Tag Archives: food

About Quinoa

The Altiplano, or highland desert, of Chile

The Altiplano, or highland desert, of Chile

The other day my friend, originally from Arequipa (in the highlands of Peru) cooked quinoa in the way that she remembers eating it when growing up, back when she used to go to the market with her family on weekends and they would scoop out the seed from barrels.

I first heard of quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) a few years ago when my sister-in-law in Canada cooked it for us. Little did I know that a few years later, when visiting the El Loa region of Chile in the Altiplano, or high altitude plains, near the Bolivian border, I would actually drive past a small, very isolated rural farm growing this grain in a field on the side of a sandy, rocky, barren hill.

This is an ancient grain (or, technically speaking, seed) that has been critical to the diets of people living in the Altiplano for millennia. What you have to understand about the Altiplano – a highland region stretching from parts of Southern Peru to parts of Bolivia and a little bit into the Chilean and Argentinian borders – is that very little grows there. Well, actually, let me rephrase that. In fact, a surprising amount grows there considering it is a dry, isolated, virtually rain-free, plant-free region of the world, with poor, sandy soil, extreme temperatures (very cold at night, very hot during the day) and intense sun.

In this highland desert of Chile, people can grow some corn, a few vegetables such as tomatoes, and herbs. They can raise some livestock (based on my observations mainly just chickens and llamas), and, at higher altitudes, they cultivate quinoa.

As you may know, quinoa has become a trendy food in North America because of its “superfood” status. It appeals to vegans or gluten free cooks because of it is a one-stop-shop for plenty nutrients. This is precisely the reason it has been such a staple food item in the Altiplano for so long: because the people living in this harsh land must have gotten a lot of their nutrients primarily from quinoa. Many people in the region still depend on it in their diet; after all, even with modern technology, it continues to be difficult to transport a wide variety of fresh, nutritious food hundreds of miles, high into a relatively isolated desert land.

Driving past a farm that cultivates quinoa, in the highlands of northern Chile

Driving past a small farm that cultivates quinoa, isolated in the vast highlands of northern Chile

Outside of the Altiplano region, quinoa doesn’t seem to be that well-known, at least in Chile. Chileans down at sea level here in Antofagasta, a mere 300 or so miles away, generally don’t know about it unless they have come across it on a vacation to the Altiplano region or in Peru.

I have been wary of quinoa ever since coming across articles about a year ago mentioning how quinoa might be responsible for an unfortunate shift in the Altiplano diet: as growers export all of their quinoa to North America, prices have reportedly been on the rise for the domestic supply and it has been said that local populations have begun to supplement their diet with cheaper, less-nutrient rich, imported options such as corn or wheat products (source). On the other hand, I have also read that the quinoa boom has been advantageous to Altiplano farmers, who are now making a lot of money off these exports, with which they can improve their quality of life (source). I’ve asked a few people who are familiar with these regions if they know what is really happening, but I haven’t found any real answers.

I suspect that the truth probably lies in a mixture of these two scenarios. I imagine local populations who are not involved in or have not benefitted from the quinoa export industry in any way may have a harder time affording quinoa for their families than they did before, and their diets must undoubtedly suffer. On the other hand, the farmers who do receive a fair price for the grain may in fact have more opportunities now to help improve their quality of life and the quality of their business. I believe the key is to somehow make sure farmers and local populations are receiving a fair price for the grain. In my opinion, it’s up to all of us to be aware consumers and sensitive to this need.

Quinoa

Quinoa (this was grown in Chile)

I’ve had two, presumably traditional Altiplanean, quinoa dishes. The first was in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. The quinoa was fixed like risotto: creamy with plenty of freshly ground black pepper, basil and some local herbs, mushrooms and served with a sweet tomato jelly. Bread in San Pedro is sometimes made with quinoa. I’ve even heard that sweet cakes can also be made with the grain. I’ve also been told quinoa can be stirred into soups and stews (but use less than you think you will need: it expands dramatically in liquid).

The second time I had a traditional dish was the other day with my Peruvian friend. Again, it was cooked similar to risotto. It is first cooked in water, then milk and cheese is added. She said that when she was growing up, her family used to use this as a side dish for chicken or served with stew (instead of rice).

A few days ago I tweeted that I had tried this more traditional Altiplanic dish from the very region the grain is grown, and got a few requests for a recipe on Twitter. That inspired this post. My friend does not go by a recipe; she just remembers her family’s traditional way of making it. She roughly described it to me, and then I reproduced it on my own. All of my measurements are approximate, too. It’s worth noting that I am not duplicating her recipe exactly. However, I believe this gives the sense of how quinoa is fixed in this part of the world and I am very satisfied with the results. I like this warm, creamy, risotto-style approach to quinoa and will definitely be fixing it as a light lunch or side dish in the future.

Now, here’s the recipe! Be sure to see my notes below.

