Empanadas and more food

Argentina’s national snack food could be the empanada. On Wednesday the afternoon activity at school was to learn to make empanandas, so I stuck around along with seven other students. Ana started us out chopping onions, peppers and green onions to add to ground beef. Once the filling was cooked we filled empanada wrappers (available in packages) with the beef, a few little pieces of hard-boiled egg, and chopped green olive. She showed us how to neatly fold and seal the wrapper, and into a very hot oven they went. While the empanadas baked, we all wrote down the recipe and learned other food terms and sayings that have food terms in them. So next time you don’t understand something, just say “No entiendo un pepino!” (I don’t understand a cucumber) or if you’re feeling really energetic say “Estoy fresco como una lechuga” (I’m fresh like lettuce), or if feeling particularly kindly to your significant other, try “Sos mi media naranja” (You’re my half orange = other half).

Empanadas
2.2 lbs ground beef
2.2 lbs finely chopped onion
1 bunch green onions, chopped
2 bell peppers, chopped in small pieces
Spices – salt, pepper, dried oregano, cumin, garlic, dried basil, dried parsley, paprika, dash of cayenne maybe
4 hard boiled eggs, peeled and sliced in medium pieces
Handful green olives, sliced
2 eggs, beaten
50+ empanada wrappers (La Espanola and La Saltena were recommended brands, wrappers are basically a pie dough type dough)

Heat the oven to hot (450?). Saute the onions in oil until clear. Add the ground beef, green onions and bell pepper and spices. Saute until beef is cooked through. Let filling cool in refrigerator 2 hours or overnight. Fill wrappers with a spoonful of filling, a few pieces of hard boiled egg, and a few pieces of green olive. Wet the edges of wrapper, fold in half and fold edges to seal. Brush top with beaten egg. Place on greased baking sheet and bake for 10 – 15 minutes until golden brown. Serve hot.

Today, Friday, school extra-curricular activities included an asado (barbecue) at lunch time and music. For the asado there were grilled chorizo and blood sausages, and a couple cuts of beef. Also salad as a relief from meat! Two big bottles of red wine made the rounds and the meal was finished off with deliciously refreshing watermelon slices. It is in the mid 90s today. Afterwards we adjourned back to the indoors where we could make as much noise as we wanted. Two musicians who are in a Mendoza band came and told us about the traditional latin rhythms with demonstrations and group participation. They play tonight at midnight with their 8 piece band at a bar and again on Sunday at the park so we hope to hear them in full swing.

La Parilla

Last night we joined two fellow students for dinner at one of Mendoza’s most famous restaurants de parillada (grill). Jake and the other students (a couple from Denver) had studied the names of the different meats served when you order parilla (mixed grill) and were eager to sample the real thing. Jake and I attempted to take the bus down to the restaurant, a straight shot down a single road, but both buses we caught took unexpected right turns onto side streets. We did get within a few blocks at least. We sat outside on the terrace by a bubbling fountain enjoying the warm night air. Marilyn ordered the wine as she used to work as a wine buyer and had visited several vineyards around Mendoza. (Sorry Lynn, I didn’t think to write down the names of the wines!). Three of us ordered parilla and Marilyn ordered Bife de chorizo, the best cut of steak available by all accounts.

When you order parilla, a parade of meats arrives. There were many different cuts of beef and cow parts (chinchulinas – intestines), a small porkchop, pork sausage and blood sausage. Then we were asked if we wanted repeats of anything! I can’t say I regretted that they didn’t serve the kidneys, liver or udder as is sometimes done. The meats are all grilled outside and had a delicious flavor. The bife de chorizo was indeed tender and Marilyn managed to get hers done rare, a feat in a country that likes its meat medium to well done.

Somehow we managed to top everything off with dessert. Jake ordered fresh strawberries which were full of flavor. Tim got a big piece of tiramisu and Marilyn had a sublime plate of figs stewed in honey and served with cream.

At 1am we walked the 16 blocks home through the lively Villanueva street bar and restaurant scene, still packed with people. Apparently clubs often don’t really get going until 2 am and stay open until 8 am.

