Avellanas are hazelnuts. And you know hazelnuts (or filberts as I used to call them). Tasty and creamy, nutty and a good addition to chocolate to make the delicious and transfat-rich Nutella.

And they look like this: (and by the way, I got them from one of my favorite tostadurías (el Mataquito) for semi-interesting [...]]]> Avellanas.

Avellanas are hazelnuts. And you know hazelnuts (or filberts as I used to call them). Tasty and creamy, nutty and a good addition to chocolate to make the delicious and transfat-rich Nutella.

And they look like this: (and by the way, I got them from one of my favorite tostadurías (el Mataquito) for semi-interesting nuts, like pumpkin seeds, and sometimes “european hazelnuts” and always brown sugar. Two locations, one on El Bosque Norte not far off Apoquindo, west side of the street, and one on Avda. Matta, at about altura 800 (this one is bigger).

And then then there’s the Chilean hazelnut. For one thing, it comes from a totally different plant. And therefore, it looks (and tastes) totally different. The Chilean hazelnut comes split, and toasted. It’s not quite as greasy as the European, breaks into pieces in your mouth (more like a soynut than a peanut), and has a greener flavor, almost bordering on toasted and grassy at the same time. The tree it grows on is actually an evergreen, so maybe it tastes a little like that. And it looks like this:

As you can see, they look totally different. Here’s a side-by-side:

The European hazelnut (which is what you think of when you think of hazelnuts, or avellanas, are the species Corylus avellana, whereas the Chilean ones are Gevuina avellana. At first, this led to great disappointment on my part, when people would offer me hazelnuts, and these, small, brittle, halved pretend hazelnuts would appear.

They’ve grown on me, like queso fresco (but never quesillo) that sort of solid ricotta of a cheese that shows up on vegetarian sandwiches sometimes, but unlike manjar or mil hojas “cake” (see, cardboard plus manjar (milk fudge, dulce de leche), sometimes with meringue on top) or even the maligned membrillo, which I cooked with water and sugar as I was instructed, and now I have a solid bowl of cooked membrillo with a spoon sticking out of it, which I will try to eat sometime with yogurt, but my friends, membrillo lovers all, I’m afraid I may not be woman enough to get it down.

So, surprises be darned, now I’ve got two little bags of nuts to munch on as the winter chill seeps into our houses. I wonder what food (or foodstuff) I’ll write about next.

Gratuitous final shot of the nuts in bags, so you can compare price per kilo, if you are so inclined:

This is a membrillo. Or a quince, if you prefer. Judging by the trees it grows on, it must be related to apples and pears. It’s delicious cooked into a paste with a bunch of sugar and spread on bread. It’s also good baked. What is not great is membrillo eaten out of [...]]]>

This is a membrillo. Or a quince, if you prefer. Judging by the trees it grows on, it must be related to apples and pears. It’s delicious cooked into a paste with a bunch of sugar and spread on bread. It’s also good baked. What is not great is membrillo eaten out of hand. At least not by me.

But this is not a story about membrillo, exactly. It is a story about being gracious when the circumstance calls for it, and how a teeny bit of Chile (but not chile, because that would hurt) may be seeping under my skin.

On my way out of the house this morning, I came across concierge 2. (there are three, and if you live in Chile, you know that having a concierge does not mean your building is fancy, it just means you have to wait for someone to open the front door for you to go in (except I procured a key, because I’m like that)). Concierge 2 is a partier, a bit of a drunkard. He often comes to work with a hangover, and feels no shame in telling me that.

He also felt no shame in recently telling me that it was “bad” that I was Jewish. This led to a fairly misinformed diatribe about how being Jewish wasn’t bad bad like murdering bad, but that I would die and suffer and blablabla. I tried to take it lightly, there’s no use getting into a fight with someone you’ll see daily, and surely I’m the first Jewish person he’s ever talked to, personally and well, whatever, I live in a Catholic country and it’s not like he was going to paint a swastika on my door. You have to choose your battles.

So today, I was just hopping out and I was presented with this (another view).

