Faixa de Areia is a Brazilian documentary about the beachgoers that frequent the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. Although it has its interesting points, after reaching halfway or so, seeing the same questions being asked about equality and discrimination gets a little tiring.
Here’s the trailer
PS – If you like the trailer, go here…
Catupiry is the most popular “requeijão” (cream cheese) in Brazil. It was developed by the Italian immigrant Mario Silvestrini in the state of Minas Gerais in 1911. The name derives from the native Tupi-Guarani word meaning “excellent”. The recipe, created by Mario, still remains a secret kept under lock and key.
Catupiry is a soft, mild-tasting cheese that can be spread over toasts and crackers or used in cooking. Because of its low level of acidity, Catupiry has become an essential ingredient in innumerable dishes. A large number of pasta, fish and chicken recipes using Catupiry, have been created throughout Brazil. The expression “ao Catupiry” (with Catupiry) is widely used and refers to foods where Catupiry is an important ingredient, like in pizza toppings or snacks such as coxinhas fillings, pastries and cheese buns. In the State of Rio de Janeiro, Catupiry is often eaten as a dessert combined with guava jam.
Within the US, Catupiry can be found in Brazilian ethnic stores and restaurants in the States of Florida, California, New York and Massachusetts, though it can be difficult to find.
Here’s the offical site (in Portuguese) for Laticínios Catupiry.
This site says it has a home-made recipe, whether its the same or not, I’m not sure.
Paul, an Englishman who has a thing for Brazil (sounds like someone I know), has created an online guide to Recife. More specifically, as the name of the title here suggests, he loves the Pernambucan Capital and had been visiting on and off for 12 years before taking the plunge and moving there, which he did 4 years back.
The site, although new, looks promising and I trust the resolve of the owner to make it into a great guide (which includes tours and services). Here’s the link!
…was created by a Brazilian! That being said, I prefer Andre’s original design over Google’s revision of it. Why? With his design, I can see the G easily and therefore recognize it as Google.
Another great mix from DJ Vivo! Although I dig every mix he does, this one is especially good. Here’s the description of his latest 12/26 podcast.
“A selection of Brazil’s African influenced music from the north and north east regions including samba de coco, carimbo, marchinhas de carnival, forro and remixes from DJ Dolores & Lucio K.
TRACKLISTINGS
Bezerra da Silva – Se não souber dizer
Tine – Na Palma Da Mao(Festa No Coco)
Capijo – Pra Dancar Meu Siria
Pinduca – Carimbo Do Macaco
Pinduca – Sirimbo
Jackson Do Pandeiro – Samba Do Ziriguidum (Inteira)
Cila Do Coco – Fumar Maconha
Maciel Salu – Pernambuco e O Lugar
Barbatuques – Baiao Destemperado
Lu Horta – Comigo Mesmo – Lucio K Remix
Banda de Pífanos de Caruaru – Jackson, O Rei Do Pandeiro – Bruno E ‘O Discurso’ Remix
DJ Dolores & Orchestra Santa Massa- A dança da moda
Siba e a fuloresta– A Velha da capa preta
Timbalada – Beijo descarado
Siba e a fuloresta – Bloco da Bicharada
Nazare Pereira – Clarao Da Lua* (Video Below)
OTHER BRAZILIAN BEATZ RELATED LINKS
The Brazilian party in Bristol England, check out the website for photos, videos and achieved audio shows– www.brazilianbeatz.co.uk
My DJ myspace – www.myspace.com/vivobrazil
Over at Polyana’s Brazil-blog ‘Disseram que Eu Voltei Americanizada’, she recently spoke about food from her home state of Minas (Gerais) and added some ‘flavor’ to the article by showcasing certain dishes (photos included) and describing why they are so darn good!
Here’s the intro she wrote…
“I promised I’d write about the best cuisine in Brazil. And this isn’t even my subjective and suspect opinion. Ask any Brazilian with a pallete and they’ll tell you the best food comes from Minas? (?…”!”?)