Spanish Lessons

Bright and early Monday morning Jake and I went off to school with our notebooks and pens. We are taking Spanish lessons at Intercultural, about 8 blocks from our apartment building. We had taken placement exams the week before so when we got there we were assigned to different rooms. My class has just one other student, a woman from Ireland who has been taking lessons for the last 6 weeks. We plunged right into different subjunctive tenses and uses of the subjunctive. In my class, Silvina teaches from 8:30 - 10:30 am. Then there is a half hour coffee break outside where students mingle and sign up for optional lunches delivered to the school and afternoon activities. Vivi teaches from 11 - 1pm and then we break for lunch for an hour.

On Mondays the school hosts a language exchange in the afternoon. Students and anyone from town can attend. The first hour all conversation is in Spanish and the second hour in English. There were three Mendozans in my group. One used to work in NYC as a taxi driver, security guard and waiter before retiring back to Mendoza. The other worked as a waiter in Buenos Aires but has a house in Mendoza that he has been renovating for the last two years to rent out eventually. Students are from all over the world and of all ages. Duane is a pilot who works wildfires in northern California during the summer and travels to do mountaineering during the northern winters. There is a former school administrator from Chicago who has a year off. A young guy from California who is traveling for a year. A Brit who is traveling South America by motorcycle for 8 months. A South African woman accompanying her husband to live in Mendoza for 2 years or more as he works for the wine industry. It is astonishing to me how many people from Europe are able to arrange to travel for months or even a full year.

This afternoon we took the wine appreciation class. The teacher is the director of a sommelier institute in Mendoza. He explained (in Spanish) what the parts of the grape vine and grape are called, how wine is produced, and how to taste wine. We then evaluated one white and one red wine. The white was a 2008 Trapiche Sauvignon Blanc from Maipu (a suburb of Mendoza basically). It had a wonderful aroma of tropical fruits, but was too acidic to my taste. It did have a strong lemon/grapefruit taste if you like those flavors in a wine. The second wine - ahh, magnifico! It is a 2006 red wine (mixed varieties) from the El Peral vineyard in Tupungato, a town at high altitude in the province of Mendoza. The color was very dark and it had a strong scent of plums with undertones of strawberry. The sommelier also explained that the wine had been aged in an oak barrel giving it a vanilla and chocolate taste and that it had undergone some secondary fermentation which gives it a slight taste of leather or horse (I know, sounds unpleasant, but I didn't really notice those overtones anyway). Everyone in the class loved the wine as did Jake and I. The teacher labeled it "un vino para conversar", a wine you might break out after dinner because of its exquisite taste and ability to foster conversation.

Rafting and Cabalgata

We escaped Mendoza on a very hot day, 39C, to go rafting and horsebackriding in the foothills yesterday. Horseback rides are called "cabalgatas" in Argentina. We started with horseback riding. Our guide grew up in the area and filled me in on all the local plant names and uses. The scrubland has 4 or 5 different shrub species two of which seem similar to mesquite in usage. There was also wormwood and thyme among the shrubs. And a lovely red flowering parasitic plant on the shrubs. Also several cactus species. None of the trees in the towns would be there without the acequias, ditches used for irrigation. In one photo you can see a line of dead trees where the landowner stopped watering a piece of land. This was on an estancia (ranch) of 400 acres that we rode through. The ranch is now mainly used for tourism although the owner wants to start raising angora goats. Of our fellow riders, we had the most experience, so it was a pretty slow ride. There was a woman from Ireland along who had decided on going to Argentina as her big mid-life adventure. Her son is living here for a few months. She had been doing all kinds of activities she never thought she'd try! Two young women from Buenos Aires were clearly unprepared for the rigors of riding - one had shorts and flip flops on. An American couple from Boston were doing 2 rides in a row despite not having ridden for many years. I hope they were able to sit down still at the end of the day!

After horseback riding we returned by van to Argentina Rafting Expediciones headquarters on the Mendoza river where they serve a buffet lunch to rest up for our afternoon of rafting. The photo of the lake is the view from their headquarters. There were 4 other english speakers (an Alaskan woman and a young couple from Warwick, England who are traveling around the world for a year), so we were all put in the same raft. The guides explained safety procedures, how to put on the neoprene suit, and paddling techniques. The five rafts, 4 safety kayaks, guides and rafters all went by van upriver about 20 minutes. We got a review again on safety and paddling, got wet (very cold water from snowmelt in the mountains), and got in the rafts. I was seated in the back as someone with no rafting experience and Jake 2 rows up. The young couple from England had the front row - the wettest place to be. The Mendoza river has class II and III rapids along the stretch we were on, and it really was impressive. We plunged into great waves of water and at one point dared to go into a hole that none of the other rafts attempted. Towards the end we all got to jump out of the raft into the water then got pulled back up into the raft by our lifepreservers. I don't have any photos of the rafting of course, but you can see general photos at: http://www.argentinarafting.com/ingles/fotos_de_rafting.html.