And because I live in Chile, I said, “oh, a membrillo.” And we talked about whether he’d been to the campo (countryside), or where he’d gotten them, and it turns out his mother lives in Melipilla, and how can you hate someone who just went to visit their mother over the weekend, even if they’re bit of a drunkard ignoramus.

And so instead of saying, “thanks but no thanks,” I accepted the membrillo, told him I would whack it good before eating it*, and stuck it in my bag. I did not tell him that eating raw membrillo seemed like a punishment from a god who wasn’t sure if he should make fruit or sand, so he put them both together. It seemed like a better idea not to get back to the topic of religion, anyway.

I’m home now, and aside from photographing it, and blogging it, I don’t have any plans for the membrillo. Though I’m thinking about how living in Chile has upped my politeness quotient many many percent. But I will take suggestions. On the membrillo. I think I’ve gotten to the limit of how much nicer I can be (which still is not enough for many people).

* students who bring membrillos to school whack them before eating them to make them juicier. This leads to the saying “mas machucado que membrillo (colegial)” (more bruised than a schoolroom quince).

** linguistic note, I notice that certain things I will always say in Spanish even there is a word in English because it is not a word I use in English, or because the word seems to fit better in Spanish. Three easy food examples are membrillo (quince), chirimoya (custard apple) and palta (avocado). The last one I think might be just because it is shorter, but goodness knows I did not eat as much avocado in the states as I do here.

My day started off inauspiciously.

“Are you Chilean, are you Spanish? What are you?”

This was what the police officer who first offered to shake my hand (I politely declined), and then demanded to see my documents said to me. I guess I look particularly subversive today in yoga pants and on a [...]]]>

My day started off inauspiciously.

“Are you Chilean, are you Spanish? What are you?”

This was what the police officer who first offered to shake my hand (I politely declined), and then demanded to see my documents said to me. I guess I look particularly subversive today in yoga pants and on a bike. My nationality is irrelevant, and with the exception of spray paint and paint bombs (glass juice bottles filled with paint), I’m not sure what would have convinced him I was up to no good. At any rate, I didn’t have any of the aforementioned with me, nor did he check my bag, though I hear the commonly accepted approach is to throw all your stuff on the ground, so they can’t plant anything among your possessions. I was glad it didn’t come to that, because I didn’t particularly want to smash my camera.

“I’m from the United States. Is there something I should know? I thought we were permitted to circulate freely.”

“Well, then all the more reason for you to show me your ID. I used to live in LA.”

I did so, because I was dumbfounded, not because I think he was right to ask me for it. To every other police officer who eyed me on my way to the march, I repeated, “Ya me revisaron” (I’ve already been checked).

And that was the day just starting.

Here’s how it all turned out (photo essay on MatadorNetwork). I feel pretty good about how the photos turned out on this one.

There have [...]]]> On Sunday, there were many plans, there were, with many friends, some of whom even have blogs. But in the end, I deep-cleaned a “zone” of my apartment (if you know me, this doesn’t surprise you, that I split it into zones), and then called Abby to see if she was anti-horseracing.

There have been recent reports about abusive practices that lead to stress, pain, and even death for the horses. Abby grew up on a farm, and was obsessed with horses when she was young, so I didn’t know if it would fly in the face of her upbringing to suggest going to Club Hípico (the track), which also happens to be about a 15 minute walk from my house.

It did not, so we did. It was a big event, one of the “clásicos” which coincided with “el clásico” (soccer) which is when U de Chile plays Colo Colo and the world descends into chaos. We were far enough away from the Estadio Nacional so we didn’t see much of that, though there was an hincha (fan) actually riding atop a micro coming down Blanco Encalada. He must have squeezed through the ventilation hatch in the roof. Nutter.

I didn’t take a pic of that, but here are some from the horse track. Remember the horse track?

Inside the grounds, before you get into the club itself.

looking back up into the stands from closer to the track

Somewhat unexpectedly, the snack of the day turned out to be a berlín, which is a custard-filled “doughnut” where the donut is more like bread than anything else you may have tasted. The kapo is a kids favorite any time. I’m guessing it’s like a nuclear Capri Sun.

There were dads lounging and reading the day’s program.

