Read my/our other blog!

So my housemate Rebecca and I have a food blog, chronicling our classy home cooked meals- Check it out! Appropriately named Cuisner (French for to cook) since Rebecca studied French pastry making and cachai for my random smattering of Chilean/vaguely South American contributions.Throw in a smattering of absurdly cheap groceries from Chinatown and you'll have a pretty good idea of our fushion cuisine...

http://cuisinercachai.wordpress.com/

January 23: Je ne veux pas travallier

Learning some french from my housemate Rebecca, the useful phrase: I don't want to work.

Things always get better after I write semi-depressing blog posts: probably I should just wait a bit longer before writing. This weekend was really lovely, including an impromtu dinner party featuring homemade vegetarian corn, bean and cheese empanadas and Tawainese pastries, a urban hiking adventure across Boston to buy groceries in Chinatown, a very nice evening of warm drinks in Harvard Square, and an unproductive but wonderful afternoon of listening to random music, drinking obscene amounts of tea and cooking Afghani style pumpkin. All these things will probably be not possible once school actually kicks into session, which is sad. My current goal for the semester is to at least try and say (somewhat) sane and maintain my quality of life a bit. As I was talking about with Rebecca the other day: Why should I be so stressed out that I can't even spend a half hour to cook a beautiful meal for myself? If I can't do that, what am I really living for anyway?
Take that american campus culture.*

*Who am I kidding, I'm about to go do work now....

Tur de Grocery Stores

Word of the Day:
fiambre- cold cuts??
último/a- the absolute worst

For some reason, I ended up visiting 3 grocery stores in 2 days, which like everything else in Chile, provided very strong messages about class. I spent a lot of Hiper Lider and Jumbo to get food for our impending camping trip. Those stores essentially follow a Walmart sort of big box store model, but what I find fascinating and sort of creepy about them is the amount of English that you see in them. Half the packages, especially the toys, are listed in English. There’s usually American music playing. The non-place strikes again!

However, I also ended up accompanying my host Dad to Vegamercado, on the other side of Ñuñoa, past Estadio Central. Driving with Arturo is always entertaining, because he knows the history of every site and always has interesting tidbits to share, rendering even the smallest stream into a highly important agricultural canal. He also is able to give a sense of the transformations the city has gone through, which is very interesting.
Anyway, Vega mercado is an entirely different animal, sort of like a Costco if Costco was in a totally random warehouse and blasted cumbia music.
Sort of like this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPByxdchIBo
(Speakers up to 11 for full effect) There was absolutely no English anywhere. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a grocery store that had more of a sense of place.

It also isn’t the sort of place you would necesarily expect to find people like my host parents, except for the fact that they are extremely good at finding a bargain, which is useful for living on a budget. All in all, an interesting sociological glimpse.

October 21-24: El Vino y El Destino- Mendoza, Argentina

Finally catching up on my Mendoza trip!
Words of the Day:
alama- sycamore tree. Fun fact: these are the reason the main street in Santiago is called the Alameda- it's lined with them!
chorizo/longaniza- sausage. Longaniza=used in Chile. Chorizo= used in both
masceración- the amount of time wine is aged with the grape skins, giving it different shades of color
añejar- to age wine. I dont think age is actually the right word. Whatever.
roble- oak
baricca- cask
alfahores- cookies sandwiches with dulce de leche in the middle.
bodega- in Argentina, vineyard
desgustación- wine tasting

Thursday 21
Took the bus through the Andes to Mendoza Argentina. What a magical ride. The mountains were dark and sharp on the Chilean side and then softer with beautiful earth colors on the Argentina side. The bus ride from Ny to Boston is going to seem really really boring when I return to school now :)
Everything in Mendoza is really cheap: our hostel was only $8 US a night!
Arrived with two other friends around dinner time, where we went to Las Tinajas, which had a ridiculously large buffet packed to the brim with delicious things. $10 for all you can eat!
Argentine men have won the most aggressive catcalling award. To be fair, we went out dressed up perhaps slightly provacatively for a Thursday. By which I mean we were wearing dresses when jeans would have been appropriate. At one point, we got applauded just for walking by, which was beyond comical. Lulled to sleep by the delicious food and a spot of wine, we went to bed early by Argentine standards, around 1 or 2.

Friday 22
We got up leisurely, reunited with some more of the gringo pack. We walked with plans around the sycamore and café lined streets of Mendoza which managed to be both elegant and quaint. Then, we decided to rent bikes and go to Parque San Martin for a picnic lunch. We had forgotten about the siesta element though- commerce shuts down pretty much between 1 and 4 pm. Luckily, we found a fabulous gourmet shop with goat cheese, salads and homemade bread which we got for literally $5. Amazing, as was our relaxing ride around the park.

Saturday 23
We went for a wine tour, renting bikes in the nearby area of Maipú. ($12 for an all day rental and transportation one way to Maipú) We biked about 15 miles total past beautiful fields lined with sycamores, testing malbec wines for which the region is famed, absinthe (totally random but also gross), jam, dulce de leche, smoked cheeses, specialty olive oils, tapanades, and last but certainly not least, chocolates.
Most vineyards had good deals where you could taste wines and get a tour for between $3 and $5.
And we squeezed in a gourmet lunch too. We had an interesting time getting back on the bus- you need to pay in coins, which Argentina apparently has a shortage of. Also, their paper bills are horrible quality- they literally fall apart. We guessed it had something to do with country's history of inflation- there's probably a great hesistancy to print new bills.
For dinner, we had a ridiculous parrillada- a barbeque of every kind of meat ever. SO GOOD.

