Ñam, ñam

This weekend, Santiago is hosting the Ñam food festival, a showcase of foods produced in Chile.

In front of me in this photo is a sandwich called chacarero. Mine was made on the Chilean bread staple, the marraqueta. It started with sliced beef, but not just any beef. This was wagyu.

I have all but given up eating beef here unless it's ground because I'm convinced that Chilean cows run up and down the Andes every day. Most beef here is tough, stringy, and dry. Eating it is like trying to chew shoe leather, but the wagyu was a different story. Tender, juicy, and flavorful.

So what's that other stuff on the sandwich? The red is obviously tomato, but what about those green things? That, folks, is green beans. A chacarero comes topped with sliced tomatoes and steamed green beans. This one was also slathered in a spicy sauce.

"Do you like picante?" asked the food truck lady.

"Picante, picante? Or Chilean picante?" I asked her because most things that Chileans consider spicy "hot" taste barely seasoned to me.

She mistook my question and replied, "Medio picante, entonces." You want slightly spicy.

"No, no. Full picante." I assured her.

My sandwich came dripping with hot sauce. As I balanced my plate to walk away, she handed me a pile of napkins. It was a good thing, too, because between the hot sauce, the juicy meat, and the green beans scattering like autumn leaves, it was a messy scene. Picante and, oh, so ñami.

Silence Is Golden in Castro, Chiloé

For lunch today, the hotel receptionist recommended a small restaurant near Castro's town square.

I made my way there and easily found the place, but it was mobbed, every table taken. There was a small round table for three out on the patio, but it had the remains of someone else's lunch still on it. One of the waiters motioned me over there anyway, mumbling something about clearing it, but I sat in front of a pile of dirty dishes for at least ten minutes before someone came to clear them away and take my order.

Meanwhile, a young man came in, carrying a yellow plastic bag. He hovered near my table, which put me on guard, but the waiters all greeted him as if he were a regular there. Next thing I knew, he said something to me that I had to ask him to repeat.

"¿Puedo almorzar en su mesa?" Can I eat lunch at your table?

Surely, I hadn't heard him right. In four years, I had never been asked to share a table at a restaurant in Chile. Most Chileans would be too polite, too embarrassed, or too timid to ever do so, but this young man was flaunting tradition. I nodded my assent and he sat down.

I had just spent yesterday touring around with another guest from my same hotel who had been Chatty Charlie. After that, I wasn't looking forward to a gabby lunch companion today, but I needn't have worried. Except for ordering, "Hector" was silent, scarfing down bread and double-dipping it into the spicy pebre. I tried not to think about any floating germs, as I tried to eat the pebre around the edges of the bowl.

In the end, we did talk a little. He was a Socialist from Santiago, here for work, who was curious about my political views. I think we were both surprised when we found some common ground. We raised our voices, but only so that we could hear each other over the guitar player to my right and the loudspeakers that blared Latin jazz on the other side.

He finished before I did and, as he left, he reached into his yellow bag and laid two apples in front of me. "From my tree," he said.

Silence is golden, but meeting new people is priceless.

Best of Both Worlds

I've just spend six months away from Chile, the longest period of time outside the country since moving there in 2011.

At the end of next month, I'll be returning to Santiago. People ask me if I miss it. I'm happy and somewhat relieved to answer, "Yes."

There're my friends, of course, but I also miss other familiar things: my Pilates studio, my manicurist, my hair stylist, my massage therapist, my students. I miss more natural food. I'm ready for an empanada and pastel de choclo, and while traditionally plain, Chilean cuisine is becoming ever more varied and interesting. I'm anxious to investigate all the new bars and restaurants that have opened during my absence, many of which I can walk to.

Heresy for a Texan to admit, but I dislike driving. It's stressful. I miss decent mass transit and plentiful, inexpensive taxis. I miss my barrio, a little gem in the heart of the hustle and bustle.

"I'm a big city girl, but I was born and raised in a small town..." begins my soon-to-be-released book, "A Million Sticky Kisses." With over 6,000,000 residents, Santiago qualifies as a "big city" and my neighborhood reminds me of a "small town." Best of both worlds.

'Tis the season

'Tis the season, so I was invited to a Christmas party last Saturday night. The invitation was for 6:00pm.

After living in Chile for almost four years, I sometimes forget that, in the US, it's not okay to arrive at a dinner or a party really, really late. I was only running slightly late, about twenty minutes, but when I arrived, the party was in full swing. There were other stragglers who arrived after I had, but the majority of the guests had arrived on time.

Everyone brought a dish to share and the hosts had prepared food, too. The tables were groaning, heavy with ham, turkey, enchiladas, posole, vegetables, desserts. You name it, we had it.

