Flying North

I'm flying back to the U.S. tomorrow and will be away from Rio until mid-October.

So, I will be out of the country this Wednesday for what Brazilians hope will be the final chapter in the latest political scandal here, involving the President pro tempore of the Senate, a lobbyist, and child support payments made to a young lover of said politician. Do you want to read about grossly improper behavior by public officials? Buy a Brazilian newspaper any day of the week for the latest corruption and abuse of the public trust stories. They go on for months and the details are lurid and revolting.

But I want to leave you on a cheerier note, so here's a photograph I took in the lovely colonial town of Paraty a couple of weeks ago. If you'd like to come down for a visit, perhaps the place to start is here at the Academy of Cooking & Other Pleasures, owned by chef Yara Roberts of PBS fame. A few years back, Yara and her husband Richard left Boston and the rat race to open a cooking school in this old house they had bought two decades before. They couldn't be happier!