Traditions: They’re Kinda My Thing

I have a theory. The theory is this: I love traditions, and cling to them fiercely, because…

Everything.

Always.

Changes.

And so I create traditions out of things other people would normally just let slide. I started a list the other day of all my traditions I could think of – the list was embarrassingly long, with over 15 things just off the top of my head. A lot of them are small ones, like the weekly lunch I have scheduled with a group of friends, but I’m always surprised at how important and dear these traditions become to me.

There’s always been a lot of change and transition in my life (said every Third Culture Kid ever), and one of the little ways I combat this is by making a tradition out of everything. It gives me some sense of stability, of routine, of consistency. It helps me know what to expect from myself and from others.

I can get pretty defensive when I feel like a tradition is being taken away from me. My family knows this quite well. Case in point: This past Christmas, we didn’t spend an extended time together over the holidays as a complete family (graduation and marriage and living in four different places will do that to you, I guess). We did get to spend a couple days all together right before Christmas, though, and had an amazing time. In preparing for these days together, my family wondered if we should continue our long-running tradition of making homemade gifts for each other. This is something we have done as a family for over ten years, and we always get way into it, spending hours in the days before the exchange perfecting the gifts. Given how intensive the gift-exchange can be, we didn’t know if it would be worth it to try to do it with such little time together.

Just the idea of ending the tradition seemed wrong to me, even knowing it would make our time together less stressful. In the end, we modified the tradition a bit in order to make gifts less time-consuming for everyone. It was pretty funny, though, because each one of my family members asked me at one point or another along the way, “Now, Becca, are you sure you’re ok with this?” I love the sensitivity they show me in times like these because it proves that they really do know me best.

Letting go of traditions is hard because I can sometimes read it as a deliberate choice to end a season in a relationship. My greatest worry when we were talking about the gift exchange was that if we stopped or changed the tradition it would be an external acknowledgement that our family wasn’t the same as it once was. To that, I say: our family OBVIOUSLY isn’t the same as it once was. My parents are in a new season of ministry, Sandra is married, we are all living in different places. Each one of us has changed a thousand times in a thousand ways through the years.

This is a good thing.

And a hard thing.

And a bittersweet thing.

Acknowledging that felt scary to me, but thankfully I have a rock-solid family that knows how to care for me. They expertly coached me through my billion-and-one stages of grief over not doing things the exact same way as we did when I was 10.

And you know what? Sitting on the floor of my at-the-time new apartment, surrounded by unpacked boxes, exchanging letters we wrote to each other instead of laborious gifts we made – that’s my favorite Christmas memory so far.

 

Pátria Amada, Brasil!

I wanted to title this post “So You Did That Thing Everyone Says They’re Not Gonna Do,” in obvious reference to the ridiculous length of time that has passed since my last post, but that title would have been too long…just like the time between this post and my last [cue corny drum sound: puh rum pum tchhhh].

But let’s get down to business*.

Recently I’ve been missing Brazil quite a bit, which turned into me unexpectedly spending the whole weekend trying to recreate bits of what I love most about my childhood home. I listened to MPB (Música Popular Brasileira), scoured local Hispanic supermarkets for much-missed ingredients (like tapioca starch and strawberry juice), watched the movie Rio (which does a surprisingly good job of depicting the city I grew up in), and made a butt-load of Brazilian food. I had some dear friends over on Saturday night to help me eat all the food, and it was so sweet to be able to share a little of my non-American culture with them.

Michael and Emily’s favorite part of the meal was definitely the pão de queijo (translation: bread of cheese), which I made following this recipe. The tapioca starch can be found in an international market, either Asian or Hispanic, and may sometimes be called tapioca flour instead. I found mine at Garden Fresh Market. This recipe gets three thumbs up, and I promise you – you will eat the entire batch and still want more.

I also made rice and beans, marinated chicken, vinaigrette (which is kind of like pico de gallo), brigadeiros, and beijinhos. I figured I’d share the recipe for the part of the meal I most enjoy, which is obviously the dessert. Brigadeiros (chocolate-flavored) and beijinhos (coconut-flavored) are both a kind of Brazilian fudge most typically made for birthday parties. It’s dangerously easy to make them, so be warned!

[See, the thing about brigadeiros and beijinhos is that they’re delicious… so here’s a picture of the few that were left by the time I sat down to write this post.]

Le Recipe:

1 can sweetened-condensed milk (I’m all about that sweetened-condensed milk life. Seriously, this stuff is delicious and heavily under-utilized in the US)

Half a stick of butter (Yikes, am I right? But so good, so worth it)

For brigadeiros: 2 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder

For beijinhos: A good handful of shredded coconut

Ready for the directions? Put everything together in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat for about ten minutes. The trick to knowing it’s ready is that when you draw the spoon from the outside towards the center of the pan, it will maintain its shape and take time spreading itself back out towards the edge of the pan. Remove from heat and let cool. Seriously, it’s that easy.

The hardest part is making them look pretty. Once it’s cool, spread some (more!) butter onto your hands and shape into little balls. Roll in sprinkles for the chocolate ones, granulated sugar for the coconut ones. Put them in little mini paper liners… these can be hard to find here, but mini-cupcake liners would probably work. If you want to get real crazy, you can top the beijinhos with a golden raisin (Woah. Look at you, wild child).

And now you can go impress all your friends with your super-cool new international cooking skills. Woot!

 

*NO, not to defeat the Huns.