Quinoa cooked with milk and cheese

Quinoa cooked with milk and cheese

Quinoa Inspired by a recipe from Arequipa, Peru

Ingredients

  • 1 cup quinoa
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 3/4 cup of evaporated milk**
  • 1/2 to 3/4 cup of shredded or cubed white cheese of your choice****
  • Optional: flat leaf parsley, Peruvian aji amarillo powder, or a pinch of cayenne.

Directions:

  • Add quinoa, water, and garlic cloves to a saucepan. Bring the water to a gentle boil then simmer the quinoa in the water with the garlic cloves until cooked. (About 15 minutes.)
  • Take off the heat and stir in the evaporated milk. Let sit for 5 minutes, covered.
  • Remove the garlic cloves and stir in the cheese until melted.
  • Serve immediately.

Note: in “nouveau Peruvian” cuisine, more flavour is added through the addition of fresh aji amarillo (a traditional hot/sweet orange pepper used extensively in Peruvian cuisine). A sort of pesto sauce made from fresh flat leaf parsley could also be stirred in. A pinch of cayenne powder might substitute for the aji if you cannot find it.

Notes:

* The off-white variety of quinoa, which is also the most commonly found in this region and elsewhere, is the only variety my friend knew of growing up in Peru (as opposed to the red, black or other novelty varieties found on the market in North America). You may need to rinse the quinoa before cooking it; check instructions on the package.

**  We cannot get fresh milk in these regions, and the irradiated milk we do get cooks strangely, which is why I suspect canned evaporated milk is used. I imagine you could use fresh half and half or whole milk instead.

*** Shredded romano or parmesan cheese would be best. A soft, bland white cheese would also work well; I used cubes of mantecoso, which is my favourite type of white cheese in Chile with a flavor similar to monterey jack.

Enjoy!

(Note: please do not reproduce this recipe elsewhere without written permission or linking directly to this post. Thanks!)

A Taste of Chile: Pisco (& Mango) Sours

Well, well, well. Who knew that to overcome blogging writers’ block, all I had to do was write about food? Last week, I provided you with my overall impressions and observations of Chilean foods and that seems to have gone over quite well. For this week, I originally had in mind to do a sort of virtual “recipe dump” with links to all kinds of Chilean food recipes, but the post grew longer, and longer, and longer… and I received more questions from Twitter about food, so I decided that maybe I should slow down and make highlighting a few classic Chilean foods a regular feature instead. (Also, my first draft was accidentally deleted, but I won’t go into that.)

I am not really a foodie, nor would I ever attempt to be a food blogger… I’ll leave that to people who are more keen on stirring, mixing, and snapping millions of photos of ingredients at all angles. But, with that said, here is the first (of hopefully many) attempt to share with you some of my discoveries.

For my first foray into the food blogging world, I am making pisco sours 2 different ways. The first is the sweet, frothy, lime-infused pisco sour, traditionally served at parties as aperitifs before dinner, and the second, a variation with sweet, tropical mango. I have also tasted many variations of the drink that use other fruits native to Chile, such as the chirimoya (which is a fruit from a tree related to the paw paw), and all are delicious. Although I’ve talked about them before, the pisco sour is a natural start to a series on the food and drink of Chile; plus, I like them, and I have learned how to make them!

There is a bit of a controversy surrounding the origins of the pisco sour: some say that it originated in Peru, others say Chile, and yet others claim… an American invented it! Or so Wikipedia says. (I haven’t heard that version of the story here, to say the least.) Whatever you choose to believe its origins are, it doesn’t matter: they are all delicious. The flavour is vaguely reminiscent of a margarita, but feels more refined and goes nicely with finger foods before dinner.

By the way, when googling pisco sours, I was surprised by how many variations of the recipe there are, and yet none seemed to be the way that northern Chileans have told me to make them. I have tried both of the recipes below at home, and can attest to the fact that they are every bit as good as you would find in northern Chile.

Mango sour

My favourite variation of the more traditional pisco sour, the mango sour can be made with fresh or frozen mangoes or frozen mango pulp (which is what I get here in Chile).

Ingredients: 3 parts Chilean pisco, about 1-2 parts pureed mango (see notes), 1 part simple syrup, .5 parts fresh squeezed lime juice, ice.

How to fix: in a cocktail shaker, shake all ingredients with some ice. Strain out ice and pour into glass. Alternatively, drop ingredients in a blender with a few ice cubes and blend until smooth.

Notes:

  • In Chile, pisco and mango sours are served in a chilled glass that looks a bit like a champagne flute like this one from Ikea, but a small white wine glass would also work.
  • To make pureed mango, put cubes of fresh or frozen mangoes in the blender and pulse. You may need to add a bit of water, but the result should be like a thick juice.
  • Traditionally, the pisco sour is also made with egg white, but I don’t think it is necessary in the mango variation.

