Live up your goals!!!

Kia ora folks,

    I know i know it has been a very long time and no post, there are times that we feel like nothing interesting is happening in our life and therefore, we don't feel like writing or doing much, it's a bit of a vicious cycle...
 ...that is not the case here. As a matter of fact i had a lot going on. My last few months in New Zealand and the start of my new life back in Brazil.

    Travelling is my life, it defines who i am and so far it has been 35 countries, 3 continents, thousands of liters of beer, wine, kilos (or Pounds) of various food, several kilometers (or miles) driven, flown, sailed, on tracks, pedaled, walked, ran, hiked, climbed, handstands in famous places, people met, fancy cars, jet skies in beautiful paradisiac beaches, expensive night clubs, extreme sports, concerts. Played with all seasons within their proper weather, snowboarding in Colorado during winter, biking on the reddish Central Park during autumn, snorkeling on crystal blue Caribbean waters on a hot summer day, going for a run up the mountains breathing clear springtime air in Akaroa NZ, natural disasters such as earthquakes, tropical storms at sea, hurricane storms, hail, snow storms, cyclones, bad rain and lightening, bruises, smiles, pain, relief, happiness, memories, moments good or bad, the list is almost endless.
 
   Trying to write all of it down, makes me think how wonderful and much like a Hollywood movie my life as been, i'm not rich financially and yet i was able to do sooooo much that made me rich on the inside, i have achieved most of my goals, a total of 20 % of the world, and from here on i'll be working on settling my life on my biggest dream;  ARTS, by getting involved in courses, and getting to know people with the same interest.

    I still intend to do some travelling, my new goal towards travels is to be in all of the five continents (not counting Antarctica) before i reach my 35th year, i'm 16 days away from my 27th birthday which gives me about 8 years to visit Africa and Asia, ahhh and also to learn Italian and French hehe.

Folks now i'm back to my online "duties", i'll be posting new journals here and drawings on DA, so tag along if you like and share my perspective of life, leave a comment if possible!

C ya!!!

Pondering about life! ...as usual!

Lately i've been working for my current employer in two of her business, one is the Restaurant Hay's which is in Christchurch and i'm doing 3 to 4 days, and the other is the Duvauchelle store and cafe, down near Akaroa which i also do 3-4 days a week.

Akaroa is a very charming country place, small little town, a couple hundreds of people, if that much, and i was thinking being a city kind of guy, how funny is that i'm all the way across the world working on a country town, and how that makes me feel a bit like i'm part of "Smallville" the tv show, haha it's so funny that i've always thought of living in big cities around the globe, and never in the past i actually thought of New Zealand, what's to say about the country side of a 4 million people country?!

The city of Rio by itself has 10.000.000 people, and i've always been raised surrounded by skyscrapers, people in suits, traffic jams of kilometers when u don't get to go past 2nd gear, malls everywhere, movie theaters for 150 people in places that the hot movies would be displayed in 4-6 rooms, so u'll always find a session that agrees with your scheduelle, bars, restaurants, night clubs, public transportation 24 hours, the list of commodities in a big city like Rio is seriously immense, hence me finding funny being on a small place like Akaroa!

But u know i find that for the simple fact that i've seen myself in various scenarios like this, i can sort of grasp how amazing the world is, and that's why i love travelling so much!

Anyways that's about it for now, later this week i come back with a recipe or something!

cheers!

The fusion of cuisines!

Hello to all,

As the post from this Wednesday felt a bit philosophical, and a bit sad to me, i decide to do another post this one being a recipe, and the recipe i choose to share this time is Shrimp/Prawns Stroganoff.

The tittle fusion cuisine, refers to using original techniques from the origin of the dish, using new elements present on the country the "old-new" recipe is being done, or so combining both to come up with a third one.

Originally Stroganoff is a Russian recipe created in 1861, and it was beef cubes browned on a frying pan, finalized by bouillon(broth) and mustard with a little touch of sour cream. with the fall of the Russian empire the dish gained a lot of popularity around the globe, and as it went around "suffered" variations from its original recipes. One of the countries that came to be a largely known Stroganoff eating country is my very own BRAZIL.

Therefore the recipe presented to thee on this blog is Brazilian! 

Now in Brazil we have some variations to the dish such as chicken and prawns, chicken being the most affordable one has definitely the top rank of most popular, but i decided to do the prawns/shrimp recipe over here.

