Last week, I had a great opportunity to interview my friend Gera from SweetsFood.com. He shared his passion in food, Sweets Foods blog and his experience when he was a kid.

Well, I hope you enjoy this interview and I look forward reading your comments.

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Q: I read about you in your Blogger profile that you always been interested in food since you were a kid. Can you tell us more about it? Any fun experience in food when you were a kid? And what’s the first food you tried to cook?

Gera

Gera: I’ve been always interested in food because for me it was and, today, it’s still a pleasure visiting food stores / supermarkets.

As you guess I spend lot of time there, sometimes more than the necessary. As a sportsman frequently I’ve been attracted by the nutrition and healthy aspects behind the yummy dishes. I tend to eat relatively slow so I can relish more the food, now I know it’s better for the digestion.

A funny experience was in a camping (till today love outdoors) when I tried to make fried fish. The oil was very hot and at that moment it began raining, some drops entered and made little sparks, but the worst was that I tried to extinguish them with more water…a fire explosion of several meters! Now I know that hot oil and water aren’t a good combination

Me: I just know that hot oil and water is not a good combination (will never try, could be dangerous). But that was fun really fun Gera.

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Q: Also from your profile, you’re from Uruguay.
Is there any special food from Uruguay that you can share with us, that anybody should taste it when they’re visiting Uruguay? Or Special food that only served in certain occasion or celebration in Uruguay?

Gera: Uruguay is the beef kingdom; it’s a must to eat good beef cuts in the typical parrilladas. The traditional Uruguayan cuisine has one of the largest diversity of the world in beef dishes and the parrillada (beef barbecued with firewood, not coal) is one of them.

As the Uruguayan’s palate has its origin in Europe and now also, it’s mixed with other cuisines like Latin American, American, Japanese, and Chinese cuisine, only to name a few. We’re a country of immigrants and all of them supplied us different dishes and styles of cooking.

For special occasions or celebrations in Uruguay, we’ve similar rituals like Spain, Italy, France, UK and Germany. Hence if you come here, the variety of dishes is huge.

Me: After asking this question, I was a bit curious to Uruguay. so I Google it and found this wonderful building

The.

The Solis Theatre

Solis Theater (Teatro Solís) the Uruguay’s oldest theatre.

and these look delicious dishes

Milanesa

According to the source, it can be made with cow meat , chicken, or fish meat. .

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Q: Now, talking about Sweets Foods. What drive you to make SweetsFoods.com? What’s your main purpose?

Gera: I like the history, the ingredients and really the living about food experiences all over the world.
Hence, I want to share my passion with everyone.

I also enjoy the social media interacting of blogging and the sociological-psychological aspects behind the new phenomenon called the Web 2.0.

The other important theme for me are health & fitness articles most on food basis but not exclusively, based in my own experience as a sport lover & adventure race runner.

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Q: Still about Sweets Foods. what’s behind the name SweetsFoods.com? do you have certain meaning with the name?. and Actually I mistyped it several times with SweetFoods (without “s”)

Gera: As you know I like sweets in other word desserts, and I wanted that this point was reflected on the name of my blog.

I know that this extra (s) in the middle led to confusion but it was a requirement of Google because the name without the “s”, was taken. Anyway, sweets = desserts, a good way to register this name

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Q: We have entered in 2010. Sure (maybe) everybody have a new hope (or maybe a plan). So, What’s your goal you want to achieve in 2010 (that you might have missed in 2009)?

Gera: I need improving my social networking as well as technical aspects of the blog and my writing too.

My goals are to go on increasing the blog as much as possible and to continue adding more sections already planed to get it more interactive. I’m satisfied for the continual growing of the same but it can be improved always to reach a wider audience!.

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Your feedback is really welcomed.

There are many sidewalk stalls in Indonesia. They are called “5 foot sidewalk stalls” because they sell on sidewalk (known as Pedagang Kaki lima: or 5 foot) where the width is 5 feet long. So, we don’t need to come in a restaurant or food stall to fill in our stomachs. If our pocket is in crisis, come and try food in the sidewalk. They usually sell on a small tent or pushcart on sidewalk city. They have unique ways to attract people. For example, a meat ball seller strikes the meat ball pan or a Indonesian chicken noodle seller makes sounds by bamboos. Sure, it will not be a boring culinary tourism.

selling food on sidewalk

Rice Table

Meal times in every region is sometimes different. In western and middle part of Indonesia, usually main food is cooked in the morning and consumed around mid day. Commonly, Indonesian kitchens only cook 1 or 2 meals a day. Then it is heated again for dinner.

It is different from western culture where food is eaten consecutively such as appetizer, main food, and dessert. Indonesian culture is eating main food directly without any appetizer or dessert, whereas Indonesia has many cakes, cookies, and snacks and they’re suitable to become desserts. In fact, the cakes are often eaten anytime among breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There’s no certain time to eat cakes. And there are many servings and fresh Indonesian drink such as es campur (mixed ice), es teler that can be served after main food.

Also, as a country where most of the people are Moslems, rules of religion has changed tradition. Therefore, praying before eating and using right hand when eating seems obligated and it is taught since in childhood. So, generally using a spoon is on right hand and fork is in left hand.

Zucchini has been known since hundreds of years ago by residents of Central America and North America. Furthermore, zucchini spread and widely known to many countries around the Mediterranean valley and African.

Zucchini is a family of Cucurbitaceae.At first glance, zucchini looks like a cucumber, but it’s just has dark green skin. Compared with the cucumber, zucchini flesh and seeds are soft and not too watery like cucumber.

In terms of nutrition, Zucchini contributed quite enough fiber that is 1.6 g/100g. It Also contains 0.9 g protein; 0.3 g fat; 4.3 g carbs and 20 calories. To get the fiber as much as possible, preferably do not peel when you cook zucchini .

Zucchini, French Kitchen’s Mainstay.

Zucchini

Zucchini is the current mainstay of vegetables in the France kitchen and Italy. One very popular dish from Provence, France is ratatouille. zucchini often to be steamed , made to pickles, baking. In addition, Zucchini flowers are also processed into a delicious meal. The most common is the way the dough dipped in flour, then fried.

Although Zucchini is more widely used in the Western kitchen, it is also suitablef for being cooked with spices and tastes of Asia. For example, pan-fried with simple spices, processed into soup, sliced like matchsticks to mix Shahe fen noodles fried or boiled, or dough filled with meat or shrimp.

If served raw in salads, for example, do not have to zucchini peeled, simply cut to length or crosswise, and then dipped or doused with sauce.

So far chocolate is always identical with the black forest cake, brownies, muisjes, chocolate candy. In fact, chocolate like it was enriched with sugar (sucrose), saturated fat (butter), and trans fats (margarine) that can damage the health and teeth.

Contrary to the fact that eating chocolate may damage the teeth,but  just the original chocolate is rich in potassium and phosphate compounds that are capable of crippling the bacteria that causes tooth porous. Chocolate’s fat is dominated by unsaturated healthy fats, especially oleic and linoleic. Compared to  tea, catechins levels of compounds in chocolate is much greater.

Both these compounds help shrinking the levels of “bad cholesterol” LDL and knocked out fat deposits in blood vessels, so the risk of stroke and heart attack can be reduced. This efficacy is what makes chocolate good to your heart health.

Chocolate

One way to reap the benefits of chocolate is, brewed Cocoa powder with boiling water. Cover, let stand until warm. Give just a little honey to reduce the sense of bitterness.