Pisco sour

Ingredients: 3 parts Chilean pisco, .5-1 part simple syrup (see notes), 1-2 parts freshly squeezed lime juice (see notes), ice, a bit of egg white per portion (optional – if you don’t want to use raw egg in your drink see notes).

How to fix: Shake ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and strain ice before serving. Alternatively, drop ingredients in a blender with a few ice cubes and blend until smooth (ice should be melted). Serve in champagne flute.

Notes:

  • Since raw egg doesn’t always float my boat – but is essential for an authentic pisco sour – or if you have health concerns about using raw egg, I have found you can get a similar thick and “foamy” effect by using a bit of confectioner’s sugar and pulsing the mixture in your blender.
  • The limes we use in Chile are called pica limes, and cannot be found in North America. A close alternative would be the key lime, and I’d highly recommend those over the larger limes. If you don’t use key lime, you may need to increase the amount of simple syrup.
  • Finally, a drop of bitters is sometimes added to the top as garnish before serving.

P.S. Thanks to the magic of the internet, this post is going live while I am traveling in Argentina! Next week, I’ll tell you all about my trip to the city of Córdoba. Baroque architecture, Jesuit monasteries, meat and Malbec… Cheers! Here’s a preview photo that I took this week:

Describing the Tastes of Chile

Limón de pica pie (pica lime pie) – like a key lime pie – one of my favourite treats.

I dealt with a bit of “blogging writers’ block” last week which is why I didn’t quite get a post together as usual last Friday. I had a few frustrating things happen, including the inability to get my hands on a book I need for my master’s research and some unexpected dinner guests, that took me away from the blogging world. But, everything has been solved, thanks to an acquaintance of a friend who can bring me the book I need and dinner guests who came, enjoyed my American barbecue-style chicken sandwiches, and left.

Anyways, speaking of food, during my writers’ block I turned to Twitter and asked what you want me to blog about. As it turns out, I have not been blogging enough about food!

You might remember a year ago when I was incredibly frustrated by the lack of spices, familiar ingredients and apple varieties available on the supermarket shelves. (Hey, I am from an apple-growing region… I miss the 100 varieties of apples we have there every fall.) Even though groceries have not changed much in Chile in a year, I certainly have. I have grown very accustomed to the ingredients available here; indeed, I enjoy many of them. I love that we get delicious avocados year-round, and wonderful, fresh, ripe mangoes for months – the likes of which we would never see in North America, where mangoes that have travelled long distances simply taste like a pine tree, instead of the sweet, peach-like flavour they have when freshly delivered down here from nearby Brasil.

Mangoes! This was taken in June, when they were in season.

I also am able to get my hands on enough things to make the foods I like: black beans and creamy cheeses for Mexican-style quesadillas, homemade pizza dough with portabella mushrooms and chorizo, imported chickpeas from Canada (!) for homemade hummus, steak and potatoes for my husband. (Filet mignon is surprisingly affordable here – yes, still pricey enough to merit reserving for an occasional treat, but affordable nonetheless – and I made it once using a recipe from Food Network’s Giada de Laurentis, which I later Tweeted about how much I liked and she replied to me personally, which I loved.)

Anyways, the thing is – the bad thing is, for the purposes of this blog – I have been cooking similar foods (just using local ingredients) that I might at home, which has meant I have tried fewer Chilean foods than I might have if, say, I had a Chilean mother or chef living with and cooking for me. So, I am hardly an expert.

Still, between dining out, dining at friends’ houses and simply talking to other people, I have pieced together a little knowledge of what is commonly consumed in this region. Cooking is, of course, a regional thing, and near the ocean shrimp and mussels are used in a lot of dishes. In fact, you can order steak or chicken at many restaurants with cream sauces that have little baby shrimps and mussels mixed in. Meanwhile, further inland, like near San Pedro, the cooking has more Andean influences, such as the use of grains like quinoa.

And, to my knowledge, there are not really celebrity chefs here of the likes of Jamie Oliver, Paula Deen or my favourite Tweeting chef, Giada, so I can’t direct you to a Chilean cooking show. (If I have any Chilean readers, I’d love to know if there’s a good Chilean chef somewhere out there? I think most Chileans would say their mother or grandmother is the best!)

We got this in a restaurant once. I can’t even really describe it… I suppose it’s like a Chilean poutine? It had French fries topped with chorizo, chicken, beef, and runny eggs that had been fried on one side. Not a health food.

I can’t really generalize the cuisine of a whole country. Chile is long, remember! And it’s like trying to sum up the food of the U.S.: how would you possibly generalize what New Yorkers, Californians, Texans and Michiganders eat in a day? Nonetheless, as per your request, I will attempt to. Also, I recommend Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations episode on Chile from a few years ago, which I think was quite representative of a number of common foods in the country.