For 3-4 people u'll need:

600gr of prawns or shrimp 

400gr of  heavy whipping cream

1 onion and a couple of garlic cloves chopped fine

150 gr of tomato paste(or ketchup if u like the sweetness) 

100gr of cream cheese

dash of Worcestershire sauce

juice of one lemon

half bunch of Italian parsley chopped

1 tbs of brandy

olive oil

salt & pepper

Now if u bought them prawns "dirty"(which means with the shelf), 1 kg makes for around 500-600 gr of prawns itself, and u can prepare some broth to add on flavor to the dish, and also save the broth to make other dishes later on, u can freeze the broth in ice cubes, to make it easier to use it later. To make the broth start by peeling them and once peeled, fry the shelves on olive oil with a little bit of the onions and salt, add water and let it reach boil, then bring the broth to a simmer for another 10 min or so.

Season the prawns with lemon juice, salt and pepper, fry them on a very hot pot with olive oil, onions and garlic for a couple of minutes, add the brandy and let the alcohol evaporate for another minute,the brandy will add up to the flavor of the dish, and if it catches on fire, don't worry but keep your face away from the pot when adding that (u don't want to loose your eyebrows right?! hehe).

After that add the heavy cream, a ladle of prawns broth (if u made some, if not just a bit of water will do), the Worcestershire sauce and the tomato paste or ketchup (in Brazil is more common to just use ketchup, particularly i like the ketchup cuz it brings out a bit of sweetness to the dish), let it cook on simmering fire for a few minutes to reduce it a bit, and finalize it with the cream cheese and chopped parsley, saving a bit of the parsley for the decoration of the dish. U don't have to wait much just stir to incorporate and dissolve the cream cheese well. Check for salt and pepper, add some if needed, and dig in.

In Brazil we serve it with plain white rice, or potatoes either fried, roasted or rosti, if u find big potatoes my opinion is for u to roast them whole with skin and all, once soft, cut a "lid" on them and scrape a bit of the inside to make room for the Stroganoff, place a bit of butter mixed with some chives inside the potato and pour the prawns with the sauce inside, eat it out of it... uhhhhh delish hehe!   

We've come to the end of this recipe, remember to enjoy it, while u do it, put on some music and have some wine, it will enhance the experience, at least that's what i can say for myself!

cheers everybody!

High & low tides of life!

Living ain't easy but if u cherish all the good times and learn from the bad ones, u'll feel better about how you're passage on life is going. I mean seriously i tittled this blog "Art of Living" because i really feel like one that has learned ways to enjoy life as much as possible, but not everything is smiles and laughs, and there's no way u will ever go through an entire life without being affected by the bad aspects of...  huuh.....  life pretty much.

I see it this way, waves of fun and excitement hit you with a certain frequency right, but there are other waves filled with grief, sorrow and sadness that will hit u eventually, and it can only be this way, for if u don't know bad then how will u know what's good?! As a normal person i gotta admit that i haven't been having the best experience here in NEW ZEALAND, having to deal with all the fees of moving in here, getting visas and all, has made me a bit negative about the whole deal, i try not to show it too much, cuz i believe that thinking positively works very well, and thinking negatively can only attract more prejudice to yourself.

For pretty much the past couple of months, i haven't had much of a social life simply because i haven't been able to afford to have one. And even though i have enjoyed the people that i work with at the Antarctic Center, i 'm not pleased with not getting back in touch with actual Cheffing. I miss soo much working with an à la carte  restaurant and feeling the rush of making something with a beautiful combination of taste, textures, aroma and presentation, that working with something that's not that, yet again, is a bit frustrating.

But anyways today i had my "first day" at what's going to be my next job, and it is as a Chef in a proper restaurant!!! We had a dinner with a set menu for about 50 people, and everything went great,we did everything well, the dishes looked and tasted amazing, there was a professional photographer taking shots of us, and when being introduced as the chefs who cooked the meal to the clients we were applauded! IT FELT GREAT!

So Now i`m starting to feel like i'm back on top, a high wave of great experience has hit me again, and soon this will turn into a great part of my life, and as for the bad part about being an immigrant, i'm learning from it, and hopefully it's making me a better person!!

this is enough for now, for the next post i'll do a recipe as it have been a while since last i posted one!

cheers to all, and a good night(or day) ; )

BTW the pic above is a photo manipulation of me and my friends as kings of yore!    

Taste, everybody's got their own!

                                                                                drawing by Felipe Barros


What's up folks,


On Devinatart as now i'm a premium member, i can suggest for other artists that are viewing my art to make a critique about it, and i got a comment on one of my drawings today (the one above) where the person spoke about the fact that he would like to make one, but he thinks that for one to make a critique he should have the same or higher skill level to do such.


now now, my reply to it was to not belittle himself, taste is taste, besides there are so many critics out there that understand of the good stuff, but don't necessary know how to physically apply the concept in order to achieve the same result, got it!

