Jesse Ross | jesseross.com

Well, it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted anything. And in this time of massive positive change in the world (President Obama!), what could have possibly compelled me to write something?…

The fact that I made gnocchi last night with Hannah and Ali :)

The food was super delicious, and fully due to the fact that Hannah bought me a foodmill on Friday. I used the recipe from here, if you were curious, and topped it with a delicious pesto cream sauce.

So, this is a little late coming, but my birthday was a couple of weeks ago. The day of my birthday was pretty quiet — I picked up my little one from school and headed up to my mom’s for a quiet little family get-together with my mom, dad, brother, sister and Ali. The night before I had met with Robb do crank out some frames for an animated sequence of one of his short flicks, and afterwards he and I got together with a small group of my closest friends for drinking and good conversation at the Chatterbox in St Paul. That was the night of the second debate, so we had plenty to chat about, and it seemed everyone had a good time — I know that I certainly did.

Hannah had told me weeks in advance to save the weekend following my birthday for a big surprise she had planned for me. We had joked about it for a while, with her asking me “what do you think we’re going to do?” and “where do you think we’re going to go?” and me offering up ever more ridiculous locations: “I hear Des Moines is nice this time of year”; “What’s going on in Bismarck?”; “I’ve always wanted to go back to Winnipeg.” At one point, I even suggested she might take me on a staycation to St Paul, since I have a special bond with the city I attended college in, a city Hannah lovingly refers to as “East Minneapolis.”

Little did I know the adventure that was in store for me on Saturday at 2:00. She told me to pack a days worth of clothing, as well as some nicer “out on the town” clothes, and we headed eastward. At this point, I was thinking “well, maybe we’ll go to her dad’s in Afton, or we could even go as far as Madison.” When we exited in St Paul, then it hit me: We really are going to St Paul for my birthday.

Our first stop was Heimie’s Haberdashery, the finest mens’ clothing shop in the metro. I had never been in before, despite having spent a fair amount of time wandering the streets of downtown St Paul, but I had heard great things from Hannah’s dads. Upon entering, I was surprised (but not too surprised) to see Richard, Hannah’s dad there. He and Hannah informed me that we were to be picking out some fancy new clothes for me, which we then proceeded to do. I got placed in a pretty sharp pair of slacks, button down shirt, sweater, sport coat and scarf, a few of which I ended up leaving the store with, the rest staying behind to be tailored to a perfect fit (I have to admit, I look damn sexy in the whole shebang).

After the clothing adventured, we walked the edge of Rice Park to the St Paul Hotel, where Hannah had arranged a fancy suite for us, right in the heart of the city and across the street from Rice Park (the cutest little European-inspired park in the city). We unpacked our bags, watched some TV, ordered some room service, and just hung out and relaxed for a few hours before dinner.

Hannah hadn’t planned dinner (she did try to get us in at Meritage, but it was booked), so I decided on Pazzaluna, an Italian restaurant I’d heard great things about but also never checked out. We got all fancied up and walked outside and across the street for dinner. The drinks at Pazzaluna were superb, and the gnocchi was seriously to die for; it just melted in your mouth (my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it…).

After our amazing and romantic meal, we decided to take an evening stroll around the city. We wandered up and down the river, stopping to chat and kiss and explore the buildings. We eventually made our way back into the downtown, to the area I referred to as the “dimly lit part of St Paul.” Eventually we ended up passing by a little bar called Señor Wong. The bar was new, and I had never heard of it, but since the night was still young and our hotel was within stumbling distance, Hannah suggested we take a peek inside and maybe grab a drink or two.

We got inside, and Hannah seemed to be actively looking for something, but I wrote it off as her being curious. Then it hit me:

“SURPRISE!”

You know that moment when you run into someone, like a business associate or a school acquaintance, but they’re out of context, like at a grocery store or a Death Cab for Cutie concert? That was the experience that I had seeing my family in this bar I had never heard of, in a city they rarely come to, at 9:00 in the evening. When it hit me that I was actually looking at my family and friends, and yes, Hannah had indeed arranged this whole thing far in advance, and had thrown my the first surprise party in my 28 years on this earth, I was blown away. Hannah had even arranged for the bar to mix a special birthday drink for me: a sort of a caipirinha with fresh limeade. My friends and I all drank and chatted and ate and had a great time (watching Michael fail miserably at drunken pool was a particular highlight). Hannah had pulled off the perfect surprise party for me, and given me a birthday day to remember… I’m most definitely the luckiest guy ever to have managed to end up with her.

Thanks, honey… you’ve set quite a bar for me to try to hit for your birthday next month ;)

Brazil has it’s share of American food: the obligatory McDonalds, but also Burger King, Subway and Pizza Hut. The other day, Tanya and I were totally wiped and wanted to have a nice quiet night in of pizza and a movie. So, like good, somewhat-homesick Americans, we decided to order Pizza Hut delivery. Only once you’ve tried ordering pizza in a language which is not your own do you realize how insanely difficult a task this really is, and how much you take the process for granted when done in your native language.