If I had to describe the food typically consumed in a day around here, I would say that northern Chileans start the day with a sandwich or some bread and jam, yogurt, fruit, tea and fruit juice. Then, they have their largest meal of the day between 1-3pm. This might consist of meat, rice, potatoes, a type of bread that is round and white and looks a bit like a hockey puck, and maybe a boiled vegetable like cauliflower. Here in Antofagasta, they might eat ceviche, which is slices of raw fish marinated in lime juice, or a seafood soup, which consists of a simple broth, some shrimp, mussels, squid, and cilantro. This can be commonly found downtown Antofagasta near the mercado or fish market, which are packed at lunchtime. Salad doesn’t seem as popular as it is in North America, and is definitely not what we know as salad: the only time I have been served salad by a Chilean, it was lettuce with a bit of lime juice and canola oil on top.

Next, there might be a snack around 5 or 6pm, although I don’t think this is too common. Sometimes, I observe couples or tables of friends enjoying a coffee or tea and a slice of pie or cake at this time, a habit that feels reminiscent of another era. Dinner is served at 10pm or so, and is usually light, consisting of something as simple as a sandwich – or, since we are in the era of fast food, a hamburger or hot dog or a choripan (chorizo in a hot dog bun).

Happy hour at bars usually runs from 9pm-midnight, as the nightclubs (or so I have been told, I’ve never actually been to one!) don’t get going until well after midnight!

Chilean empanada

Over the past year (and after numerous complaints), my friends and family back home still seem surprised that my favourite coffees and spicy foods are hard to find, despite the fact that some of the best coffee in the world is grown in neighbouring Peru. Several Chileans have told me they like the taste of their food without spices, confirming what I discovered on my own: case in point, one woman told me recently she can’t even stand the taste of a little cinnamon in something. Black pepper is rarely found on tables at restaurants.

And, again, coffee is simply…not that popular. Still. There is no culture around it – as hard as those of us in the northern hemisphere find it to believe. Although that might change in only a few years: I see tons of young Chileans lined up at Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts whenever I am in the Santiago airport, and there are coffee shops in grocery stores just like the Starbucks that seemed to creep into many grocery stores in the U.S. in recent years.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this culinary “journey.” Next week, I will describe three of my favourite Chilean dishes – including recipes!

Cumpleaños feliz – another Chilean birthday

My birthday was this week. I’ll admit, I had mixed feelings about celebrating my birthday in Chile for the second time. I mean, sometimes on your birthday, you just want all of the comforts of home and to see friends and family in person for once.

Then again, there won’t be too many years when I can say I’m celebrating my birthday in South America, so this is one of those times when I once again told myself to make the most of it.

Birthdays in Chile are generally a time with friends and family. Case in point: on my husband’s birthday a little over a month ago, his coworkers called him into work (even though it was a day when he could work at home because the university had no classes). They greeted him with a cake, snacks and drinks and made a big deal out of celebrating it! A birthday can also be a messy experience: there’s a tradition around here where the birthday girl or boy gets their nose smushed into their birthday cake. That is one tradition I could live without, thank you very much!

At restaurants and bars, I’ve heard noisy birthday celebrations where music plays over loudspeakers and the whole table starts singing Cumpleaños feliz (to the same tune as “Happy Birthday”). Surrounding tables – even if they’re complete strangers to those celebrating – will often join in on the (often rowdy) rendition of the song.

Cakes are important to have on birthdays, naturally. But some of the more common cakes here a bit different than what North Americans might be used to for a birthday celebration: cake varieties range from manjar (dulce de leche) or tres leches (made with three types of milk), to fruit-flavoured cakes such as lúcuma (a type of Chilean fruit). Here in Antofagasta, I have also seen chocolate truffle cakes, but they are more of a sponge cake, not quite the rich chocolate cake we might associate with a birthday cake. I’ve also been to parties where pies are served instead of cake. Luckily, for my own purposes, I found a Betty Crocker cake mix imported from the U.S. at the grocery store, and improvised a traditional vanilla buttercream frosting. Now that is a taste of home! Yum!

 

A New Schedule

A cafe in the evening. San Antonio de Areco, Argentina

A few months ago, I wrote about how people seem to walk at a different pace in Chile. As time has gone by, I’ve come to realize that entire days also seem to follow a different pace here, and I have only recently realized how much my own perception of a day has changed.

As someone who grew up in the American Midwest, I was raised with the idea that adults have the following schedule: wake up at 6 am for work, leave for work by 7 or 7:30, be at your desk by 8. Take a 1/2 hour lunch at noon. Leave work around 6 (or later if you have a big project), eat a quick dinner at 6:30, relax or go about your evening activities (sports, hobbies, etc.,) and go to bed by 10 or 11 pm.

I, on the other hand, have had a startlingly different schedule in Chile. Most Chileans seem to wake up reasonably early and are at work by about 9 am, judging from the rush hour that usually lasts from 8-9 am. But that’s where the similarities with the North American lifestyle end.