Sunday 24
After relaxing in a café during the morning and walking around a bit more, we boarded the bus back home, armed with some excellent cheeses, sun dried tomatoes, figs and alfahores. It was such a wonderful trip, quite spontaneous and full of the best and simple things in life: good quality food, wine, beautiful scenery and most importantly, good friends. A lovely little taste of Argentina. Even though in some ways it wasn't as developed as Chile- the cars for one thing were straight out of the 70s and 80s, there's a certain elegance to it that is hard to describe but makes it wonderful.

Culinary News

Word of the Day: Heavy (pronounced “Jevi”): good, great
I also wondered why ads for Subway sandwhiches said "Se puso heavy", since Subway always markets how they can make you less fat than other fast food...silly chilenismos.

I had Caldillo de Congrio today for the first time because my host mom made it for dinner!

Guess who wrote a really good poem about it: Pablo Neruda! Contrary to this blog, there are tons of other AWESOME chilean poets, who should probably be getting more due in this increasingly long travel document. I'll get on that...

Anyway,
Oda al caldillo de congrio/ Ode to Eel Soup (Or Chowder)

I'm actually not gonna put the whole poem up because it's really long AND it reformats it. But read it, it's really good.

Castellaño:http://www.poemasde.net/oda-al-caldillo-de-congrio-pablo-neruda/
English: http://spanishpoems.blogspot.com/2005/02/pablo-neruda-oda-al-caldillo-de-congrio.html

Also, the yogurt guinda (cherry yogurt) flavor at Emporio la Rosa is pretty much the best dessert I've ever had. Mild exageration, but rich frozen yogurt + real cherries= a very good idea.
I'm sure I'll get around to trying the ice cream of other establishments eventually, but it's hard when theirs is SO good.

July 31: Emporio La Rosa

SUCH GOOD ICE CREAM. Pinapple Thai= Heavenly. And so many other good flavors I could barely even choose. (I had rose and lucuma the other day).Have I mentioned how I love this city recently?
We went for a bit of a walk today, by which I mean we walked at least 5 miles. Nothing like making sure my clothes still fit...

Ligero y Peso: July 15th

Today was full of cultural whiplash and varied between being extremely fun and emotionally intense.

After a morning of lectures about the Chilean economy and environment, we went out to see a vineyard, learn about a process that has become a huge part of the Chilean economy in recent years & taste some wines.

Being outside of Santiago was really eye opening. The huge gaps in income and access in Chile are apparent before you even get out of the city, but the countryside in many ways surprised me how low the standard of living appeared for many campesinos. While Chile’s neoliberal economy has been lauded by many, it was fascinating to finally have a visual image of those who have been left behind by growth or who it could be argued are exploited by growth.

On a lighter note, today I had the best meal of my entire life (Sorry Mom!) at San Martino Vineyards where we had a fabulous wine tasting with a huge lunch. The vineyards have been family owned from their initiation, feature artisanal wines and are the only carbon neutral vineyard in South America.

Our wines included:
-Carmenere- from a type of grape that grows exceptionally well in Chile
-Cabernet Sauvignon
-Cabernet Blanc- The best white wine I’ve ever had! I’m not usually a big fan of whites, but this was simply exquisite.

Our tremendously large meal included:
-cerviche: a seafood dish flavored with citrus
-queso fresco- very fresh and delicious seeds
-soup made from a puree of different vegetables
-avocados covered in sesame seeds & tomatoes flavored with lemon
-pan amasada- sort of like a biscuit
-canelones- pasta filled with cheese and jaiva, sweetwater crab that is unique to Chile
-Bouef bourgeon
asparagus
salad with watercress

And for dessert...
-Torta de lucuma- a sumptious treat with merengue and lucuma, a fruit from the North of Chile
-Torta de frambuesa- raspberry tart
-Mousse de mote con huesillos- A unique mousse version of a traditional Chilean dessert drink with peaches and a special grain
-truffle with coconut
-espresso

After touring the wine production on the property, we went to Paine, a community which was proportionally affected the most by the violence of the Pinochet dictatorship. 70 of the 2000 people in the town were "disappeared", mainly because they were active in agrarian land reform moments, which greatly challenged rural social structures. The citizens of the town have created a deeply intimate and personal monument to their desaparecidos, whose fate in many cases remains unknown. We met with one of them, whose father was taken and she explained the moment to us. The design of the monument was very symbolic. 1930 poles of varying heights represent la cordillera (the Andes), as well as the varying ages of the community. 70 poles are missing to represent missing community members. Instead, 70 mosaics, designed by surviving family members stand in memory of those lost. Finally, a tree planted in the center symbolizes how life continues, even in the midst of horrors and uncertainty.

Today reminded me of how much blood has been spilled over the right to have land, whether a simple personal plot or struggles for an entire nation. When you focus on the sadness of a single individual, the big pictures reasons and explanations for conflict make less and less sense.

In the last part of the day, we went to a Mapuche (original people’s) modern dance performance. Despite taking place in what our program’s academic director referred to as a “outdoor experimental shed,” the performance featured very modern lighting, video and audio effects, that included the Mapuche language. The dancing was simultaneously beautiful, fierce, weird and engaging. Seeing how we’ve been talking a ton about the importance of class in Chile, I was really fascinating by the audience, which featured people who were definitely lower class and of Mapuche descent, college students, upper class people and a few children. It really surprised me to see such a wide cross section at one event; it’s not really something you would ever see in the States.