Hi all. It’s me, your favorite non-lifestyle editor, back in these lines to replace Maria Ramos Silva who can’t write to you this week. She says hello and promises to return.

However, I came here to tell you about David Costa, the Portuguese chef who runs the kitchen at Adega, a restaurant in San Jose, California, an American city that is the urban center of the famous Silicon Valley, the land where most of the technology is located. proceed from the fact that in recent decades have changed our days. David was in Lisbon to talk about life and work in the US, the Michelin star he proudly wears, and the differences between Portugal and American lands in habits, food, restaurants, and even elevator queues.

You can read Ana Luisa Bernardino’s interview here.. In that NewsletterI play the role of a “yellow book”, highlight some significant points and explain the reason for my choice (but none of this replaces reading the text in its entirety):

“What I really wanted to eat was my mother’s food – my mother’s stone soup”

This sentence reminded me of my mother and the farmer’s menu that she prepares and that I have cherished for as long as I can remember, from ranch to all-inclusive feijoada. I admit that this is a culinary art with more spiritual richness than material art, but one uses the seasoning he knows best. At the same time, it is curious how the man who prepares delicacies for the futuristic inhabitants of Silicon Valley talks about the traditional bone-in soup.

“They are not afraid of what they do not know – and are not afraid to pay, if only it was good”

Here David Costa is talking about Americans in general. He describes them as ready to throw themselves into the dishes of those who are gifted in the kitchen without fear of the final score. I have never lived in the USA, but have been there in tourist mode and I must confess that this is not what I saw. I remember more chains fast food repetitive in different states, generous portions and sympathetic amounts of fat and other bulky foods. But maybe I stopped here because, unlike these Americans represented here, I admit some (sometimes quite) fear of paying, even if it is good. Not that I wanted to be like that. It is what it is.

“There were people who never ate cod in their lives”

I have already mentioned cod in these newsletters. I feel that maybe I am repeating myself, but repetition can have good results when the motive is noble. And few things can be nobler than cod. Two feelings about this phrase. First, the question: how can you live without tasting cod? Secondly, sigh: it must be great to eat cod for the first time in our lives when we think that nothing will surprise us anymore (which is a clear exaggeration, because anyway, only those who do not want to be surprised, philosophy, one day we will be able to about it talk, now I have no time, and you have no interest).

“I also have many clients buying a house in Portugal”

Maybe because they are not Portuguese. This is in line with what is happening here. Forward.

“Here in Portugal, in the time of oranges and strawberries, we know they will be delicious”

Strawberries are a fruit that doesn’t tell me much. Nothing against, and, technically speaking, it’s amazing how Nature manages to create something so thoughtful. But I have never established a special relationship with what was said. Orange is one of my passions. I don’t know if there is any orange fraternity. And it doesn’t have to be from the Algarve, I’m not a regionalist when it comes to citrus (or anything else, since we’re here). But if there are brethren, here is the challenge: accept me into your organization, I promise not to disappoint you.

“At Petiscos we serve whole sardines, with roasted pepper salad, tomato salad and boiled potatoes”

David Costa talks about it as something exotic. And for most Americans, when they’re served a whole fish with bones, they get stuck waiting for someone to come along to save them from that desperation. When I read this sentence, I remembered that it is summer now. And I just didn’t cry because I know he’s coming back. All in all. Let’s see.

“There are people who will do anything to eat cod and others who will do anything to eat stew”

And there are people who do everything to eat both. You can even at one meal, politely, no need to be rude. Or one for lunch and one for dinner. I won’t name names.

I wish you great reading and delicious food.

See you later.