Lunch time begins around 1pm and lasts until at least 3pm. At that time, most workers go home and students leave school (“commute” isn’t really a familiar term here; home is usually just a quick dash from school or work). Families eat a large meal together and have a chance to have a quick rest or nap. By 3 or 4 pm, everyone returns to work or school and the afternoon lasts until 7-8pm. Then, students and workers mosey on home and many look forward to beginning their “second day.”

An evening coffee, Chile

This next part of the day is the social part. From what I gather, it’s normal for people to go for a quick snack and maybe a coffee after work at around 7-8pm. The might meet up with friends for “happy hour” from 9pm-midnight. Shopping is also done at this time, from clothing shopping to grocery shopping (which is often completed with the entire family in tow). At some point during that 9-midnight time span, they will also have a light meal, which might be as simple as a sandwich. Then, they either go home and look forward to the next day… or, if it’s one of several nights of the week, particularly Friday or Saturday night, by around midnight, they go to their favourite club, restaurant or bar. Midnight is when the live music comes out and the nightlife gets started. I’ve heard that about 2 or 3 am is peak nightlife time on Fridays and Saturdays – I’ve never been out this late to confirm whether it’s true! I do know, however, that when my husband and I have gone for a walk on Saturday or Sunday mornings at 8 or 9 am, we have seen many people wandering home from their “night.”

Sure, some of this schedule has to do with the climate; much of Latin America is warm year-round, and summers are subject to intense heat during the day so it only makes sense to be at your most active after dark. However, Northern Chile is very temperate all year, so there’s not usually a great benefit to staying out all night, unless it’s the middle of summer. Even cities such as Buenos Aires – which follow the same schedule (I have discovered 11:30 pm is peak dinner time at restaurants there) – experience fairly cool temperatures at least in winter.

A cafe in Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina in the evening

I have not had many troubles adjusting to this lifestyle, as I’ve always been a natural night owl. My husband, a very early morning type of person, is a different story.

Interestingly, last week, I came across this article in the New York Times dining blog about the tapas phenomenon in the U.S. (tapas is a type of dish originally from Spain consisting of small appetizer-like portions of food). The article mostly focused on the particular dining and tasting experience surrounding tapas and how the ritual transformed from an after work snack in the Spanish context to a full meal in the American context.

What caught my eye in this article was this quote: “On their home turf, tapas were meant as ballast for drinkers in bars, and to bridge the long gap between the Spanish siesta and dinner, which nobody in Spain seems to think about before at least 10 p.m. But in the United States, with its … insistence on a mere three meals a day, tapas has become dinner.”

Burning the midnight oil (candle) in a cafe in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

It reminded me of how I’m like the tapas that has tried to adjust in an American context – no, not that I am a little cracker with a fig and piece of prosciutto on it – rather, I’m the fish out of water here, and I’ve been the one to adjust to a different culture’s schedule. In general, I have quite enjoyed it and think it will be a startling experience to have to fit back into a North American schedule someday. (I mean, happy hour at 5pm? Really?!)

The article also reminded me of a very pleasant experience I had in Buenos Aires in May. After a long day of walking, my travel companion and I settled in at a cafe in Recoleta. People of all ages were gathered at the cafe, which seemed to be the kind of place where they had been doing the same thing year after year for decades (but still managed to stay relevant). We ordered glasses of Malbec red wine (patrons were either drinking coffee or wine) and offered a menu filled with snack choices. The light “meal” we were about to enjoy is called a merienda, or what could be translated to afternoon tea. (In Spain, this would be when those tapas are served.) I picked out a plate that included a crispy baguette, cheese, olives, cubes of ham, small pickles and a small bowl of nuts to accompany our wine. The snack was perfect to tide us over until dinner time. It also allowed everyone to have an extra time to sit down and breathe and socialize.

In my opinion, the prolonged day in Latin America is all about taking the time to connect with loved ones. Even if you have a full day of work, most people here realize that it can be restful and reinvigorating to share the rest of their time with the people they care for most.

The moon (as viewed in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile)

Halifax: Friends, Fish and Fog

Boats anchored in a foggy harbour, Halifax

The wonderful thing about travelling through Eastern Canadian cities like Montreal, Quebec City and Halifax is that for fleeting moments you actually get a sense of what it might have been like for the early settlers in the Americas. The fresh, brisk, cool salt air (even in the summer), the creaky wooden docks, the solid brick homes with chimneys. The noisy, even boisterous, nightlife in rustic old settings. All of these things still are around in wonderfully relaxed and atmospheric old Canadian cities like Halifax.

I spent three weeks in the vicinity of Halifax while completing a required master’s program residency, but only really had the chance to explore the city and its immediate surroundings over the course of (barely) 3-4 days. The precious time I spent in the city were filled with friends and making little discoveries: I spent my second weekend in Nova Scotia (the first weekend I spent scoping out the Highland Games) at a new friend’s house about a half hour outside of Halifax, where three of us from the master’s program did homework by a quiet little lake, caught up on some shopping (two out of the three of us do not normally live near nice Canadian retail shopping centres!) and went to a movie (Nova Scotia movie theatres, I discovered, have awesome concessions: in addition to popcorn, you could get amazing ice cream, pretzels and even poutine, a culinary import from Quebec).

