Churrasco a lo Pobre

-Joe-

Last week Lauren, Sam, and I cooked a meal so satisfying that I have to write about it. The dish was called "Churrasco a lo Pobre," which literally translates to "the poor man's beef." I assume it has been giving the name because the ingredients are rather basic--fundamental, really, as if even the poor man could afford to prepare this for himself---and the presentation is usually far from elegant.

I first came across this dish at a stinky bar called La Piojera, which means "the lice-ridden place." It soon became my favorite "regional" dish in Chile, and I say "regional" because I have since found in on the menu at almost every bar and restaurant I've frequented while down here, and I have not seen something remotely similar to it in the US. So I assume it is somewhat exclusive to South America or Chile, but the truth of this matter is not a concern for me.

What IS exciting is that I have found a dish that features french fries (or home fries) not as a side but a chief ingredient---a gastronomical component that is intrinsic to the makeup of the entree, playing a pivotal role rather than being relegated to an auxiliary character that can be substituted for rice or mashed potatoes or a salad. This dish demands french/home fries, and since I love french fries I must eat this dish once a week to sate my craving. Finally, I decided that I should attempt to create this dish myself from scratch, so Sam and I invited Lauren over to our apartment and the three of us got cooking. 

First, I sliced four potatoes into thin discs, each piece 1/8 of an inch thick, and spread them  out across a greased-up cooking sheet. I then liberally coated the slices in sunflower oil, salt, allspice, cumin, and paprika. The potatoes went into the oven to bake, at the highest heat setting available (although perhaps this was overkill) until they were cooked through, dark with spices, and somewhat crispy. These home fries formed the base of the dish.

Meanwhile, Sam and Lauren marinated some thinly-sliced beefsteak in Aji (crushed red pepper) BBQ sauce and covered the slabs in minced garlic. The beef was hammered (punched, actually) by Sam to tenderize it and work the garlic into the sinews. The girls proceeded to pan-fry the steaks in some oil on the stove until they were no longer rare but evenly browned. I took the steaks off the stove and sliced them into thin, 1/2 inch strips and laid them over the home fries. Finally, we drizzled the garlic-pepper-blood sauce that remained in the the pan over our churrasco. 

Next I caramelized 1 whole onion (chopped) over the stove until the pieces were golden-brown and steaming. These were draped over the steak slices.

The finishing touch was an egg...For each plate, Sam and Lauren cracked one egg into a pan and fried it sunny-side up. The sunny-side eggs were laid gently over the piles of spicy home fries, steak strips, and buttery browned onions. The dish was ready:

For a side, we also had some rice...but this isn't traditionally part of the recipe

Before you begin eating, there is one ceremony that I recommend you participate in: with your fork, poke open the yolk and let the yellow run down the platter of food, like a river, drenching the onions, then the steak, and finally the potatoes. Everything here tastes better coated in egg yolk, and you will find yourself dipping the few pieces that were spared in what yellow remains pooled around the rim of the plate. 

We three feasted blissfully that evening on our homemade Churrasco a lo Pobre. The only words spokeny for twenty minutes were "Mmm, this is really good." I think it was the tastiest dish I have cooked so far, and lately I have been making all of my meals, so that says something, right? If you love someone, and need a way to say it, cook them this.

Sam is saying, "Come on bro! Take the damn picture so I can chow!"

Don't Believe the Hype

-Joe-

A brief comment on the weather in Chile---specifically Santiago, as what I am about to say does not apply to the other, less metropolitan regions of this vast country.

Some of you (our good friends and family), upon learning that Sam and I were to embark upon an extended trip to Chile, might have been curious enough to investigate what kinds of weather/climate we travelers could expect to encounter here. Sam's parents, for one, had bookmarked Santiago as one of their "cities of interest" on their smartphones' weather app. They were impressed, and quite possibly jealous, to read a weather report that could only be interpreted as balmy and magnificent: clear skies with temperatures in the low 80's and zero percent chance of rain...EVERY DAY. Take a look at the report from weather.com for this very week, the third week of April:

Endless days of quintessential beach weather! You just want to drink up that sweet sun like some microwaved Tang and simultaneously take a dip. This morning I woke up at dawn (basically) and gazed out my living room window to catch that awesome Santiago sunrise...

...Yeah. Just look at those glorious mountains, the spine of South America, standing starkly in their majesty against the sparkling metropolis. Admire the sun's rays flashing brilliantly across the blue, cloudless sky, reflecting sharply in the windows of the buildings. It's like a postcard.

What you see in the above photo is what I am confronted with every morning, afternoon, and evening...the awful phenomenon known as HEAVY SMOG, and if this morning vista brought a tear to your eye, as it does mine, it must be because the pollutants in the air are thick enough to scoop with a spoon. Here's another photo:

Yes, the sky IS free of clouds on a daily basis, unless you consider the one big cloud that hovers 3 feet off the ground and gives people respiratory illnesses. And the weather websites will likely neglect to inform you that this malignant air condition plagues the city, unless you really dig into the detailed reports, which nobody does.

