Sweet Chili

We shared in our recent blog about Garrett that it's a thrill when we find some food item that we really like but rarely find here. We find it and we celebrate.

Sound weird? Think of your favorite food and then take it out of your life for the next two years. We only go to the states every two years and so if there is some food we just love but don't have here then we have to wait until our next trip back to the states to enjoy it. We aren't complaining, just trying to explain the joy in finding orange sweet potatoes.

One of the things that our family (those of us that have spent a good part of our lives in the states) misses is good Mexican food.

You may be under the misconception that all of South America likes spicy food. You would be very wrong. I would say 99% of Brasilians don't like, or want, to eat anything hot. Example: Our family went to the mountains one cold weekend with another family. We rented a big house and enjoyed the weekend together. Benay told the family she would make some chili. She made it milder than normal so that our Brasilian friends could handle it. Their two boys didn't even want to try. The mom ate a spoonful and said she couldn't eat it because it was too hot and the dad ate two bowls and then literally went to a window, opened it and sat in front of it to cool off as sweat drops were literally forming on his forehead. Our family could not believe how it was affecting them. Like I said, Brasilians don't do spicy food.

So you can guess how many Mexican restaurants we have here. There is one that isn't too far from our house but it's not very good......at all. Benay and I have gone to it a couple of times but we feel like we are trying to trick our brains into thinking it is good Mexican food. It isn't. There is a fairly new Tex-Mex restaurant near our house but we haven't checked it out yet. I think we have fear of disappointment.

Benay has gotten really good at making Mexican food. She especially makes great salsa. It's good and spicy for us. We like regular tortilla chips to dip into the salsa but they don't sell those here. We could buy them for the first 6 months we lived here and then they disappeared. It's amazing how good a nacho cheese chip or even Ruffles dipped in salsa tastes when you don't have any other options. I know, a Ruffles chip in salsa probably sounds gross but it's all we have.

Last week at Anderson's school we had to buy him a little snack at his snack bar and found these:
Doritos Sweet Chili tortilla chips. Knowing Brasilians lack of desire to eat anything spicy we tried to contain our excitement over the words "sweet chili." We went ahead and bought 4 bags.

They were AWESOME. They were spicy and we were in heaven. Well, almost all of us. Carys and Anderson took one small little bite and wouldn't eat anymore because they said they were too hot. What? They have acquired Brasilian taste buds. They prefer beans and rice to spicy stuff. That's okay because it meant more for rest of us.

We had the perfect compliment to Benay's salsa.
If you noticed I just used the word "had." It's because we can no longer find those chips.

On Monday, Benay and I started a 10 day cleansing diet in preparation for a daily "change in the way you eat" diet. We've eaten more fruit and chicken this week than we have in the last 3 months.

On Saturday, before we started this cleansing diet, we decided that we would go out with a bang and enjoy some of those good chips. We left Bronwyn at home to watch the little guys while we went to the grocery store to find these to eat with our lunch. We just knew if this little snack bar had the chips then our ginourmous grocery store would have it. Wrong. Then we tried our friendly neighborhood store. No. The gas station. No. You think we crave spicy? You would be right. We tried 7 different places, including Anderson's school snack bar, and no one had it.

Was that one day a cruel joke? We're we dreaming? I don't know, but we would appreciate your prayers for our current spicy chip suffering.