There are food critics that know so much about the subject and yet they rarely walk into a kitchen to cook something, there are art critics that know the entire life of Leo Da Vinci by head, and yet wouldn't even know how to hold a brush.

So the message on this is, if you have an opinion of something and you want to share, then go right ahead, as my grandma says taste is like ass, everybody's got theirs!!!hehe!



Cheerio!

Smokinnnn!!!!

Well guys here we go again, i'm going back to set a day of the week to post here, so i can try and keep it up this time, from here on i'll be posting every Wednesday, of course as some weeks i might feel a bit more "inspired" i'll  reserve the right post more than just on Wed.

As for this week, I've already posted earlier and for the fact that my recipe/drawing was posted at the beautiful, insightful blog called http://www.theydrawandcook.com/, i decided to post here as well my smoked salmon recipe, i suggest u guys take some time to check out their amazing selection of illustrations and recipes, there's lots there to see at: 

I was very happy to have been featured on such a blog, and definitely will be  working on new illustrations like the one above.

A little note is to click on the image for full view, and if u do do the sandwich, tell me about it, i would love to get some feedback on how was it for ya.

finally at last but not least HUGE thanks to Nate and Sally, first for their contribution with their awesome blog and second for featuring me on it!

cheers to all! enjoy!

Strive to better yourself!

drawing done by Felipe Barros

So here we go again, not much to say for now, work is good, i'm enjoying the fact that i'm back to having a reason to wake up, a couple more months and i reckon i'll be on track, doing all my regular stuff, such as biking around(once i have the money to buy my bike), drawing more regularly, going to the gym and a bunch of other stuff.

Is always good to keep in mind your goals and keep it going to ever step forward towards all things you'll set yourself to do, i def want to improve and continue to do my drawings, which has always been my main hobby and one of my ways to define who i am, pretty much the main one up until i started my gastronomy/culinary arts school which now is the main definition of me; a Chef.

Not long after i came to New Zealand, i found out that Le Cordon Bleu is opening a school in Wellington next year, and now that has become my main goal, save up money and go through one of their courses. For those that don't know LCB is the most traditional school of culinary arts there is, great names of this field passed by it, and i know that it would be quite a life changing experience to attend to any course there, almost certain to get a job anywhere around the world.

To finish it off, i decided on having one day to post something, once a week which will give me enough time to work on some material, this is only one step to discipline myself i'll start like this, and soon enough i'll be posting with more efficiency.

cheers mates! 

PS: the drawing above is a portrait of my lil' brother Gustavo Ramos

Keep it Simple!

So I decided that from here on I'll be posting more often cuz I have a lot drawings and photos that I would like to share but i haven't been posting frequently enough to fit in everything. 

I was thinking of posting only with long texts regarding pretty much everything I like, but u know life is better lived when u treat the things u like more lightly, not as if they don't matter but actually as in not making them complicated, have u realized that everything that is complex turns into sort of a burden to us?! The best teachers we have while growing up are the ones that make things easier for us to understand therefore making it fun to learn!

Well the drawing on top is a drawing I did as a homage of one of the best games I've ever played called Metal gear solid!

So there u go, keep it simple 

Cheerio!

   

The pain that keeps us alive.

Photo by Felipe Barros/ Akaroa NZ

Life or rather the one you decide to live is determined by what you get from the experiences you have, that defines what kind of person you are, were and will become. The decisions you make and all that comes with it, we all make mistakes as well we make good choices, it's important for the development of one to go through everything, the good and bad moments, the sides of the coin, the yin & yang, cuz if you don't know "bad" then u won't know how good will the "good" be and vice-versa.

In Portuguese there's a word called "Saudade", and once I read in a book that there's no such word that expresses as much as "saudade" does on any other language.

The meaning of that word, for us Portuguese native speakers, goes as deep as a root, that no matter how far you dig there's always gonna be a little piece down there to keep you remembering.

All of that is definitely something I learned with all the moving around I've been doing so far, except for a few everybody that means and meant something in my life were only present for a certain while hence the reason why I value friendship so much enough to have tattooed the word in Japanese characters on my body. For friendship is the one that knows no boundaries , no matter distance, time or frequency, true friendship remains, and once back in physical touch the memories between friends comes back to life, thew news come with a pinch of excitement cuz friends want to know when, where, how and all the strands of the new world you've discovered.

It saddens me to see a friend go away, but it makes me happy that it still has this affect.

cheers!

seize life always!