Once back at the headquarters we sat around chatting with the Alaskan and English couple until the van finally took us back home around 6:30. After a shower and a rest we went out for dinner to a Middle Eastern restaurant called Comida Poblana over on Villavencia, another street lined with restaurants and bars. A half bottle of Santa Julia sauvignon blanc and an order of babaganoush and shish kebab helped ease aching muscles and finished off the day.

An Apartment

As Jake mentioned, yesterday we moved into our new apartment. We compromised on design and an outdoor space in favor of location and services. The apartment is in a 5 story building a block from Plaza Espana, one of the 4 smaller plazas surrounding Plaza Independencia. It is not especially remarkable, but has a dining/sitting area, a bedroom, a rather large bathroom and a tiny kitchen with a 2 burner stove, microwave, small refrigerator and sink. There are 2 large windows that look onto the walls of surrounding buildings, but you can see sky if you look up and the rooms are fairly well lit. The advantage of the building is that is has WiFi, someone cleans and makes the bed every day, does laundry once a week, and there is a doorman. It took us about 2 1/2 days to find a place. Our first day here was spent discovering how to locate furnished short-term apartments and the next two days looking at apartments. The tourist office had a convenient list of buildings with furnished apartments. I learned how to use the "locutorios", phone booths in stores, to call about places, and Intercultural, the language school we will be attending, actually would have been the best resource had we started with them.

Plaza life is great - as it grows dark and cooler the plazas fill with people. Plaza Independencia has lots of craft booths and snack vendors. There are entertainers as well. Usually a children's show of some sort and a couple people dressed as statues that move when coins are forthcoming. One corner has tango music, but we've yet to catch anyone dancing. Plaza San Martin has skateboarders doing tricks along the stairs and walkways. Our plaza has beautiful tilework and a fountain and seems to be one of the more peaceful plazas. Plaza Chile is under reconstruction this summer. We haven't spent much time yet around Plaza Italia.

There is a medium sized grocery store a block and a half from our apartment. We bought cereal (much missed the last week) for breakfast and frozen raviolis for dinner. We also got some green beans from a vegetable stand. We cooked up the ravioli with some sauce and boiled the green beans for a wonderful meal. I picked out a Malbec wine from the grocery from Vina Maipu. We both agreed that is was okay but not great. We'll try again though!

What's Not To Like?

It is very easy to be attracted to this shady city at the base of the Andes. Some very clever engineer channeled the rivers so they run through irrigation ditches on both sides of every single street in town (at least in the downtown area). The result is that all of the streets are lined with trees, as you can barely see in the nighttime photo. Its a good thing too, because the average temperature in January is 90 degrees and it would be unpleasant without constant shade. Mendoza also has outdoor cafes everywhere (you can almost see my co-adventurer is one such). So we have eaten almost every meal outdoors -- though today we moved into our apartment and are looking forward to cooking dinner. The profusion of cafes, and pedestrian streets lined with dozens of cafes reminded me of somewhere in Europe, maybe an amalgamation of Brussels, Leuven, and Paris or just even central square in every town in Europe.
The daily schedule here is, as expected, quite different. Breakfast at 9-9:30, Lunch at 2-3, Siesta (yup, everything except the cafes really does close down)from 2-5 pm., dinner around 10:00. So far, we have kept to that schedule, but classes start Monday and we have to be at school at 8:30! Yikes. I tested into the "almost beginner" Spanish class, while Sylvan is a more advanced group (of course). Can I catch her?

Border Crossing

On Monday we caught a bus in Valparaiso to take us to Mendoza, Argentina. The bus arrived in the station about 30 minutes late which had me pacing up and down making sure we hadn't missed it since buses aren't usually late. The bus went as far as Vina where we all had to get off and wait while it refueled. That took another 45 minutes. The bus was reasonably comfortable, but we should have shopped around more because there were definitely better bus companies - based on observation we recommend Pullman or Cata. The bus company did serve a sandwich and brownie on the bus for food. And a styrofoam cup with instant coffee powder but no water!