So naturally it's an unpleasant surprise when you step out of the taxi from the airport and find that the skyline has been literally erased from the landscape because the smog is so dense and low-lying that all you see is grey. The sky is not blue, but grey. The air itself is grey. Also, if you breathe too much of the air, you get sick. People who cycle and run recreationally are seen wearing construction masks because it is unhealthy to be breathing heavily while engaging in cardiovascular activity outdoors. I have even read that as the smog continues to thicken throughout the winter (the next few months), occasionally the city's health officials will close schools and order citizens to stay inside because it is not safe to breathe the air on those particularly bad days. I cannot wait.

Here you can see what screening effect the haze has on not only the sky, but on a building mere meters away.

I am not condemning anyone in particular here...people need to drive to get around; I understand that. And a significant portion of this problem stems from the fact that Santiago is situated in a valley...a basin, in fact, where smog gets channeled in from the sea and simply has nowhere to filter out. Thus, I mentioned earlier that this phenomenon is not present in other areas of Chile, where the frequency of automobile usage is lower and the landscape more open.

So the smog is nobody's fault per se...buuuuttttt if hybrid and electric cars were more prevalent on the road, perhaps the problem would not be as grave as it is currently. It is encouraging, however, that there is a significant push to increase the reliance on renewable resources in this city, like solar and wind energy. Also, the public transit system is rather modern, extensive, and efficient, and is used in very high volumes daily by commuters. Hopefully in 30 years one will see a significant improvement in the air quality of Santiago, and the city can become an even lovelier place to visit and/or settle down in, where one doesn't have to taste the air to know it's there.

Must Be Treeman

-Joe-

The best time I've spent in Chile so far was learning how to surf---but much more!---in the modest, dusty town of Pichilemu, a four-hour southbound busride from Santiago, where I had spent the last two weeks rotting in the hostel and feeling not homesick but self-sick. But yesterday morning I boarded a charter bus with Sam and a fellow hostelmate, now a friend, Lauren, to a place which Lauren's tourist handbook described as a hotspot for surf lessons and empanadas good enough to write home about.

Sam giving the ol' "wink of approval" as we stepped foot off the bus in Pichilemu

One of the many homeless dogs that roam freely in Pichilemu, just catching himself a break

As soon as we were off the bus, the three of us, laden with packs, were approached by a man who looked perpetually stoned: his eyes were bloodshot and his hat said "Stoked!", among other telltale signs. But he was awfully deferential as he informed us that he was, in fact, a surf instructor operating at a nearby beach, Punta los Lobos, Wolf Point. He gave us his name---'Marcello'---and told us, if we wanted cheap lessons, to look for the blue cabana on the beach. He also said he would "fix up the fire" for us, which was rather cryptic at the time.

Awesome! Our fate was sealed as we resolved to drop our stuff off at the nearby 'surf hostel' and find out whether Marcello was more than a mirage. We walked among a horde of mangy dogs, down dusty roads, to the hostel.

Lauren petting a horse in the streets of Pichilemu

A remarkably charismatic stray dog

Perpetually followed by dogs, we arrive at the labyrinthine surf hostel

So the surf hostel was built around some baffling idea of spirals and knots, but we had the entire top floor to ourselves...in fact we were the only inhabitants of the place the whole weekend...we picked up the keys from a woman a few blocks away and had to lock up the place ourselves.

The three of us hitchhiked to Wolf Point---also a first for us---and inquired at a few cabanas for "Marcello" until we spotted the blue cabana. A bunch of boys were kicking it on the front patio, blasting reggae and baking in the sun. They direct me to the upper level of what pretty much is a treehouse, and as I am climbing the ladder up, Marcello sticks his head out and tries to recognize me for a few seconds. His eyes light up with delight as he realizes we have come to take him up on the offer for surf lessons. 

Me and Lauren posing in our wetsuits

Life's a wave and I'm riding the tide!

Sam looking like a natural as she catches some gnar

The lesson itself was a blast. My most successful rides occurred during the first session at sea, but Sam was riding like a champ all day. I could not believe how quickly the skills came to her, and I fought the urge to blame my clumsiness on an ill-waxed board. We rode the current twice across the stretch of beach before taking a breather and proceed to our next undertaking: shopping with Marcello. 

Sam took this photo of Wolf Point, from the porch of Marcello's Surf Shack

Marcello approaches me as I'm drying off in the hammock and asks if I have a driver's license: he needs me to drive him in his car to the market, because he doesn't have a driver's license. Hmm...

Let me tell you about the Jeep Wrangler: it is very battered. It also does not have an ignition. Marcello has to hot-wire the car every time we want to turn it on or stop. Also, it drives stick, so I had to hand the wheel over to Lauren because I can't drive stick. Marcello puts on some awesome Chilean folk music, sits in the back, and we bump along from market to market picking up fish, bread, vegetables, beer, and wine for the evening's beachside cookout. Yes, we are not only getting surfing lessons, but an authentic seafood barbecued dinner from this still mysterious man. He's quite magnanimous, and apparently very popular---everybody in town extends their hands to dap or high-five him as we cruise by, like some kind of living saint. At any stop along our route, he's whistling to a friend across the road, beaming, and with some vague gesture beckons the Jeep onwards.

