With a bigger economy and a growing middle class, Brazil is facing new public health challenges, including an obesity epidemic. A documentary released in Brazil last month called Way Beyond Weight delves into children's obesity in Brazil, an increasingly worrying issue given that around a third of Brazilian kids are overweight. Some of the themes mirror the same issues in the United States--which has had a longer obesity epidemic--ranging from fast food advertising aimed at kids to children unable to identify basic produce.
The film also reveals other staggering statistics, like the fact that an estimated 56 of Brazilian babies under the age of 1 drink soda. There's even a scene showing a mother bottle-feeding a baby with soda.
It also delves into the growing presence of junk food and fast food companies in Brazil and how they target children. One scene even shows a Nestlé boat arriving in sparsely populated areas of the Amazon; these boats carry tons of cookies to this region. One of the producers noted that while they were filming, he met an indigenous chief who gave tips for making Ramen noodles.
Child obesity in Brazil isn't limited by social class, and the film aims to show children across the socioeconomic spectrum throughout the country. In a few scenes, the movie shows kids unable to identify vegetables.
Brazil's obesity epidemic still hasn't received enough attention domestically, so the film is a good start to put this issue on the policy radar.
At first blush, Thiago Silva seems like just another Brazilian immigrant in New York: a kind, soft-spoken, self-professed momma's boy from Goiânia who moved to the U.S. at age 8 and grew up in Astoria. But in reality, Thiago is a rising star in the New York culinary scene, and at just 28 is executive pastry chef at Catch, one of New York's hottest restaurants. Along with creating delicious desserts for the rich and famous, he also makes amazing cakes. He's made the most incredible creations, from a guitar cake to a Harley cake to a plane cake to a spinning globe cake. He's made cakes for numerous celebrities, from Sofia Vergara to Brooke Shields to New York Knicks player Carmelo Anthony.
Thiago also represents the bridge between cultures, of living between Brazil and the United States, an American football fan who loves churrasco. Growing up, he found people had a hard time pronouncing his name,
calling him things like Thee-ah-go and Chicago. So he began writing his
name T-ago, which he now uses for his website. He confessed he hasn't been back to Brazil since he left as a kid, since much of his family now lives stateside. But it's his dream to go back for the World Cup.
He's also fiercely proud of being Brazilian. I noticed that in many of his interviews with the press, Thiago made a
point to identify himself as such. "You always take with you where you came from," he said. He also
attributes his work ethic to his Brazilian background. "I grew up with
very hard-working parents, who are both Brazilian," he says. "That's what I always got from them." He also
attributes the extravagance in his work to being Brazilian. Clients are suprised by the huge size of the cakes he makes. Thiago also tries to incorporate Brazilian elements into his desserts, sometimes using sweetened
condensed milk. Of all Brazilian dishes, he especially enjoys churrasco and sorvete de milho verde.
While he loves Brazil, Thiago notes that coming to the U.S. put him on the path to becoming a chef. In Brazil, his mom was a single mother and decided to move to the States in search of a better life. In Goiânia, she worked at a supermarket, doing a little bit of everything, from unloading trucks to stocking shelves to dressing up as Wonder Woman to promote the store. She left Thiago and his sister with their grandparents for two years before bringing them to New York. Once in the U.S., she worked at restaurants and then started her own cleaning business, which she has to this day. She also remarried a Brazilian chef. Thiago's mom is incredibly proud of his accomplishments, and called crying the first time he appeared in the media.
Thiago credits part of his success to his mother. She didn't know how to cook and it was her dream to learn. At one point, she ordered a cake for his younger sister's birthday, but was disappointed with how it came out. She thought she could do better, and signed up for a cake-decorating course. Thiago, then age 13, tagged along to help translate for his mom. He soon discovered that he was a natural, and his mom signed him up for the class. Ever since then, he's been making cakes.
Becoming a chef was his destiny, Thiago believes. "I think it's kind of how God planned it," he said. Along with making cakes at home, he studied culinary arts in high school. He also got into the Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), which teaches culinary arts to underserved high school students. This year, Thiago returned to serve as a judge at C-CAP's annual competition, which he himself participated in as a student, and to attend the annual scholarship ceremony.
In high school, Thiago's grades weren't the greatest, so he had some difficulty getting a full scholarship to college. But C-CAP helped him get his first job at Olives at age 19, as well as an apprenticeship with a cake decorator. Opting to work in the field instead of going back to school, Thiago spent three years at Olives and then got a job at EMM Group's Abe & Arthur. Less than ten years after starting his first professional chef job, he's now an executive pastry chef at Catch, which opened a year ago. He created all of the desserts on Catch's menu and works at two of EMM Group's restaurants. Thiago has 8 employees working for him but with more restaurants opening this year, he'll be working at 4 restaurants with around 20 employees. Thiago attributes his success to hard work, good timing, and taking risks. He explains to do his job, passion is a requirement, especially given some of the rough hours--sometimes up to 20 hours a day.
