kitchen and opened the oven door, asking if the brownies were ok. She said they had been in the oven for a long time. I took a look and found the top layer to be very dry and crumbly. Where were the eggs and oil? Hmmm…I smiled and closed the oven door, not sure what to think. I checked on it again before I left to go back to the office and a small patch was starting to turn moist. Interesting.
I came home to a spaghetti dish mixed with a very greasy tomato sauce (which is how they make it here – I knew that, which is why I wanted to make the sauce and noodles separate) a big salad was in the fridge, lots of fruit, and when I opened the oven door…the brownies were made, but they were not brownies! Turns out it was some kind of chocolate cake pudding with a toffee like crust. (though I don’t think it was suppose to be toffee like!) The middle was squishy and good. :-)
My dinner guests arrived and we enjoyed a few laughs over the dessert. One of the guys was trying to be really polite and didn’t want to say anything – but he was using a knife trying to cut the bottom crust of his “brownie” in his ice cream bowl and the entire chunk flew up out of the bowl! We were in tears we were laughing so hard!
Moral of the story…I need to practice my Portuguese more. I was so proud that morning that I had an entire conversation without hand gestures or English words…but the outcome wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. :-)
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