Friendly captains

The following weekend, I was finished with my master’s residency so I travelled back to Halifax and finally met someone who I have known for a while but had never actually met in person, a very good Twitter friend who I met via my various commenting (and occasional guest posting) activities on another blog. We had been in regular contact for a while, especially after we had discovered we were both alumni from the same university in Canada. (I say this to make it sound like we are super intellectual internet fans, but in reality we met through a “fan” blog of a certain movie which will not be named, but plenty of you know what I am talking about here.)

Georges Island in the fog, Halifax

We hit it off right away, and although our time together was relatively short we managed to have an amazing walk along the very foggy harbour front in Halifax. After eating (and, true to form, Tweeting about) our great dinner in the beautiful Cut Steakhouse (fresh sea scallops and a giant hamburger!), we admired the various sailboats and yachts anchored in the harbour (our favourite was a sleek sailboat that had apparently sailed all over Europe and North America and had a 208′ tall mast), the cool evening fog providing the perfect atmosphere. She convinced me (I was not hard to convince) to try a local (via Prince Edward Island) ice cream, Cows, and it was indeed some of the best ice cream I have had in a while, served in a freshly made waffle cone. The gift shop was as amusing as the ice cream was delicious, featuring items illustrated with cartoon cows and various ice cream-themed puns. If you go to Halifax or Prince Edward Island, look for Cows. (Or just follow the smell of freshly baked waffle cone.)

Cows ice cream

Later that night (I was a college student and as such, really did not get any sleep for three weeks,) I celebrated the completion of my master’s residency with three of my new friends: two of my classmates and one of the advisors of the program (who, and incidentally, also now visits this blog, so everyone say hello!) at a pub in the historic properties area of Halifax. The pub, situated in a massive old brick building and maintaining its liveliness until the wee hours, hosted a boisterous crowd on two levels, dancing to live music, and an outdoor terrace for more relaxed conversations amid the fog drifting in from the harbour. If patrons got bored of the endless locally brewed beers and ciders and Canadian-made whiskey, the Cows ice cream shop is, conveniently enough, located just next door.

Historic pubs, historic pubs, and more historic pubs in Halifax… (and some historic teas, too)

The next morning, I was planning on spending an idyllic day visiting the huge farmer’s market on the pier and then wandering around along the harbour front and browsing through the shops in downtown on Barrington Street before leaving for the airport at 4pm to catch my flight to Toronto and on to Santiago. But, the fun and exotic thing about travel is that you can always expect the unexpected to happen, and in my case the unexpected was a tragedy in the form of my computer – yes, that machine that I utterly depend on for work, school, communication, blogging, social life, everything – completely stopped working. I grabbed an iced latte at 9:50 am and by 10 am was at the nearest Apple repair shop. I was informed that the situation looked dire and instructed to leave my computer at the shop. Knowing that it would be truly stupid to return to Latin America without a working computer (Macintosh computers are difficult to find and even more difficult on the wallet to purchase in many South American countries, thanks to tight import restrictions and high taxes), I made a quick decision and found an Apple retailer that was actually open on Saturday (no Halifax Apple store! And so few stores are open in Halifax on Saturday) and hightailed it over there.

The harbour on a bright and clear Saturday!

Cue the moment I started to depend on the help and kindness of my new friends, who assisted with driving me around while I rushed to pick out a new computer. They had also been heading out to the farmer’s market before I interrupted them with my computer emergency, and they graciously gave up an hour of browsing at the market to help me sort out my dilemma. What’s more, they even bought me a coffee, which quite frankly was unfair; I was the one who owed all of them coffees. (Please, wave hello in the comments to them for me, too! After all, they are the reason I have a computer to write this blog post on now…)

If it weren’t for my MacBook failing, I could have spent the morning browsing through the farmer’s market or downtown shops, but to be quite honest I’ll probably have more poignant memories of the moments I spent picking out a new computer in Halifax with my friends.

Downtown Halifax and the Pride parade

That afternoon, I took a few minutes to just breathe by walking down to the harbour again and admiring the brilliant, cerulean blue water. The day was clear and hot (weather that I was told is not at all usual in Nova Scotia for many days in a row, but I enjoyed this kind of warm, summer weather there almost the entire three weeks). It was perfect weather for the Pride festivities that took over the city all afternoon. After a quick lunch (fish burger and sweet potato fries) I was content to stand outside of my hotel and watch the parade. I enjoyed the festive, positive atmosphere it brought to the city. It was fitting because over the past few weeks I’d developed a very positive feeling towards Nova Scotia in general. It was a wonderful travel experience and I sincerely hope to visit Halifax again someday, sooner rather than later! Besides, I think I owe a few people a coffee. And/or some Cow’s ice cream.

