food, Food, FOOD

This past week has been a week recovering, readjusting and reintegrating into normal life. Even though I was gone for the weekend, it felt like much longer.What I noticed immediately when I got off the bus from Mendoza was how happy I was to be back in Valparaiso. This place is slowly but surely becoming another home for me.

After three days of class, it was the weekend again! After eating so much in Argentina I told myself that this week was going to be a healthier, smaller portioned eating week HOWEVER that's basically impossible here. On friday we went on a day trip to Rabuco in the country side outskirts of Viña with the whole CIEE program.

There are around 45 of us students and almost everyone of us went on this day trip. Upon arrival I went on a quick tour of the place we were at. It was a flower farm that has been in business for only 4 years by a young couple who moved from Santiago what they said, "a better life". I have never been to a flower farm before but it was beautiful, which many different kinds of flowers including a kind of off spin of lettuce, which we got to eat along the tour.

 After, a small group of us got to make Sopaipillas which are DELICIOUS. essentially it's a fried pumpkin bread that is very thin that is eating either with powdered sugar or pevre. Pevre is a chilean tomato and onion mixture that generally goes on top of bread like things, it is very fresh and I know Vero is going to be addicted to it when she visits. Sopaipillas are often sold in the street here but I've been told from everybody not to try them because you never know what people put in them. So I was really glad to be able to not only try them, but make them! They are very yummy but extremely dangerous for "la guata" which is another word for belly. After Sopaipillas, we had delicious empanadas of either pino or cheese. Pino is a meet mixture with one olive and pieces of hard boiled eggs. Very delicious but the egg kind of throws you off a little mid bite. The best part about the empanadas are how big they are! They are about the size of an open wallet stuffed with money, if you can picture that. At this point I was full but it wasn't even lunch yet. It was only the appetizer. Lunch was a delicious spread of rosemary chicken, rice with tomato, avocado and corn, salad, more avocado, more tomato, and more corn. It was fresh and delicious and I ate way too much. Of course there was a lemon cake for dessert, along with fresh fruit, tea and fresh baked bread. To work off the food we played games, soccer and made kites. It was a great day, although freezing cold and windy.

After Friday I thought I would never eat again, but somehow on Saturday I managed to eat meat, meat and more meat at the asado (BBQ) of my brother's rugby team. Essentially from 1:30 to 9:00 pm I spent the day with these young families, eating meat, bread, salad, and everything. My host dad Claudio became the asador, or the main man at the grill, which was a HUGE grill. For 3 or 4 hours he was grilling chicken, steak, hot dogs, chorizo, and anything you could think of. It was great to stand by him and watch with the grill keeping all of us warm. After stuffing ourselves with meat and pevre, there was of course dessert. For dessert there was a pineapple tort with a custard filling underneath candied pineapple. A rolled log shaped cake with a manjar filling. Manjar is a caramel spread that I may have already talked about, but it is in every dessert here in Chile. And of course, mil ojas, which I know we've talked about before.

I am in desperate need for some ratatouille or some salmon, green beans. Maybe just some celery at this point.

chao chao <3