The ride to the border isn't all that interesting until you get past the town of Los Andes. But then the bus goes up into the mountains and the scenery is quite barren and spectacular. The photo of the switchbacks is the last climb before reaching the Chilean border. The switchback area also appears to have skiing in the winter. There was a chairlift that goes right over the highway. We drove on to the Argentine border patrol, another twenty minutes past Chile maybe. There were 2 buses ahead of ours, so we all got out to stretch and there were snacks available across the road. Also restrooms! The bus had a tiny, very hot restroom in the back.

Getting through the border took a little more than an hour maybe of standing around, standing in lines, etc. But we all made it back onto the bus and were off down the mountains to Mendoza!

Valpo Harbor Tour

On our last day in Valpo we took a tour of the harbor. There are many small boats vying for tourists at the harbor and we spent about a half hour just figuring out the system. There are colectivos that cram you on but are only 1,000 pesos/person. Private boats can be had for $10,000 total. We teamed up with an Australian couple to get a private boat and got a rather large launch all to ourselves. There was no commentary during the tour, but at least it was a pleasant ride.

The Sociber is a floating dry dock that seemed to be working day and night. There is a huge loading dock area and on the day of our tour there was one container ship and two gigantic cruise ships docked there. We also cruised past the naval vessels, but photography is not permitted of the Chilean navy.

Obamanos!

Tell us about inauguration day! People in Chile and Argentina have been very excited about it and we are often asked about how we feel about Obama. This morning on Argentine tv they showed pictures of people gathering on the mall. It is (I think) 3 hours earlier here than in DC.

Quintay

Yesterday's adventure was to a small beach town called Quintay, about an hour south of Valparaiso. We caught a colectivo, a shared taxi, from near the bus terminal to get there. Quintay is on a peninsula, so the colectivo headed inland along to road to Santiago, then exited onto a small road that wound through the hills back to the coast. The steep hills are heavily logged and replanted with a mix of pines and eucalyptus. I asked how long ago landowners started planting eucalyptus but the driver just said it was a very long time ago. There is also a native palm tree, and it is very odd to see palm trees growing among pine trees.

Quintay is a small town with a central plaza surrounded by dusty dirt and some paved roads. A short walk downhill is playa chica where there are several seafood restaurants and a small beach used mainly by divers and fishermen. We found a path and stairs that led back up the hill towards and followed it towards Playa Grande on the other side of town. The path led to a paved road that ran along the top of the hill past some pretty grand looking houses behind tall privacy fences. At the end of the road we continued along a dirt path but decided to scramble down the hill to walk along the rocky coastline. The scramble involved avoiding the abundant cacti and ducking under shrubs. There were some nice tidepools along the coast (see photo of odd sea creature like a starfish with a zillion legs) and the beach was covered with an assortment of smooth rocks of all colors. Cormorants, gulls and the occassional pelican perched on the big pointy rocks that stood out in the surf. We picked up a path again at the end of the rocky beach that eventually led us around to Playa Grande. After the solitude and long walk, it seemed funny to end up in a parking lot next to a beach filled with families! Most people were crowded in a small sheltered area that had calmer shallow water for kids to play in. The main beach had red flags out prohibiting swimming. There are many more houses, even a few small highrises, by Playa Grande, but surprisingly no restaurants. So we followed the road from the parking lot up the hill and eventually came across another dirt path that led us back over the hill to where we had started from.

We had lunch at one of fhe seafood restaurants on Playa Chica. I had "pastel de jaiva", a huge mound of crab cooked in cream and butter - eat your hearts out eastern shore friends! (see photo). Jake had a slab of grilled salmon served with rice.

We headed back to Valpo around 4pm to rest and relax. After watching the sun set over the bay, we strolled downhill to Plaza Annibal Pinto at the bottom of Cerro Alegre for a drink. I tried a pisco sour, the national drink made with pisco (like rum), lime juice and sugar. We skipped dinner, still full from our meal at the beach!