Thiago's cakes for the stars began at Abe & Arthur's. There, he offered to make a cake for the owner's father's birthday, creating a gift box cake. The owners then asked if they could start selling his cakes, deciding to invest in his talent. "Next thing I know they're asking me if I want to make Sofia Vergara cake. I said, 'Ok, sure.'" He's made cakes for rappers and rock stars, and NFL and NBA players. He admits he was a bit starstruck when he made a cake for the New York Giants after they won the Superbowl and got to meet some of the players. He told me he also made a cake for Scott Machado, a 22 year-old Brazilian-American who plays for the Houston Rockets. "He's my cousin!" he proudly explained. But regardless of the client, he puts hours and hours into each cake to "try to make the person's day."
Given the intricacy of the cakes he creates, Thiago's not afraid of a challenge. One of his hardest projects was a sweet 16 cake that had two spinning elements that were four feet tall, a fog machine and a confetti cannon inside the cake, and spotlights around the base. He did everything on his own, from baking to electrical work to woodwork, and then had to transport the cake to Long Island and finish putting it together. (You can see the final outcome here.)
While he's gone far in his career, he hasn't gone far from his roots. Thiago still lives in Queens, now in Jackson Heights, with his wife, who's a gaúcha who came to the States as an infant. They met at a Brazilian church and were high school sweethearts. They have a baby on the way, and Thiago hopes his first child will inspire him even more. In the future, Thiago imagines opening his own cake shop or bakery, having his own business to support his family. He also wants to make sure that his child will feel Brazilian, and plans to teach him or her Portuguese. "I'm Brazilian first, and I want my kid and his kid to be the same way," he told me.
Toward the end of our conversation, Thiago let me sample some his spectacular desserts, including a spin on the all-American apple pie with bourbon merengue and strawberry shortcake. This dessert, he explained, was inspired by his mother's três leites recipe and is one of his most Brazilian dishes. At the bottom of the delicious pastry is the três leites part, followed by a layer of strawberries and cream and crowned with an American shortbread biscuit. "So it's literally a Brazilian and American sandwich?" I asked. "Exactly," he said.
You can find Thiago on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, as well as his website. You can also taste his amazing creations at Catch in New York.
After living in Brazil relatively close to São Paulo, I'd been curious to visit but never really got around to it. I'd been more eager to see coastal cities, and figured I'd eventually have a good reason to go, since I have lots of Paulista friends and there are tons of events in the city. So last week, when I finally had an opportunity to visit, I jumped at the chance.
I tried not to let me expectations cloud my impressions, to try to go in with a blank slate. But there were so many things I'd heard about the city. Some say it's the New York of Brazil. Gringo friends who loved the city said part of the reason was because they like "complicated" cities. Other friends said they found the city overwhelming. Articles I'd read in travel publications made it seem incredibly cosmopolitan. Almost everyone I know who lives there has complained about how expensive it is. I wasn't quite sure what to expect.
It could have been that I was running on little sleep and struggling with jetlag, but the whole time I felt a little bit as if I was in a strange dream. The city feels like someone took a bunch of Brazilian cities and smushed them together to form this massive urban center. The city is a jumble of so many different forms of architecture, which can feel a bit jarring when seeing it for the first time: there are the gothic churches, the fancy luxury condos, the Niemeyer architecture, the modern skyscrapers, the gritty commercial underbelly, the contemporary mansions, peaking out from behind high walls, the brightly painted boutiques and restaurants, the car dealerships, the endless apartment complexes. I actually thought I might be hallucinating when I saw an enormous, undulating, shiny, very purple building rising over the smaller buildings of a leafy, upscale neighborhood. (I later found out it's a cultural center).
The city doesn't seem to end. Everywhere you look, the city keeps going and going. It's just incredibly dense; if there ever was a concrete jungle, this is it. If you think about it too much, it can start to get a little overwhelming.
The juxtaposition of endless buildings and tropical foliage is somehow surprising; it seems odd that so much green could flourish in such a dense urban space. But beautiful purple trees and flowers and palms pop up all over the city. And even though it has been Brazil's largest and most prosperous city for so long, signs of the country's boom are everywhere.
I didn't have enough time to go to all of the places I wanted to see--there's so many museums and cultural centers I'd love to visit. Also, though I only saw a tiny sliver of it, the nightlife looked great; the bars in hip Vila Madalena were an interesting contrast to Rio's Lapa neighborhood. I'd also go back for the food. It's true what they say about food in São Paulo. It's so good. Everywhere I looked, there was mouth-watering food.
But I think what I loved most about the city was the people. I feel really fortunate to have friends there, and it was much more fun to see the city with them as my guides. Plus, the city really is the rainbow of people that Brazilians love to tout as representative of Brazil's diversity, even more so than in Rio, given the large Asian population as well as Latin American and Middle Eastern immigrants. The city makes for great people watching, no matter where you go.