“SAO PAULO (Reuters) – A little-known Brazilian farming town with sugar cane wealth is set to upstage Rio de Janeiro by erecting a statue of Christ that will eclipse its famous equivalent atop Rio’s Corcovado mountain.
The Christ statue in Sertaozinho, northwest of Sao Paulo city, will be 187 feet tall when perched on its 128 foot (39-meter) pedestal, Brazilian daily newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo said on Tuesday.
Rio’s iconic statue overlooking the beach-side city measures up at 98.4 feet high, but its much shorter pedestal gives it a total height of just 125 feet.
“Far from a pretense of grandeur, we’re thinking about visibility,” said Nerio Costa, mayor of the town 206 miles from Sao Paulo which hopes to inaugurate the 1.5 million reais ($681,000) structure at Easter.
But those suspicious that Sertaozinho, with a population of just over 100,000, is trying to rival the country’s top tourist city can cite other evidence.
The agricultural town also boasts a lake-side artificial 160-yard (meter) beach built at a cost of $3.64 million (8 million reais), Folha said.”
from Reuters.
I realize I’ve turned to publishing news stories more so than anything else in recent times but I’m currently upgrading a bunch of things offline and so my attention has been a bit diverted.
I hope to be able to get back on track, albeit little by little.
The other issue is topic choice, as I’ve been getting close to 300 posts, I’m finding less to write about, less of my own knowledge to share.
Enjoy the news, in the meantime!
“Brazilians start 2009 facing the task of learning new spelling rules that have just come into effect.
The spelling reforms have been agreed by Portuguese-speaking nations, but the language seems set to have different written forms for some time to come.
In Portugal, there has been fierce resistance in some quarters to the changes because many of the changes are to spell words the Brazilian way.
Portuguese is the official language of more than 230m people worldwide.
Brazil, by far the biggest lusophone nation, is the first to adopt the new spelling rules.
Spellings are standardised, and silent consonants are removed in order for words to be spelt more phonetically, turning, for example “optimo” (great) into “otimo”.
Various accents are also no longer needed.
The alphabet grows by three letters to 26 – k, w and y were already in use but until now frowned on by purists.”
More on it here at BBC.
My Take
It seems grammar is already an issue for many natives of the Portuguese language, which is already difficult as is, so introducing new rules doesn’t seem to be the greatest idea. Recently, I was having a conversation with several people about anglocisms entering into Portuguese and the general consensus was that its okay, after all, many words in many languages came from other languages due to invasions, popular culture, etc. Personally, I’ve always been for conservation of language (and also of culture, which I see as closely related) and therefore naturally any English words being adopted into Portuguese concerns me.
How do these two concepts relate? Well, its interesting to me that when the changes are forced on the people by the government, the people wish to revolt…yet when these changes are (and I’ll use the same word) forced upon a language by the dominant world culture, the people are very much more accepting of said changes. Look at the French Ministry of Culture for another example in their 65-page report of which French words should be used in place of foreign words.
For the new rules (in Portuguese), you can see it here…
For those from Brazil, the word ‘dengue’ is more likely than not a household term. Various sprays have been concocted to combat the disease but most mosquitos end up becoming resistant. Scientists in Australia may be found a cure, the story is below…
“Humans could be protected from dengue fever by infecting the mosquitoes carrying it with a parasite which halves their lifespan, say researchers.
Australian scientists, writing in the journal Science, found that Wolbachia bacteria spread well through laboratory-bred mosquitoes.
Only older mosquitoes pass on dengue – so killing them could cut disease.
Experts said it remained to be seen how well the bacteria would spread outside the laboratory.
The virus might also adapt to survive, they added.
Many thousands of cases of dengue fever occur worldwide each year, mainly in warmer tropical countries.
The virus is passed to humans when mosquitoes carrying it feed on their blood, and while there have been efforts to eradicate them using insecticides, these have been fraught with problems, including the ability of the mosquito to become resistant to the chemicals used.
The potential of Wolbachia as a way of controlling mosquito populations has been suggested for some time, but the latest study offers hope – albeit under laboratory conditions – that it might work.”
The rest is here on BBC.
