Last night we ate dinner in Florianópolis with Dina (pronounced like "Gina"), one of our ISA contacts. We went to a local Italian restaurant and tried a Brazilian take on Italian food. The custom at this restaurant (and many other places throughout Brazil, Dina tells us) is to order one entré for two people, and then split it. Dr. Abad and I split an order of Fettuccine Bolognese. After spending the last 2 days eating airport snacks and airline dinners, this dish was amazing. We did add a little Brazilian flair to the meal though, as Dina ordered an appetizer of polentas. These little biscuits are made from fried condensed cream. One of the classmates, Liz, told us that we have these in America, however they are made with cornmeal, not thickened cream. I wasn't a huge fan of the polentas (they were a bit too oily), but most everyone else at the table seemed to like them.

One thing too note about the dinner is that we ordered far too much food. This goes unnoticed in the United States, but the Brazilian culture advocates only ordering what you need, so as not too waste food. This prompted Dina to ask for the leftovers to be packaged up, with the intention of giving the leftovers to some of the people living on the streets.

Polentas [image via gwiv.com]