La Belle Province: Montréal in July

I just spent a few weeks in Montreal and, as usual in summer, it was stunning. Clear, sunny, with just enough rain showers and thunderstorms passing through to keep the flowers and grass lush and green. Although it was hot and humid, Montreal mercifully escaped most of the brutal heatwave that much of the United States has been experiencing.

Since Montreal is my home base, I simply did not have the chance to play tourist in my own city and instead spent most of the time running errands and unpacking and re-packing for my next adventure. (By time you will read this, I’ll be in Nova Scotia for a few weeks, where I hope to have at least a little bit of time to be a tourist in this cool and rainy Atlantic province, which I have never visited before!)

Despite having very little down time, I still managed to appreciate summer in the city in my local neighbourhood. I visited the lovely Atwater market, where all of the summer fruits and vegetables are ahead of schedule thanks to a warm spring. (Last year, I missed peach, nectarine and blueberry season because I went to Chile right when they were starting to be available; last week, I could finally enjoy them all!)

I took advantage of the market’s outdoor food court and had a traditional French Canadian crepe, prepared in with sarrasin (buckwheat) flour. The delicate crepes are brushed with a thin layer of your choice of topping: I had fresh lemon juice with a sprinkle of sugar. For those who know me well and are wondering, yes, I have had plenty of coffee (and I have some of my favourite beans to accompany me to Nova Scotia).

After traveling literally thousands of miles, I always notice something new upon arriving back home. This time, I noticed what a Latin American influence there is in my very own neighbourhood. Montreal is first and foremost a French Canadian city. However, my neighbourhood was at one time (about 100 years or so ago) settled by mostly Italian, Irish, Scottish and English immigrants. But now, it reflects an increasingly diverse Canadian culture.

Latin America is certainly represented here. While I was gone, a coffee shop transformed into a mate cafe (complete with the same Argentinean brand mate I buy in Chile!), a studio specializing in Argentinean tango lessons, and empanadas are very easy to come by in pretty much every other cafe. At least I know I will not be “reverse homesick” when finally settling back here someday!

…then again, the French culture is definitely still here, too!

“Churros” a delight… with a view

The churro cart. I only captured the waffle-on-a-stick part of the cart in this photo, though.

Life in northern Chile has been a bit slow over the past few weeks, not that I am complaining about that. People here are settling into late autumn (which really only means that the locals are wearing more black and dark colours and sweaters that look heavier than they are. Wardrobes here can’t change that much from season to season: daily highs still hover in the 70s/22C, not counting the still-strong sun here on the Tropic of Capricorn.)

I have mostly stayed put  over the past few weeks, trying to figure out what to do with myself and gearing up to start a distance master’s degree program at a university in Canada. I’ll have to travel back to Canada in July for the short residency required by the program. Needless to say, I am looking forward to the trip, as it will take me to a new part of Canada: near Halifax, out in Nova Scotia. Stay tuned for future posts.

Churro preparation

Late last week my mom and brother told me they were going to my hometown’s Tulip Time festival to check out the activities (Dutch Klompen Dancing) and eat some junk food at the fair food stands. Even though I have never exactly gone nuts over fair food, I had a sudden craving for something greasy and fried.

Now that the summer heat has dissipated, I am spending more time outside again. On Sunday, families like to gather at the public beach. Children run around playing with toys in the sand and on the grass. Older children and young adults rollerblade and play ball. Parents (and grandparents) stroll arm-in-arm and walk their dogs. They eat ice cream and lay around on the sand all day.

During our stroll on Sunday, I was reminded of my fried food craving as we passed a churro stand at the beach. The woman at the stand was selling churros, waffles on a stick, slushie drinks and cotton candy. It’s about time I tried a churro, I thought, eyeing a picture of the donut-like pastry on the cart.

Even though they are fairly common in the U.S. and throughout Latin America, I’d never tried a churro. We wanted to order just one to taste, but the woman would only sell them in a dozen or half dozen. Such is life, right? I ordered six.

Fresh churros

We watched as the woman dropped a star-shaped long string of dough from a dispenser straight into a dark, bubbling vat of grease. She let it simmer for about a minute, poking it occasionally with two sticks to help it cook evenly. She then expertly lifted it up, let it drain for a moment (but not too long), and set it into a paper bowl and cut it into six pieces. She sprinkled a generous helping of finely ground sugar on top and presented them to us for the mere price of 800 pesos, or about $1.65.

We sat underneath a palm tree and watched the sun set while munching delightfully on a few of the tasty fried treats. They tasted to me like a really old fashioned cake donut. All I needed was a hot apple cider and it would have been the perfect autumn moment. That is, the perfect autumn moment with sand instead of dead leaves and palm trees instead of an apple orchard, and no corduroy pants and wool jacket required…

Our autumn view while eating the churros

Comida Peruana – A Taste of Peru

Ceviche

In the United States, many of my acquaintances inexplicably think I am in Peru. (Is it because Peru is one of the more travelled-to destinations in Latin America thanks to Macchu Picchu? Or, perhaps Peru just rolls of the tongue a little easier than Chile...)