And kids, ready for a balloon sword fight.

But oh right, where was I? Horses. Abby said these horses are used to calm down the race horses, who are skittery (my word).

And there’s the track, with the giant MacBook-looking screen.

And men in shiny, shiny clothes

And an actual race (heat?)

And then we moved up into the stands, and people were so serious, exhibit A.

And the best part of all, was watching people watch the race. I really like the hand flinging in this videoclip (my first ever movie “making” attempt), both the body language of the guy in the center of the video, as well as other people in the background. This fling means the equivalent of comeoncomeoncomeoncomeoncomeon!!!!! And it’s awesome to watch. There’s a whole story here, and at the end, it becomes clear that the guy to the right of the hand-flinger had his money on a different horse.

And the view on the way out wasn’t bad, either:

And if you want more reports of me going to the horse races, which I know nothing about, but which Kate explained a little to me about the last time in Viña, go here.

Club Hípico details:
Website: here
Address: Blanco Encalada 2450, closest metro República, but still a little bit of a hike.
Cost: No idea. Women get in free. There were not many women there, notwithstanding the fact that it was free.
Hassle factor: Nonexistent. It was like we were invisible. No one looked at us, talked to us or otherwise made our experience there unpleasant
Calzones rotos (Chilean snack food (name means ripped undies)) status: cold

There are so many special Chilean things going on in this picture (of a sign) that I hardly even know where to start. First of all, I have to tell you that one summer, before I realized that science is hard (!), I studied geology at Penn State. I was there on a [...]]]>

There are so many special Chilean things going on in this picture (of a sign) that I hardly even know where to start. First of all, I have to tell you that one summer, before I realized that science is hard (!), I studied geology at Penn State. I was there on a summer program, the main goal of which seemed to be to teach me what my drinking tolerance was (sorry Mamaj!), and to deflect age-inappropriate advances from young 20-somethings. I was 15. Also, sorry to all the other mothers of teen daughters, but I didn’t tell you anything you don’t know already.

Anyway, the geology thing, is that we would be given an illustration of a geologic sample (rocks, dirt, etc) and we had to say what the processes were (rain drops, fissures, flipping over, these are not technical terms), and what order they happened in. This was the part of the geology class that I loved. Trying to make sense and put order to something that makes no sense.

And so I bring you The Tocomple’s.

There are several processes going on here.

1. First, there is the translation of La to The. Despite the fact that a sign in English would say Hotdogs, not “the hotdogs” or even “the hotdog’s”, they have chosen to a) keep the article and b) translate it to English. It’s not uncommon for a restaurant or snackbar to have a name with an article before it, like La Pizzarita, which is just a few blocks away from this place (in República, off the plaza where a fireman friend of mine used to live and had a telescope which I’m so sure was to spy on neighbors and not the heavens!). The translation to English just makes everything tastier, as I’m sure you know.

2. Rather than completo, which is the word we use for hotdog, when served Chilean style, with avocado and mayonnaise and tomatoes, and isn’t that an italiano and yes it is, but that’s how most people eat it and anyway, you are absolutely missing the point. Here they apply a touch of verés, which is verés for revés. What? It’s like igpay atinlay. Verés is what we call it when you switch around the first and last syllables in a word, for example in the word verés, which itself is revés (backwards) switched around. So Completo becomes Tocomple.

3. Then we have a plural gone wrong and turned possessive, which happens all the time. It’s kind of the Haagen Dazsification of Spanish. Haagen Dazs, a set of nonsense words made to look like they are from some other more interesting language, is a superrich icecream for (in Chile) the super-rich. I used to work at a Haagen Dazs when I was about 15 (before going to Penn State, as it happens), and we had shirts with the flavors written on the back and in the approximate colors of the flavors. My favorite was boysenberry, a dark purple shirt I later gave away when I was in Central America to a guy who had been in one of the early peace corps years in the Phillipines, and didn’t seem to ever get his life back on track about that, but at least he didn’t blog about it at the time (it was 1992).

