sugar and espresso?

well remembered, a bayleaf is essential.

just a few and that’s ok. people will make good and bad things and there are a few with whom you’ll really get along with. keep them close.

brazilian beans.

• a cup or two of beans soaked overnight (discard the soaking water). you can make with black beans, but i prefer pinto (whoa)
• 1 or 2 clovers of garlic
• 1 or 2 large onions
• salt
• water or a stock of your choice (works better with meat or vegetable stock)

sautée the diced garlic and onions in cooking oil or lard until golden. add the strained beans, about a teaspoon of salt, cover with water or stock up to 1.5, 2 cm above the beans. cook for about 30 min in a pressure cooker over low fire. after done, mash some beans to free some starch to the broth and adjust the salt to your liking. serve with some white rice, lettuce and tomato salad, and a protein of your choice (steak with onions, roasted chicken, fish fillet, sausages, pork steak, schnitzel, fried egg and veggie patties are popular choices).

if enough broth is left over, it can be served on its own as soup on small cups, often with some drops of the hot sauce of your choice (tabasco, jalapeño, sriracha). this is called “caldinho”, or little broth, and goes well accompanying beer, caipirinha, mojito or daiquiri.

you can also add some other things to boost your beans. popular choices are diced tomatoes or tomato paste, diced bell peppers, winter squash cubes, green onions, cilantro, parsley, powdered cumin, bacon or jerky cubes, diced sausages, or roasted meat/pork leftovers.

politically speaking i think that makes no sense. i mean, you’re leaving because of the far right in power in the u.s., but then again italy is being governed by the far right. leaving your country, and therefore much of what you know, your support network, for political reasons only makes sense if there’s a well funded fear for your life because of your political activities. in that case i (as a communist) would probably go to a country with bland politics (where the far right would have no risk of reaching power for at least 10 years or so), or a straight up communist country, even if not of the same persuation.

there are other things that might make italy more attractive, such as having public healthcare, decent education, some social security coverage (subpar as compared to much of the rest of western europe, i think), cheap groceries. however, on the other side, housing and utilities are expensive. it will be better if you have a degree or some sort of qualification in high demand, it will be easier for you to get a job. however, when you’re an immigrant, locals will probably give preference to other locals, at least because it will be easier to communicate with.

because that goes against the concerns of the elites. the rich, who pay for the campaigns of most politicians (surely they pay for all of those who have a chance to win the post of president or prime minister), will try to squeeze every dime they can from everyone else, specially from the poor.

small to medium business won’t thrive because that would be another entrant in the market to split profits with the larger, more established business. they have already large advantages because they purchase raw materials and utilities in bulk, hence they can get a lower price and larger profit margins than the smaller, newer entrants to the market. still, they want to be sure that everything remains like that and therefore have politicians to keep things that way. the idea that new business will make a difference in well-established markets is an illusion.

as for property supply, well, land in our system is not a resource, but a commodity. take the real estate market for example: investors are buying property to serve as a financial asset, they buy houses when they’re cheap, rent them and sell for a profit when the market conditions are good for that. they don’t think of housing as something that should serve their primary purpose - as the place of living for families. they don’t want to lose value on their properties, and that’s why they have politicians to represent their interests and keep things the way they are. same logic applies in big cities where investors buy commercial buildings and don’t want to see them not valued enough - by not having people actually working on them. that’s why they’re so radically against remote jobs.

tbf we had our problems here in brazil, argentina is having theirs, probably chile is going to follow suit. turkey, philippines, indonesia, south korea, just to name a few recent.

there’s no such thing as an illegal human being.

no.

brazilian portuguese here. my english accent is a mix of standard european english and american english. i tend to speak in a mix of european and latin american spanish (mostly chilean). my french is shitty enough to have a barely european accent.