Sometimes my hobbies get in the way of my goals; this can be a real problem when I want to do nothing but play and really need to focus on writing or studying.  These days I’m mixing the two.  Studying with others is far more fun than studying alone.  Plus, I get to meet knew people interested in English details I don’t necessarily think about in daily life.  This brings me to my next project: sharing our daily life with others.  I want to do some filming in English for Portuguese speaking friends to hear English speakers talking informally together.  A lot of the recorded material available sounds stiff and unnatural, and I think it would be nice for friends to hear some native speakers talking together without the script.  The U.S. is never going to be the land of formality, and while we are polite with one another in business, our dealings with teachers, and (for the most part) parents, we do have a tendency to speak quite informally the vast majority of the time.  Even some of my teachers in high school permitted students to call them by their first names.  By the time I attended university, I realized most of my instructors treated students more like casual acquaintances than students. 

It would also be nice to have a collection of regional English accents on record.  My father’s accent, Northern Kentucky, has softened over the years since he has not lived in Winchester in a long time.  My mother has a neutral accent, probably due to years of moving around the country.  Mine is influenced by a childhood on the West Coast and growing up in the Southern US.  After speaking with people from different areas of Brazil, I hear the difference in dialects, and it’s fascinating to me.  One of my friends sounds much more nasal while another has an almost softened French influence to his accent that reminds me a little of a dialect we call Creole here in the US.  I was really surprised to hear it. 

On that note, I am going to wrap this up with some a bit of cooking talk since I mentioned we were going to try some recipes soon.  I know, big jump from accents, but this has been a very busy past couple of weeks.  I made vatapá because it sounded delicious, and it is.  I think the recipe was very basic, and I would change it somewhat in the future to suit our personal tastes a bit more.  The stew had shrimp, cod, cashews, almonds, and coconut milk-along with peppers-to name a few of the ingredients.  Mine was pale in comparison to others, but I think the blanched almonds made it appear more white than the deep yellow color.  I served it over rice, and my son complained a great deal about the coconut milk because he isn’t fond of it.  I hope one day he grows out of his dislike since coconut is delicious and useful in so many foods.

I’m going to make it again soon but use peanuts and cashews, roasting them a little longer to give them a better flavor and prettier color.  Still, delicious, and definitely worth the time it takes to make a nice fish stock. 

This week, I'm making the cheese bread I planned on making this past week.  There are several recipes, but this one I'm using has cassava flour.  There are also some other stews and soups in our future, especially since fall is coming.  In our family, we tend to eat a lot lighter in the hot months of summer simply because the heat and humidity make me sluggish.  Now that we've had a few cooler nights, I am in the mood for some real cooking again and am looking forward to trying recipes from the Latin Kitchen site.