The 10 (and a half) steps in ordering delivery pizza, anywhere in the world:

1. Find the phone number of the pizza place.
2. Figure out what you want to order.
3a. Call pizza place.
3b. Wait on hold.
4. Give phone number of your location.
5. Give address of your location, should phone number not be in the system.
6. Place order.
7. Determine amount of order and delivery time.
8. Wait for pizza to show up.
9. Pay and tip the delivery person.
10. Eat pizza!

Now, for us, step 1 was the easiest. In our apartment, on the fridge, are three magnets: one for Chinese delivery, one for fruit delivery, and one for Pizza Hut.

Step 2 started with this conversation:

Tanya: “What toppings do you want?”
Jesse: “I don’t know… tomatoes, mushrooms, pineapple, whatever…”
Tanya: “Do you know how to say ‘mushrooms’ in Portuguese?”
Jesse: “Let’s see if they have an online menu…”

With online menu in hand, we determined we wanted to order a large, hand-tossed Parmesan Margarita pizza. Step 2 solved.

3a is where things get a bit difficult. Tanya calls to place the order, but realizes very rapidly that she has no idea how to solve steps 4 and 5. To back up a moment: there was no step 3b on this particular phone call. Brazil, as with most Latin American countries, is not known for its promptness in food service. And yet, there was no being put on hold. Perhaps we should have realized that this was the beginning of our lack of familiarity with the situation.

Realizing she can’t give them the phone number or address of our hotel, she tells the Pizza Hut girl that she will call back. But call back she doesn’t, as Tanya has had a very hectic week and is thoroughly exhausted of speaking Portuguese. I don’t blame her — it’s tough.

Being the persistent (and hungry) type, I decide to try to complete the remainder of this process relying only on my own Portuguese. I go down to the front desk, where I receive the phone number and address of our hotel. I come back upstairs, and here is were we have a brilliant idea: let’s just order the pizza online. They have a website, with the whole process right there. I start, but am caught when I can’t determine some of the parts of the address they want. Damn.

So, I try again the old fashioned way. I make the call, and… the Pizza Hut girl throws me a curveball — she asks for the address before the phone number. I manage to give her the address (after many “slower, please, I don’t speak well”’s, and then…

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

What?! I’m not sure if I’m on hold, or if Skype started to hate me or what, but I couldn’t bear a full minute of that sound, so I hung up. I really, really was ready to give up, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a little Portuguese and bad phone connections get in the way of my dinner.

And so, I try again. But this time, the process begins with the proper step. I repeat the phone number that the doorman at the hotel gave me, but something is off. Ah, yes. This number only has 7 digits, when true Brazilian phone numbers have 8. Amazingly, the Pizza Hut girl is able to figure it out, and recites my address back to me, asking only for the apartment number, which I readily give her. Whew.

Again, 2 1/2 calls later, no step 3b. This is a word of warning to all American pizza places.

Time for step 6: placing the order. It starts out innocently enough — I tell her the kind of pizza I want. Then, she starts throwing crazy nouns and adjectives at me that I have never encountered. I know well enough to assume she’s asking about the size of pizza and type of crust, at least I hope I know well enough. So I just keep spouting out “grande, grande” (big, big) until she throws something else at me: ‘massa’. I have no idea what massa is, but I assume she’s gotten that I want a large pizza, so using the options provided me on the Pizza Hut website for crust, I try saying the word for (what I assume to be) hand-tossed. The girl on the phone gives a frustrated sound, then keeps saying “meia” (medium) followed by some other sounds that mean nothing to me (but were probably the options for thin-crust and deep-dish). I say “sim, meia” (yes, medium) out of confusion and hope for the best. (I learn later on from Tanya that ‘massa’ means dough or crust, so I remain hopeful that I ordered a medium crust: hand-tossed.)

She then tries to up-sell me on drinks and dessert, but luckily I know the words for those and say no. I think the worst is over.

She gives me the total: R$31.90. Okay, not bad. That’s about $17 US. However, all I have are R$50 bills, and as I found out earlier that day, R$50 notes are notoriously hard to break. So I ask if that will be fine for paying, and she says something I don’t understand. “como?” (huh?) I think I hear something about the driver and change, and her confirming quite a few times that I will be paying with a R$50. “sim, obrigado” (yes, thank you).

Will this process (and this post) ever end?

Step 8 was easy, we waited 1/2 hour like the girl said, and sure enough the guy showed up. I got the change back from him, which was indeed change for a R$50, gave the guy a tip (and realized later that he had already taken a tip off of the change I gave him), and checked to see if what was inside the box was really what I thought I ordered.

And yes, indeed, it was.

And it was delicious.

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I have to give it to the Brazilians — they can certainly whip up a wicked good ice cream. Yesterday, I was able to partake of a glorious combination the likes of which I had never even dreamed possible:

Corn Ice Cream.

The amazing flavor of corn on the cob, minus the little particles wedged between your teeth.

In Brazil, not only am I able to eat ice cream that tastes like corn, but last weekend we went to an ice cream parlor that boasted 60 flavors of ice cream. And it was pay-per-the-kilo, as many flavors as you want. I think I was most tickled by Tapioca ice cream. Baskin Robbins, eat your heart out.

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