Many of us did not already know each other. We got acquainted while nibbling appetizers. Then, around quarter to seven, one of the hosts announced that it was time to eat dinner. People began filling plates and finding places to sit where they could balance them on their knees.

About half an hour later, I began to notice something, an exodus. People who had finished eating started to leave the party. By 7:30, half the guests were out the door and, by eight o'clock when I left, there were only a few diehards still there. I was home by 8:30.

I had fun at the party, but when I told this story to my Spanish teacher Vivi, she was incredulous. ¿A las seis? Her eyes went wide when I told her the party had started at 6:00pm. They began to roll around when I told her that I was home by 8:30. I could read her thoughts. ¡Que fome!

First of all, in Chile, a party like this would never have started until at least 8:00, more likely 9:00 or 10:00. And even then, most people wouldn't have shown up for another hour or so. They would not be ready to leave after only an hour and a half either. In fact, after an hour and a half, they might not have eaten yet and, even if they had, they would still linger long into the night.

After a Chilean party, the host might find their bed at 2:00 or 3:00 or 4:00am. Time well spent with people whom they had probably seen the week before.

Don't ask which is my preference. With friends, all parties are fun, but if I had my druthers, I'd probably split the difference and have three- or four-hour parties. I wonder which country in the world does that.

Happy Thanksgiving

Here I am in the good ol' US of A. Day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving, my first here since 2010.

I've bought my free-range, "hormone-free" turkey breast and organic white and sweet potatoes. I will admit to cheating by using Stovetop Cornbread Stuffing. My friend is bringing a vegetable and a pie, probably from Costco. My stomach doesn't like GMO-laden stuff so I hope it doesn't protest too loudly over the stuffing or the dessert.

I remember a few years back when an incident on a Black Friday, traditionally the day after Thanksgiving, caused a tragedy at a Walmart. A fight over some popular item resulted in death.

I have not been in the US for Thanksgiving in four years. Maybe it's been around for awhile, but I am noticing a particular trend this year. Black Friday doesn't start on Friday any more. Now, it starts on Thursday at 6:00pm.  Or 5:00pm. Or 4:00pm. Heck, maybe some stores are open all day.

Is nothing sacred? What happened to Thanksgiving? I remember when we anticipated it all week long. We dreamed of stuffing ourselves with yummy delicacies reserved for holidays. What happened to enjoying a leisurely family meal, then sitting around in a tryptophan stupor waiting until we could attack the desserts or go for another round of savory carbs?

It was probably sexist. Women washing up while men bonded over football, but we were together, a family unit. No one ever thought about rushing off to do Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving Day. It was a day of leisure with family and friends.

Now, it's woe to the cook whose family wants to take advantage of Black Friday. They might as well get up at midnight on Thanksgiving Eve and start cooking so that, as soon as the last fork is put down, they can warm up the car and take off for the mall to beat the crowds of other crazed shoppers.

I wonder what's the point of Thanksgiving. Are we such consumers that shopping is more important than spending time with family? Maybe, in the future, we will do away with it altogether.

Or maybe I'm just an expat who sees things from a different perspective now.

Shifting

"Are you missing Santiago at all?", my friend asked.

Since moving to Chile in 2011, I had previously only left for the summer because hot weather and I are not friends and I have no air conditioner in Chile.

When I moved there, I went with the idea of permanency, but this year, I've been out of Chile more than not. I even bought a small condo in the US during one of my visits. So now I have a place to go when I'm not in Chile. It has air conditioning and central heating. Though it's a one-bedroom, it's almost double the size of my two-bedroom Santiago apartment. I have my own parking space and I can easily run to Walmart, Walgreen's, or Whole Foods at almost any time of the day or night.

Do I miss Chile at all? Yes. I prefer walking across the street and shopping at the woefully understocked Lider where I have to time my visits so that I'm not there immediately before work, during lunchtime, or after work unless I want to stand in a long line.

I miss tasty food that is not (yet) completely GMO-tainted, eating things that are in season like we used to do when I was a kid. I miss good olive oil and delicious, inexpensive wine. I even miss marraqueta.

I miss my view of the Andes Mountains though the snow is probably melted by now.

The Metro in Santiago is overcrowded and malfunctioned on a grand scale recently, but it generally works fairly well. And then there are the micros, buses, and also swarms of taxis, not exorbitantly priced. I dislike driving and I miss mass transit, awful as it can be, because apparently I'm a city chick.

I miss my friends and wonder if it's really possible to maintain intimate relationships long distance.

There are many things I don't miss too, but that's for another post. With one foot in Chile and the other in the US, I should feel balanced and grounded. Oddly, I feel just the opposite, as if I'm shifting from one foot to the other, not sure I belong in either place.