Category: Uruguay
New lettuce
New lettuce, and one cabbage plant, amidst very happy cilantro (growing with a top-dressing of seaweed). All volunteers, dug up from friends’ unworked garden that was very active garden last year.
Coffee in Yesterguay
Probably 98% of the coffee sold in super (and other) markets in Uruguay is ground and glaseado – meaning sugar added.
As far as I know, the only place to buy real coffee is Palacio del Cafe in Montevideo. They do not have a stunning selection, but they do have rather stunning packaging:
You can also get their coffee at Tienda Inglesa in Punta del Este (in the bakery section, natch). In that case, however, you’ll get more modern (say, post-1930) graphics.
Current cost UYP 355/kg = USD 7.45/lb.
Father’s Day: empanadas
When we went out for lunch with friends we hadn’t seen in a while, it occurred to none of us that it was Father’s Day – until we couldn’t get into the third restaurant, having made no reservations.
So we ended up at an empanada place: four adults and three kids. We found no lack of options, and noted with interest chicken with ketchup, corn with bacon (choclo con panceta), and one which appears to be potato chip and chocolate. We didn’t try it.
Nor did we stop at 14. The kids each got a pizza empanada (not impressed), and we got several dulce de leche/chocolate to go.
Most fascinating to me, was the answer to how do you know which is which, which was staring me in the face:
The Empanada Code.
Uruguay moves ahead with marijuana
“Uruguayan president Jose Mujica will send to Parliament a bill to liberate the production, trading and consumption of marihuana as part of a package of drastic measures to combat crime which he will discuss with security area cabinet minister before making them public.” Read more.
What? Instead of building a prison-industrial complex as in the land of the free, with not only the highest number, but the highest per-capita number of prisoners of any country in the world, largely based on the victimless crime of possessing a plant that grows naturally?
What if they end up acknowledging the health benefits of cannabis?
Could be a slippery slope into sanity.
A useful haircut
My son’s friend proudly pulled off his cap to show me his new haircut yesterday…
…perfect camouflage for an ugly scar from a motorcycle accident.
Fresh butter!
Friends who live near where we’re buying land came into town to go to lunch with us at the wonderful Garní Armenian Restaurant in Solís, a 20 minute drive from here.
They are milking a neighbor’s cow while he’s settling affairs in Nevada, so they made butter and brought us some. Fabulous!
Can’t help but reflect that in certain parts of the ‘land of the free’ these days they might be thrown in jail for daring to make their own food — and give some to friends.
Little brown waves
I’ve never thought of myself as beach person. The thought of hanging out on a beach for hours makes me a little numb. That said, I love being able to walk to, and on, the beach daily. During summer – January and February – it has to be early or not at all (and I will find sun-worshippers at 8 AM). Off season any time of day works.
But there remain two issues: 1) the waves are tiny, and 2) they’re often brown.
1) Why are the waves tiny? Theoretically, you could sail in a straight line from Uruguay over 16,500 kilometers before making landfall (and you’ve always wanted to visit Myanmar, no?). That much open ocean and diddly little waves? Why?
2) Brown waves – let NASA tell the story (even if they can barely get within 90 degrees of correctly identifying north).
On the day of this photo, we enjoyed blue or green waves ‘north’ (actually east) of Montevideo. A little change in current and winds, and you have brown waves.
Sometimes we have fresh (brown) water; sometimes we have salt water at the beach. So sometimes the fisherman catch freshwater fish, and sometimes saltwater fish. And sometimes the wrong ones get caught in a shift, and their carcasses end up carpeting the beach.
Yes, Virginia, there is no paradise.
Uruguay may once again prove to live up to its official motto of “liberty or death.” Already considered one of the freest countries in the world in terms of economic and political liberties, the Uruguayan government has agreed on draft legislation that will legalize possession and cultivation of marijuana for personal consumption.
Meanwhile, prisons in Uruguay are at almost double their capacity, resulting in (politically motivated?) riots and fires recently.
Perplexing pickled peppers
Compared to the north, beef here is local, grass-fed, delicious, and cheap. As a result, we eat more, sometimes as hamburgers. Inevitably, the wife has lamented lack of dill pickles to accompany them. She tried making some. They were close, but not crunchy.
She recently brought home this:
Ajías Catalanes – Catalan chili peppers. They’re hot! They’re great! Who needs dills?
But this raises an interesting question. Uruguayans in general will not touch spicy food. Something with pepper – just a sprinkle of black pepper – is considered picante. Yet they grow hot peppers; you can buy them in the supermarket.
And now we see they pickle them (at the bottom of the label: Industria Uruguaya).
Why?
Besides us, for whom?