And there you have it. The Tocomple’s. I have never eaten there, but it is on Grajales near Almirante LaTorre (and actually the worst bikepath in all of Santiago, even worse than the one on Simón Bolivar), and if you’re in the neighborhood, feel free to give a call and I will come and take a picture of you eating your Tocomple. I hope the rropes (perros) in the neighborhood leave you alone.

QED (which is totally not the same as QEPD)

We got ‘em.

The very first earthquake I felt in Chile was in the first apartment I lived in (briefly), up in Providencia, on a tiny street called Los Maitenes. I was laying in bed in a beige apartment that was wrong for me in every way (carpet! not bright! no view! rented it [...]]]> Earthquakes.

We got ‘em.

The very first earthquake I felt in Chile was in the first apartment I lived in (briefly), up in Providencia, on a tiny street called Los Maitenes. I was laying in bed in a beige apartment that was wrong for me in every way (carpet! not bright! no view! rented it with my ex!), and the quaking started. I was tired and lazy, and laying under a comforter which came free with my bed, which was something I’d had no idea would happen, and I was very surprised when it finally arrived, after three days on hold with what was then called “Almacenes París” (now just París).

That quake was completely uninteresting, and I didn’t even have internet at home. It was pre-twitter and pre (for me) facebook. I had a cellphone, but no one really to call, and so it shook, I woke up, and then I went back to sleep.

Not so recent quakes! Let me first make a disclaimer. I was not in Chile for the February 27, 2010 quake, which people call 27F. I was in New Zealand and actually found out about it on Facebook, from a dear friend who has a way with language, and when he said, “terremoto” (earthquake) instead of “temblór” (tremor), I knew things were serious.

But Facebook! (and twitter). One of the first things I do, after I’ve assured myself that my building is not about to fall over backwards (this has been an ongoing periodic nightmare since before that building in Concepción fell over on its back), is get on the horn.

I report: It’s shaking, it’s quaking, shaky shaky in Santiago. Temblor in Santiago, woah that was a strong one, etc. And so does everyone else. I can pretty much guarantee a midnight (or last night, 1 AM) conversation with a huge part of my cast of characters. On Twitter, on Facebook. Last night one friend even called me to make sure everything was ok. I heard the cell system got saturated (colapsado in Spanish), but we both have landlines, so she called to check on me.

On the one hand, I’m not (at all) a fan of being awakened unexpectedly in the middle of the night, especially with something that makes my adrenaline flow (there’s a funny story about two friends who came to my house in the middle of the night when I shouldn’t have been there, but my vacation got cancelled due to an unfortunate woodsplitting accident. Oh! memories). On the other hand, it is tremendously calming to talk to other people to confirm my experience, make sure everyone is ok, and get the virtual pat on the back you’d get if you were a little kid and you’d had a nightmare.

The other thing we do is check to see where the earthquake was, and how strong it was. At this point we all have a pretty good idea, with 4-and unders barely rattling the dishes, and March’s 7.1 sloshing the kitchen sink water, and last night’s 6.5 bowing the windows in their frames (sounded like).

In case you’re interested, here’s where we check:

US Geological Service (world quakes plotted on a map)
Univ. de Chile Servicio Sismológico (graphical data on recent quakes in Chile)
Chile Ministry of the Interior and Public Safety (though keep in mind these are the people that failed to give the tsunami alert in the 27F quake)
Sismos en Chile (quakes on a map only in Chile, from the U de Chile data)

And since we’re talking about earthquakes, consider the fact that there were about 9300 significant ones last year. Here’s an article (that I wrote) with a link to a video that shows them all in a sped-up real time. Freaked me right out.

Despite what might sound like a terrifying experience and a visit-me-not quality to Santiago, the chances of you feeling an earthquake while you’re here are not particularly high (one friend missed all of them in deep sleep until the last few), and the chances of earthquake-induced-inconvenience is even lower. But for now, catch us all on twitter (or set up a column in tweetdeck for Chile, though it will speed by so fast as to be practically blurry, especially when a quake has happened), or FB (if you know us), or keep your ear to the seismic ground. Or in the case of a friend who called me, watch Isidora (who is actually male, but we didn’t know this until recently) the aquatic turtle, because she/he will go nutso right before it happens.