Congrio con Ensalada Tibia de Habas-Longaniza To be honest, I didn’t really like favas at all when I first tasted them as a college student in Chile. My host family boiled the hell of out of them to the point of a drab olive green and ate them, including the bitter...
I will never forget the first time I ordered “Chilean Salad” back as an exchange student. Expecting a heaping bowl of greens, to my dismay, what arrived was a simple plate of peeled tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. The waiter, sensing my confusion, quickly explained...
Cazuela is the ultimate Chilean comfort food. The dish has its origins in the indigenous Mapuche soup known as “corri,” originally made with potatoes, pumpkin, corn or cornmeal, green beans, red peppers, quinoa, chili, wild herbs, and animals ranging from wild...
Sorry guys about being MIA since last week. Moving, moving, moving. Life has been in a bit of flux as we changed home and office last week. Boxes. Papers. Stacks of things to be sorted, donated, and sold. A huge lightening of the load. In the midst of all this...
Perhaps Chile’s most undiscovered fruit abroad, if you quiz any Chilean on their favorite dessert combination it most likely will consist of a) manjar b) lucuma and c) meringue. It is a match made in heaven. Lucuma is an orange-yellow baseball-shaped fruit that is...
Since No Reservations aired on Monday night, where Tony sips potent pisco sours in Bar La Playa in Valparaíso, I have seen a plethora of debates ensue about the origin of pisco and whether or not the pisco sour is rightfully Chilean. Today’s post is going to...
Winter time in Santiago means citrus season. We are being bombarded by clementines, navel oranges, grapefruit, and kazillions of kilos of fragrant lemons. Even my friends with lemon trees in their backyards are tiring of lemony pisco sours, the national drink. There’s...
This morning I awoke to cold, gray skies that seem to thicken by the minute with moisture. The weekend forecast? Rain. Brrr. In these chilly days of winter, my former American self would normally pine for matzah ball soup, chicken pot pie, and hot chocolate to...
In Chile, they were almost lost in time—almost. Along with majoram and salisfy, these humble tubers were cultivated for centuries in Chilean gardens, prized for its beautiful flower. According to antique Chilean recipes from the early 20th century, when the...
When you sit down to any table, anywhere in the 2,600 miles of national territory stretching from the border of Peru to the tip of South America, three things will immediately appear: bread (many times homemade), butter, and pebre. Pebre, Chilean “salsa”, is the...
Merkén is the quinessential spice of the Mapuche Indians who populate the southern province in Chile, La Araucanía, about 10 hours south of the capital, Santiago. Cacho de cabra red chilis, shaped like plump, curved fingers, are dry smoked and coarsely ground. Some...
Sleepless in Santiago. Last night I tossed and turned all night long. I caught shut-eye in two hour intervals. In one of the numerous attempts to lull myself back to sleep, I began a rather interesting mind game of taking favorite recipes and converting their...
It’s hard to believe it’s fall here in Chile. On one hand, the leaves are falling and turning lovely shades of crimson. However, temperatures are still oddly hovering around 27-28C (high 80s). Being a warm weather lover, I never thought I would say this, but I...
Although chimichurri may be a staple condiment on every Argentinean table, versions are as varied as there are cooks. On my last trip to Mendoza, we stayed overnight in the Uco Valley at Casa Antucura. At dinner that night, the talented cook, Estefania Tolaba, served...
I had a big bowl of aromatic lemons sitting in the kitchen. Last Sunday morning, upon discovering that there was no bread in the house, I decided to turn my kitchen into an impromptu bakery and make Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. Surfing the web for some easy...
The change of weather, and produce, has been totally refreshing. I never thought I would actually say this but I am officially over berries and anything melon until next summer. On a typical shopping high in La Vega, our Wholesale farmer’s market, I bought...
I will admit that of all the foods in this world it has taken me years to get around to even putting a banana in my mouth. Something about the smell, the texture, the slimy sweetness, just wasn't happening for my palate. I occasionally buy bananas at the market for...
Of all the edible things I am pining for at breakfast from the US (short list: light organic soy milk, Go Lean cereal, sesame bagels, and 0% greek yogurt), English muffins still rank as number 1. I think I literally ate them close to every other day for almost a month...
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