Chilean National Botanic Garden

Ah, finally to the plants. The Botanic Garden is located just outside of Vina del Mar, a ritzier town north of Valparaiso. We caught the 203 bus from downtown Valparaiso which makes its way along the coast, through Vina, and down an increasingly narrow road past light industry like the Coca Cola bottling plant. The bus driver let us and one other passenger out across a bridge from the Garden. After paying admission at the entrance we studied the sign with the map on it and headed off towards one end of the garden. The allee of trees at the entrance are sweetgum trees, making us feel right at home! The garden has collections of plants from the Easter Islands, the Juan Fernandez islands and the Valdivian forest, but these special collections didn't have any plant identification signs unfortunately. There is a formal "French" garden area, a small cactus garden with very large cacti, and a pond area formed from a small creek. The pond was in desperate need of algae control. Around the gardens are hills wooded mainly with Eucalyptus. Pines would have been the natural vegetation probably.

We were distracted by an old red VW van advertising on a loud speaker a theatre performance at 1pm, so since we were in need of a break from walking around, we took a seat in the shade to watch. The van was transformed into the middle of a stage with curtains extended from either end. A troop of about 5 performed a slapstick play about a mythical peasant who had pissed off a Patron by pretending that his shit was a bird with golden feathers. He gets the patron to hold the "bird" under the peasant's hat while he takes the patron's horse and hat to go get a cage. We didn't stay for the whole thing so I can't tell you how it ends! I'm sure the peasant comes out smelling like a rose. It was very entertaining with some music and clapping involved and the actors engaging the audience of young and old alike. I got the gist of the story but missed a lot of the jokes.

Unfortunately the only food for sale at the garden was packaged cookies and ice cream, so after a snack to tide us over until we could get back to town, we caught a bus back into Vina. Vina is a very large town and the center of town is a mile or two from the beach. We had lunch along a row of restaurants above street level. Jake tried the traditional meal of churrasco pobre. Anything served "pobre" is a meat served over french fries with a fried egg on top. I got a beef and avocado sandwich. The avocados are delicious here! Vina seemed more prosperous than Valpo - higher end shops and parks with more flowers, but it still seemed very large and we decided to skip the beach to return to Valpo in time to do laundry. Yes, there are mundane things that must be done while traveling!

Touring Valpo

We set off along Avenida Alemania winding along the middle of the hills to Pablo Neruda's Valparaiso house yesterday morning. There's a photo of the house 2 postings down. Pablo Neruda is one of my favorite poets and his house reflected his personality. He had the upper 3 floors of the 5 story house and on every story are large windows overlooking the city and the Bay. The living room/dining room/bar floor had some great objects like a carousel horse, plates featuring hot air balloons, funny signs in the bar, a glass that Czar Nicholas drank out of, and a leather chair Neruda named "the cloud". We used the audio tour which was very well done and discussed many of the objects in the house and associated them with his life and poetry. His study was on the top floor and had many paintings of ships and a big poster of Walt Whitman.

From there we caught a local bus to Caleta los Membrillos, a fishing port downtown that has several good seafood restaurants. Jake had fried congrio (Conger eel, a very firm white fleshed fish) and I had reinata, some other kind of fish. Fish and meat usually come with a dish of pebre, the Chilean equivalent of salsa. After lunch we strolled along the coastal promenade to one of Valpo's beaches. It was not a very attractive beach though, so we caught a bus back into town.

After a rest at La Nona, we strolled through our own neighborhood admiring the "graffitti" art and Victorian buildings covered in corrugated tin painted bright colors. We had "onces", coffee, a sandwich and a slice of chocolate cake, at a little cafe/bookstore called Cafe con Letras and then moved on to a glass of wine and some mild black olives served with crushed walnuts and lemon juice at the Brighton hotel overlooking one of the cliffs (see photo). Later for dinner we stopped at a tapas restaurant, Poblenou, for brochettes of meat and zuchinni and a small dish of shrimp and scallop curry served with bread.