One of the few photos we have of Marcello

*

At this point I'll break the narrative and talk a bit about "Tom", a young man from New Zealand who was among the crew maxin' and relaxin' at the surf shanty when we first wandered up. Tom is 23 and has been living in Pichilemu for 3 years, working as a gardener and an apprentice to a world-famous ukulele builder---this master craftsman is currently working on the very ukulele that Eddie Vedder will play when Pearl Jam performs in Chile next month, according to Tom). Tom himself is an experienced ukulele craftsman as well, and when he's not earning a buck he's surfing at Wolf Point.

I appreciate Tom...I also admire him, and I envy him a little. In his own words, he's working enough to get by so that he can maximize his time surfing and chilling on the beach, the only place he wants to be. However, he expressed to me that he knows he will soon grow tired of doing the same thing every day---in his words, "nothing"---at which point he will go back home to New Zealand to join a new cult of life. It was startling to hear this guy speak so certainly of his current situation, and heartening that he was completely comfortable with the path that he set for himself. Nothing was going to get in his way, nor had it, as far as he was concerned.

Most notably, Tom reminded me starkly of my friend Nick from back home, as he embodied the spirit of carpe diem (literally!) and did it with pure chillness and a smile. The last thing he said to me, as I was watching the sunset from my bench, was that I should go out for one more surf session: "Why not go out again? Surfing at sunset is the best surf you can have. Better off ending your day on a high note!"

And that I did...we did, Lauren, Sam, and I. We all agreed that we couldn't pass up one more opportunity to cut the ice-cold water and embrace the last glow of the day. So we slapped on our wet suits and hit it one more time.

*

More stuff happened before and after...well into the night, in fact...but I can always relay those details in person if any of you are curious.

Also, be sure to check out Sam's facebook page for many more photos from our weekend in Pichilemu.

- Joe

-Sam-

Hola todos!

Sorry it took me a while to make my mark on this blog, but rest assured- I'm here, still breathin in the smog :)

Our first couple of weeks have been a mix of amazing, confusing, and stress-ridden times. It is so hard to find an apartment in this city-- especially if you're a couple competing with 60 peers all searching for the same thing in a dark, sweaty hostel with shoddy, spotty internet and habla español like a two year old! But don't fret, we found one :)

Aside from this drama, Joe and I have done quite a bit of explorin! Which reminds me of a fun fact: Dora the Explorer teaches English in these parts...lol.

There's a lot of familiar things here in Chile, for that matter. The moment I exited the airport, for instance, a well known temptation wafted my way. Sure enough, my eyes beheld a Nuts4Nuts cart...

American culture has also bestowed fine gifts like insidious top 40 pop songs in most night clubs here (NOOoOOO!!!) and Lider, the Chilean branch of Walmart. Funny enough, most Chilean men I've spoken to also love American metal, as in: Slayer, Metallica, Megadeath..etc...and they claim this screamo is how they learned some English! Yes, I plan on testing this ridiculous claim in future adult English classes when the opportunity arises.

As for my kids classes, I was extremely happy to discover the show 31 Minutos: a puppet show spoofing Chilean historical/pop cultural people (like Harry Carey on SNL...but kid appropriate) LOVED by kids and adults alike. Really. Half the times I walk into a luncheonette to buy a hotdog (which Chileans are also obsessed with), this show is on TV. Unlike The Muppets, these characters are often hardly more elaborate than inanimate objects with eyes. 

Note the tennis ball. And, creeping in the left side is in fact just an argyle sock with swim goggles. Basically, I'm just using 31 Minutos as an excuse to use poorly made puppets in my classes!

Enough about me and my life, you really only wanted to see some photos, right? Its cool, I understand.

MIRA! Joe found an alpaca in the market! Its hard to tell from this photo, but there's lil sombrero perched between his ears! :D

He also found a b-e-a-utiful iglesia.

The very strange, but effective Santiago walk/run signal.

After a lot of law-abiding walking/running, we've reached amazing places like the top of Santa Lucia hill (the place where Santiago was founded). We were breathless not only because we're horribly out-of-shape, but because this view was our reward:

There are more sleeping, stray dogs then homeless people here. With much internal conflict, we avoid petting these sometimes heart-meltingly adorable, sometimes putrid perros to avoid things like ringworm.

...And the Jesus statue atop the Pontificia Universidad Católica was very pleased to hear a Latin American pope has been chosen!

Thats all for now, muchachos...but more to come soon(ish)!

Abrazos y besos, 
SAM

Day 5 - Buenas Tardes

- Joe -

Buenas Tardes, amigos!

Please have enjoy this blog Joe and Sam. They are being in Chile today. If you follow them, many pictures and fun memories you will read.

This is the hostal where they stay, in Chile Santiago.

The park Bustamente is nearby the hostel. It is hot in the day.

Dogs without houses live in Santiago. They are very dirty and sleep everywhere!

Tomorrow and all days Joe and Sam are updating this blog for your enjoyment. Please leave messages and notes for them. We love that! Thank you!