I do, of course, correct them, but at least they would be pleased to know that I have access to some Peruvian culture here in northern Chile: namely, the food.

Peruvian cuisine is well known throughout Latin America mainly because several famous chefs have come from the country. Throughout the past decades, it has become a sort of fusion cuisine, taking a lot of influences from Asian and European cooking.

Last week I finally tried a Peruvian restaurant which had been recommended by a few of my friends. The restaurant was packed at lunchtime (which you will recall is the time of day most Chileans eat their main meal). This is always a good sign.

Lomo Salteado

The menu had a plethora of choices; all different types of ingredients and flavours were highlighted. My three companions wanted a ceviche as an appetizer; I’m not usually a fan of ceviches, so I opted for a corn bread type appetizer. The ceviche features pieces of fresh raw seafood that had been “cooked” by being marinated in a lime juice-based sauce. The ceviche was also served with toasted corn kernels and slices of cooked sweet potato and a few onions and vegetables, a presentation we were assured by one of my companions – a Peruvian – that was authentic. My corn bread-esque appetizer was served warm, stuffed with a bit of chicken and with some diced tomatoes, onions and cilantro on top.

Parihuela, a seafood soup

For the main course, all three of my companions had a lomo salteado, a very common dish in Peru, which is essentially cuts of beef stir-fried with red peppers and onions, served on a bed of french fries with rice. You can certainly see the influences from Asian cuisine in that dish – the french fries adding an unusual twist to a stir fry!

I opted for a traditional seafood soup called Parihuela. Cooked fish, mussels and scallops in a tomato and wine-based broth with cilantro and a dash of lime juice. Very fresh, rich and delicious!

It was nice to have a little taste of the eclectic Peruvian cuisine as a welcome diversion from the much more straightforward Chilean food.

Slices of bread with a sweet red pepper sauce

The Humble Chilean Empanada

By now I have spent a fair amount of time in Chile, but until Saturday I had not yet tried one of the most basic staples of Chilean cuisine: the empanada.

Thinking of empanadas reminds me of the scene in the Motorcycle Diaries when the two guys – a young Che Guevara and his friend – stumble into Chile, broke and hungry (and thirsty), and charm some Chilean girls into buying them a few Chilean empanadas (and wine). The scene shows a little slice of everyday life in 1950s Chile, the youthful exuberance of a few young kids and the friendliness of the locals, before the movie delves continues on to some deeper issues. But those issues couldn’t be addressed until after Che had been nourished with a Chilean empanada.

Empanadas (or some variation of them) can be found throughout South America, Europe and even Asia. I have also discovered it is a loosely regulated term, at least in Chile, often applying to various kinds of fried pastries with a stuffing of some sort.

Empanadas look deceptively simple: plain pastries on the outside, either baked or fried, the shape of a half-circle. But they are concealing a burst of flavour and energy on the inside, with fun fillings consisting of meat, cheese, seafood and more.

It seems every country has their own take on the empanada. In northern Chile, I believe they are most commonly stuffed with ground beef and lots of onions. I have also seen them frequently offered with a seafood filling and in a baked variation with cheese.

On Saturday afternoon, we were looking for a little snack and decided to stop into a nondescript restaurant located in a large wooden house that appeared to be about a hundred years old and possibly transplanted from the Wild West. The building, with its wood floors, panelling and beams (I wonder where all of the wood originally came from?) contrasts starkly with the more ubiquitous giant concrete buildings in the area. To add to the “yesteryear” ambiance, inside, traditional music was playing softly and tables were set up with red tablecloths underneath lanterns that for a moment I thought might have been powered by kerosene. The restaurant served the most standard Chilean fare, including, of course, empanadas.

We decided to try one meat filled empanada and one cheese filled empanada, along with some fresh cut french fries (no processed frozen fries here).

The empanadas were very large, nearly the size of the plate they were served on. (I have heard that neighbouring countries usually make their variations smaller.) They were very simple: the first was filled with meat and onions, in a tasty and perfect proportion with one another, baked inside the pale pastry shell. The other was stuffed with tons of chanco cheese, which is an extremely mild Chilean cheese and is comparable to the American colby cheese, and fried. I was definitely a fan of the cheese empanada.

Each was large enough to pass for lunch, but my enthusiastic husband ate the better part of both in mere minutes. The empanadas were hearty, but not ridiculously so. I can see why they are often served at parties or eaten as a quick dinnertime snack, as they are compact, easy to manage and filling.

As you may recall from my earlier blog posts, I have had a difficult time adjusting to the Chilean diet, but I wouldn’t mind “adjusting” to more cheese filled Chilean empanadas in the future…