And like Cariocas, Paulistas are warm, welcoming, and eager to show off their city. In that respect, they're not so different after all.
While lots of people associate the Brazilian community in New York with Astoria or Little Brazil, there are actually quite a few fun places in the SoHo/TriBeCa/West Village area. In fact, they form a little triangle, so I put together a little map to show Brazilian restaurants and bars in this area. The map could be extended to businesses and other locations, so if you have any suggestions, let me know and I'll add them!
I especially recommend the açaí smoothies from Getting Hungry, which are reasonably priced (for New York) and really hit the spot during this very hot summer.
Eli and his Brazilian friend recently discovered this new restaurant, which just opened in TriBeCa. Last week, Eli and I went to check it out, and it was charming and fun with excellent food, so I wanted to share it with all of you.
Leo Funderburk, an American model who has worked for a long time in the restaurant business, was originally going to open the restaurant as an expansion of Casa, which his Brazilian ex-wife runs. Instead, he decided to make it a separate entity, though I'm not clear on whether the name is in fact Barzinho, or the name used in several articles and on Yelp (Leo's Bar & Restaurant), which the owner says is easier for people to understand. I personally prefer Barzinho, which is what the restaurant has been using for advertising. Read
more about Leo and the restaurant here.
Located right next door to Plataforma TriBeCa, a fancy churrascaria which charges upwards of US$50 per person, this restaurant is more moderately priced and more relaxed, with home style cooking and a family-like atmosphere. It's small but cozy, with simple furnishings and great Brazilian music. Also, on Thursdays, Chris Barreto and her band play live samba, forro, chorinho and bossa nova. The cook is an extremely sweet mineira, who scolded us for not warning her beforehand that we were Brazilian (I apparently fooled her) so she could "caprichar um pouco." Leo, the owner, was chatting with everyone and made us feel very welcome.
The restaurant has standard Brazilian fare, with delicious salgadinhos for appetizers (think coxinha and camarão ao alho e óleo) and great main courses. There's feijoada, of course, but Eli and I had the moqueca and the peixe frito, which were both amazing. One of my favorite things is a drink the owner invented -- a mixture of Brugal (rum from the Dominican Republic) and Guarana Antartica. While in theory, it's kind of an odd combination, in practice, it's surprisingly delightful.
The only two downsides are that it's cash only and slightly understaffed, so the service is a bit slow. They should theoretically start taking credit cards soon, and it's possible service is better during more crowded meal times. Overall, it's a wonderful way to matar saudades or to just eat some really delicious Brazilian food.
There's really nothing like a Brazilian pizza rodízio. I'd never seen or tried anything like it before moving to Brazil, and it is by far one of my favorite culinary experiences. I haven't found a rodízio in New York, but my friend in LA sent me a review of one in Culver City, CA that looks absolutely amazing. If you're in LA, go try it! And whoever this Brazilian entrepreneur is, I hope he/she expands to the East Coast.
Here are some snippets from reviews:
Thrillist: "..25+ ultra-thin crusted pizzas use market-fresh ingredients with
always-rotating options ranging from margharita and pepperoni to
creativeness like the Portuguesa (ham/green peas/egg/black olives/fresh
onions/mozzarella), the Florentina (tuna/mushroom/mozzarella/green
olives/onions), and the self-explanatory, crispy-potato-stick-topped
Strogonoff."
LA Times Daily Dish: "Toppings include chicken, corn, tuna fish, green peas, beef stroganoff
(yes!), potato sticks, green olives, hearts of palm and fried garlic.
Just don't ask for them on the same pie, please. OK, maybe put the green
peas and tuna fish together just to get freaky."
Grub Street: "The flavors are pretty unusual for a town still overcoming its various
pizza problems, but having sampled our share of great Argentine and
Brazilian pies in the past, we think Bella Vista could win L.A. over
just as easily as the next native-launched attempt."
LA Weekly: "The place is small and cheerful -- a single room adjacent to the Supermercado Brazil, across the street from Cafe Brazil and next door to the Brazilian shoe store. When it's busy, waiters circulate the small room with trays of smoked sausage, hearts of palm, spinach, and chicken pizza, offering up as many slices as your hungry heart can stomach."
This week I'm going to dedicate a few posts to one of my favorite things about Brazil: food.If you've discovered a great restaurant recently, either in the US or Brazil, let me know and I can add it in.
If you happen to be in Brazil, you're in luck! It's Restaurant Week in Rio through May 23rd, and around 90 restaurants are offering R$27.50 lunches and R$39 dinners. See the complete list of restaurants here. For the official Rio Restaurant Week Guide, click here.
Sadly, some of my favorite restaurants aren't participating, but there are plenty of fun places to choose from on the list. Also, if you're looking to go somewhere to hang out for the night and drink some beers rather than strictly eating dinner, Devassa is a good choice, especially the one in Ipanema.
Also, if you're in Curitiba, Restaurant Week is coming later this month! See more here.
