Back in Santiago

I’ve recently returned to my hometown Santiago, Chile after being away for a couple of years. Being away has made me realize some things that I once took for granted. First: the Andes. See above. They are huge! Majestic mountains that can…

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Puerto Varas

Puerto Varas is a beautiful small city located in the Region de los Lagos (Region of the Lakes) of Chile. Situated right next to the Llanquihue Lake and right in front of the Osorno Vocano, this city is quite special….

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Manjar: the perfect lover

Recently I discovered that Chileans share with other Latin Americans a guilty pleasure for a sweet thing that we Chileans call “manjar”. In other countries such as Argentina it is known as “dulce de leche”, or milk sweet. If you…

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Easy Chilean empanadas

I had been struggling for ages to find the perfect empanada recipe. I’d tried making them several times, but I’d never been complete happy with the result: the dough was too hard, the filling was too dry, the flavor was…

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Oh, the bread of Chile

Bread, you rise from flour, water and fire. […] How simple you are, bread, and how profound! Fragment, Oda al Pan, Pablo Neruda, in Odas Elementales   Today I woke up wishing I could eat avocado on a toasted marraqueta. …

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Thelonious: Jazz and food, improvised

Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the best of the 20th Century. For Santiaguinos (people from Santiago), Thelonious is also the name of a restaurant and music venue that combines live jazz and…

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Tongoy

The first memory I have of Tongoy is standing up on top of a whale on the seashore.  I must have been four years old and the image is still vivid in my mind.  I had traveled with my mom….

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