Some people are enjoying a very glamorous nightlife in Brazil, hopping from samba club to samba club, a caipirinha in hand.

Meanwhile, I’m attempting to cook potatoes in a big black box in a very dark Airbnb.

Welcome to my life.

My first Curitiba Airbnb fell into the “okay but not great” category. It was a tiny studio renovated by the owner, an architect. New and clean enough, but clearly the guy wasn’t an electrician, because it was awfully dark inside—as in I’ve just spilled my Coke because I can’t see shit dark. The LED spotlights, artistically placed above the bed, the desk, and the stove, weren’t nearly enough to make the place comfortably bright. It didn’t help that the furniture was dark, too.

The perfect place for a one-night stand you want to forget, but not a great Airbnb to work, relax, or cook.

Oh yeah. Cooking. This was a bit of an issue as well.

“No microwave again?”

“Nope.”

What I had assumed was a microwave in the photos was in fact an oven/air fryer. There was also an induction stove, but no frying pan—just two big pots that didn’t quite fit on the small burners.

I cook all of my meals on the road because it’s healthier, cheaper, and quite fun. I don’t mind cooking. However, I do need a stove and a pan for meat, fish, or eggs. I also rely on a microwave because I usually make enough food for two or three days.

I can survive without a microwave, even though reheating is invariably slower. In China, I discovered the magic steamer. In Foz, I ended up using the bain-marie technique to warm up my pasta dish. There was also a sanduicheira, which was handy for melt-in-your-mouth sandwiches and hot pão de queijo.

I stared at the Curitiba Airbnb kitchen, trying to figure out how to cook something edible in the dark without a pan.

Okay, never mind. Let’s try to figure out this air fryer thingy.

This wouldn’t be the first time I’d had to decipher a Brazilian kitchen appliance.

Take microwaves, for instance. The first time I used a Brazilian microwave, many years ago, I had no idea whether I should press pipoca or brigadeiro. It turned out that pipoca means popcorn and brigadeiro is a delicious dessert—but how was I supposed to know that microwaves doubled as an introduction to Brazil’s favourite foods?

Eventually, I learned to master the sanduicheira. I even bought my mum one, so now I use it in France too.

Apparently, I was at the air fryer stage now.

“Can I warm up pão de queijo in the air fryer?” I texted my Brazilian friend.

“Yeah, but not too long. And at a low temperature.”

“How long? How hot?”

“Just try two minutes, check, try again… an air fryer isn’t a mini Fukushima, don’t worry!” he laughed.

Still, the big black box was less than a metre from my bed in a suspiciously flammable-looking studio. I was a bit scared.

“How about bread?”

“If you don’t have a sanduicheira, just make a hot sandwich in a frying pan,” he recommended. “I do it all the time.”

“But I don’t have a frying pan!”

I sighed, opened Google, and started searching for more air fryer tips.

I had some chicken cutlets, so I started with those. I marinated them as usual, then air-fried them. They turned out okay, although the result would have been the same on the stove.

I also had potatoes, so I followed an air fryer recipe found online. When the air fryer stopped running, I discovered they were 50% perfect—crispy on the outside, raw on the inside.

I got started on pasta, my backup plan, in a good old pot on the stove and, meanwhile, I tried the most unlikely air fryer recipe—over-easy eggs in the air fryer.

Believe it or not, it kind of worked.

What didn’t was the “egg in a hole” recipe. The bread was burned, the egg was raw.

It didn’t help that this specific oven/air fryer was full of presets that were useless to me, and I couldn’t fine-tune the temperature.

But I did manage to warm up a few salgados, a pastel de nata, and yes, pão de queijo.

I even made a mug cake in the air fryer.

Would I buy an air fryer? Probably not. These things are huge, and I don’t really see the point for my kind of cooking.

But hey, in a city where everything shuts down after 7 p.m., an air fryer counts as nightlife.