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Seeing the pen hover millimetres above my notebook in anticipation, Dona Vilma holds up her hand ‘Ask me anything you like’, she says to me with a smile ‘But you can chop some potatoes while we speak’ I switch on my tape recorder instead   On a tiny scrap of land on the eastern outskirts of São Paulo, off an unpaved path leading to the favela beyond, stands a small squat building made of poured concrete and chipboard A banner outside reads ‘Cozinha Solidária Almoço Grátis’ Solidarity Kitchen Free Lunch It is a modest affair, but for many residents of Jardim Iguatemi the facility had become a second home    Six days a week Vilma and Rose arrive at 8am and get to work cooking for never less than 100 people When I first visit in 2021 to interview them, at the peak of the Brazilian summer, the ground dried to a cake of dust, the menu is beef and potato stew served with filling manioca and rice Vilma, a retired school cook, is in charge Dona is a prefix of respect Her silvery hair is tidied away by a white scarf cheered up with a teddy bear motif; her leopard print blouse is protected by a red apron She navigates bumper packets of beans and sacks of flour piled high, hauling heavy cooking pots of steaming food on and off the small gas stove Later a colleague arrives with black plastic sacks splitting under the weight of sturdy carrots and leathery spinach, bulbous spring onions and big bunches of deep purple beetroot, all grown and donated by a nearby community garden    I still think about the kitchen a lot, as Brazil nears the end of Jair Bolsonaro’s gruelling four-year presidential term: it represents the cruelty of this country, one that welcomed a far-right leader with a mix of social fury and misjudged financial self-interest; but the kitchen says something too of Brazil’s perseverance and generosity   I first came to Brazil in 2012 Three years previous The Economist had used its cover to hail the country as an economic miracle: the headline ‘Brazil