Just so you know that I am always working, I include this photo of me in front of the Santiago Chile law school. Uh huh, always hard at work. The other picture is of a Chilean $20,000 note. I have always been amused by countries that had currencies so inflated that their bills had huge denominations. This $20,000 note is a fair bit of money, about US $33, but pretty amusing. It is also amusing when the ATM machine asks how much you would like to withdraw? $200,000? $400,000? $600,000? Sure! I'll take that! Also amusing to this economist are the prices and paying for things. The taxi from the bus station in Valparaiso was CH$4,800! What? Are you kidding!?! Oh, that's only US $8. No problem. Everything here costs about 1/2 as much, which I am not quite accustomed to yet. Last night we went to a fancy Valpo (that's the slang for Valparaiso, apparently)restaurant for hors d'oeuvres and wine around 7:00 p.m. -- dinner usually at 10:00 p.m. so . . . Anyway, the waiter recommended a bottle of wine, which we OK'd without looking at the price. It occurred to me that the bill might be a little higher than expected at this beautiful place with great service and a view of all of the Valparaiso harbor, but it turned out to be less that $15 total for food and wine. Not bad at all.

Llegamos en Chile!

Summer is here once again! We took off from Albuquerque at 5pm as the sun turned the mountains purple and the clouds peach colored. An overnight flight from Dallas got us to Santiago at 9:30 am where we were greeted by 80F, palm trees and dry mountains.

After settling into Hotel Vegas in a lovely little area behind the San Francisco church, we had lunch of an antipasto tray and a grilled steak with tomato salad at an Italian restaurant around the corner. From there we set off to Cerro Santa Lucia, a lush park on a hill in the middle of the city. There were great spots to view the city from and a fountains, statues and various old buildings. We spent the afternoon napping, having a beer at a pub in the Lastarria neighborhood next to the park, getting coffee and a snack, browsing through a market, and actually managing to stay up until after midnight by having another beer and empanada at a bar in the Bellavista neighborhood.

The next morning we attempted to visit Pablo Neruda's house, but the tours started too late since we had to catch a bus to Valparaiso (Valpo to locals). It was a pleasant walk though along the Rio Mapuche and through another park. From the hotel, we took the metro to the bus station where buses leave every 15 minutes for Valpo. It was a big, comfortable bus and took about 2 hours to reach the coast. Here in Valpo we are staying at one of the hundreds of bed and breakfasts. Ours is called La Nona, named one of the 9 best in South America by The Guardian newspaper. It's an old house on Cerro Alegre (there are 19 cerros, hills, that make up the city) and Renee who runs it is very nice and gave us a thorough overview of the city along with a map of lots of recommended retaurants and sights. It's not particularly fancy, but it is comfortable and we are looking forward to breakfast this morning. It is important to adjust to the local custom of dining late because breakfast isn't served until 9:30 am!

In Valpo yesterday we took a very long walk down the hill and through the lower part of town. There is a huge container port and many ships out in the harbor. There is also a Chilean naval presence with its steely grey ships. We haven't actually seen a swimming beach yet. They appear to be at the far ends of the harbor. With tired feet we took to the metro back to our side of town and slowly made our way back up the hill. By slowly I mean we first stopped for an expresso and pastry, then we took the elevator up the cliff and stopped at a restaurant for ceviche and a glass of Cabernet, then we proceeded the remaining five blocks or so to La Nona. Later we went out for a thin crust pizza with chorizo, black olives and mushrooms at a local Italian restaurant.

I will post photos later today - time for breakfast at last!

Happy New Year!

Here it is already nine days after the New Year, but guests slow down blog postings. With Casey, Evan and Roy we went down to the plaza before dinner to see the farolitos that Hospice organizes in memory of loved ones. It was moving seeing the candles lining the paths through the plaza but fun with kids making miniature snowmen and skating on the icy patches. We got back in time for a meal of roast chickens and all the trimmings.

Roy and kids left New Year's Day and Jake flew out to New England the next day. I crammed in all the work I'd put off until January 4 when I drove down to the airport to pick up Jake and my parents, Sarah and Bob. Jake arrived on time, but the other plane was delayed and didn't arrive until 12:40 am! Both parents were recovering from colds, the stress of moving, and sick relatives, so we had a very relaxed visit not attempting to do much. It was also very cold and windy most of their visit. But we did stroll around downtown a few times, took in some galleries on Canyon Road, the Cathedral, and a museum. My parents took us out to a new restaurant called A La Mesa that had gotten good reviews. The food was excellent - basically French home cooking. I had a very rich Coq-au-vin and Jake had a nicely flavored lamb tagine. Bob got a steak and fries served Belgian style. We also stopped for afternoon coffee a couple times at La Fonda's french bakery.

On Monday we leave for South America! Future postings will return from abroad.