la comida

I have a lot of things to say about the people in Chile, but one thing's for sure: you cannot generally dislike a people who eat as much ice cream as they do. When I go out to run errands in the afternoon, people everywhere are carrying ice cream cones. Big ones. The ice cream is good, too. You can get the standard European crap that you buy on the street-junk on a stick w/ a chocolate coating, but there are also an abundance of ice cream shops like the ones in Italy-with seemingly neverending rows of huge vats of various flavors. The trick for me is to remember to pay before I spend a lot of time salivating over what I want, and then have the person doing the scooping point me to the register. But alas, the wait is worth it. They heap creamy, flavorful, colorful portions onto a waffle. And it doesn't melt fast, so you can spend time enjoying it. So people here may drive like assholes, and talk waayyy too quickly, but they do appreciate their helado. Which makes me fit in just a little bit.

There are not, however, a lot of pizza places, relatively speaking. And when you ask people what the best pizza is, you generally get the same answer: "Dominoes." Which made us cringe, because compared to a lot of pizza places in the US, Dominoes sucks. But here, it doesn't. The wings, which are kind of spicy, and kind of sweet, are wonderful. The toppings are heaped to the edge of the pizza, until there's almost no crust. And the ingredients are pretty fresh. So, live and learn. A restaurant that sucks somewhere else may actually be pretty good here. Although I'm not holding my breath about Pizza Hut.

Of course, we are making an effort to eat the local food as well. We drove through the mountains last weekend and sampled the homemade empanadas that can be found along the road, designated by white flags. We discovered that we do not like one of the common ones, called pino, which has ground beef, olives, eggs, onions, and spices. It just tastes weird. I think it's the olives, which aren't really to my liking. I go w/ the straight cheese empanadas. Fried-good. Cheese-good. Fried stuff w/ cheese-gooooood.

So I don't bore people half to death (or starvation), here's a quick summary of what else I have discovered about Chilean food: produce-good; bread-good (very fresh-you have to watch people waiting for the fresh bread to be put in the bins, and then stampede w/ them to get it); wine-good and cheap; pisco-ditto ($3 a bottle!); baby fo0d-not good-no veggies and sugar added to everything. I've had to go all granola and start making my own.

When I get back to the US next June, I am going to have a meal of: Diet Dr. Pepper, Chicago-style pizza, Calamata Olives, Bourbon, and cheesecake.

While you are gorging yourselves on Thanksgiving, please think of me, cause there's no Stove Top to be found, no pumpkins for pies, and certainly no giant, giant turkeys. But maybe I'll learn how to make empanadas, then go out for ice cream...