A few weeks ago (I know, I know, I’ve been horrible about updating this thing), I went to a vineyard named Viña Santa Rita.  It was winter, so there wasn’t really anything to see in the fields themselves, but the tour was very cool, there was a wonderful lunch with it, and the wine was wonderful.  Without further ado, the pictures.

Me and Teresita in the courtyard

A big willow tree outside the main building.

Tanks. You're welcome!

Surprisingly, there was a lot of wine at this place.

This cellar was built in the 1870s out of sand, lime and egg whites.

The Last Temptation of Christ was apparently booze.

Me, Teresita, and Gene, after enjoying a delicious lunch.

After finishing up at the vineyard, we continued onward to Pomaire.  This is a little town that is literally not on the map.  At least the map in the GPS that we were using.  We got off the highway and were suddenly, according to the GPS, in some white wasteland devoid of roads.  The electronic voice sounded vaguely concerned as she kept repeating, “When possible, make a legal U-turn.”

Anyway, Pomaire is a little town that’s basically composed of one street full of shops and restaurants.  They make all kinds of stuff out of clay there in Pomaire, most notably what are called “chanchitos,” which you’ll see soon enough.

Chanchitos! And a sleeping cat.

A little church at the end of the road. Jesus was apparently on break from wine stomping.

Pomaire. Really, that's about all there is to it.

My haul: a coffee mug, a chanchito, two bottles of wine, and a Viña Santa Rita wine glass.

Nothing too exciting about that day, I guess.  But that brings me one step closer to being up to date with my posts.  Only two more posts and about a hundred more pictures and I’ll be up to date.

In Chile, traditional cooking vessels are made with greda, natural clay. Much of greda is still hand thrown the homes of dusty country towns throughout the central valley like Pomaire (terra cota color ), near Pichilemu (fleshy colored), and in the south of Quinchamali where the black clay makes for a dashing impression. Greda feels rustic, homey, reliable, and brings a sensation of tradition and comfort to the table. Generation of families work as potters to mold the clay into a full range of utensils, pots, dishes, casseroles, ramekin-like bowls, and even in the non-cooking tradition, platters, plates, piggy banks, and figurines.

As cookware, greda is fragile, very breakable, yet at the same time, it notably can resist high temperatures and never crack. Greda pieces are so amazing that these can be placed in the oven or straight on a gas range and keep your food warm once served without a cover for a solid 15-20 minutes. A sort of earthen Pyrex if you will.  

I love cooking with greda. The walls of the pot help to diffuse the heat evenly AND you can cook the food in the same dish you serve it in. It is so practical. The heat conduction is constant, consistent, and things never seem to scorch as they do in other pans. When you acquire your new greda, you must season it with milk over a low boil to seal before cooking in it.  Greda with a black/blackened in color it is already seasoned, with the exception of the black clay pots from Quinchamali in the South. Personally, I think the secret to why greda, and all clay pots, are so prevalent worldwide since the age of the Ancient Romas is three-fold: it is made from readily available material (come on, they are made from earth!); it allows for the use of fresh ingredients (no packaged mac-n-cheese going to be made in here, although I suppose it could be); and the no fuss cooking from the first sear of an onion to the final bubbling dish, reduces pots to wash and things to burn in the kitchen. Simplicity.

In this month of September celebrating Chile’s gastronomic roots, dig into some classic dishes served in greda everywhere from joints to stalls to homes and restaurants: Machas a la Parmesana, Pil Pil (garlicky chili sauce from chicken to shrimp to elvers), Pastel de Jaiva (Creamy Crab Pie), Paila Marina (a sort of savory Chilean bouilabaisse with razor clams, mussels, scallops, shrimp), and Pastel de choclo. And, FYI, in the video, the first three are being prepared.

If you are in Chile visiting, you can find greda in Pomaire, about 30 minutes from the city and in many craft marts and stores like Pueblo Los Dominicos,  Patio Bellavista, Foike Monguel, and ONA in Bellas Artes. Greda is also getting a new look by young artisans redefining the lines but making it more modern like GRD.

This weekend, we had our second of three excursions provided through the program. We arose early Saturday morning and gathered at a nearby plaza at the lovely hour of 8:30 AM. From there we boarded a tour bus (the monstrous type that scream GRINGOS) and traveled about an hour and a half south to see Isla Negra, una casa de Pablo Neruda. 

Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet, and they LOVE him here. He had three houses in Chile (one in Valparaíso, one in Isla Negra, and one in Santiago…we will have seen all three by the end of the program!) He loved the ocean, but was deathly afraid of it. So rather than venture out on a boat, he built all his houses in a maritime manner.

Pablo's View...jealous.

 They resemble boats, are filled with oceanic treasures, decorated with shells, and the one at Isla Negra even has a small boat and a large anchor perched outside. 

We wandered through Pablo Neruda’s house, checked out his collections of weird stuff (he had wanted his house to be a museum after he died…he collected everything! Masks, butterflies, wine glasses, statues, seashells, empty bottles…you name it, it was probably there.) Post-tour, we spent some time just watching the waves roll in. It was an incredibly beautiful day. (If you will recall, Friday was the torrential-monsoon-downpour-deluge, so we were worried that Saturday might be a little ugly for an excursion, but the storm must have purged the skies because it was amazing!)

After a lot of photographing and dilly-dallying, we drove a bit to the port town of San Antonio. There we boarded a boat for what I thought was supposed to be a ride to take us out so that we could view the coast. However, this did not happen. Instead, we motored around the bay while our guide told us about the port equipment. (It’s fancy.) Don’t get me wrong, it was interesting…just not what I was expecting.

After that…we drove another hour to Pomaire, the town whose big claim to fame is brown pottery. (Apparently they sell this stuff at fancy, high-brow stores all around the world, but here it was cheap. Dirt cheap.

She is powering that wheel with her foot!

I bought a medium-sized jar/vase thing for about $1.50. Take that Sur La Table! [Mom, Pomaire is your town. So much pottery.]) We ate lunch (typical Chilean fare…empanadas, veggies, bread, meat) at a restaurant and then went to a pottery barn (yes, a barn…with pottery…not a yuppie store) to learn how the artisans work with the “greta” (the clay). (Nancy, I thought of you the whole time…you would have loved this!) And finally, after much touring, eating, shopping, and sight-seeing, we boarded the monsterbus for the long trek back to Viña del Mar. 

And as if 12+ hours of excursioning wasn’t enough…a bunch of us had decided on the way home to venture out to El Huevo, a local discotheque. El Huevo has quite the reputation around Valpo and Viña, and we had been talking about going for quite some time. However, the local nightlife doesn’t really get going until much later than we are used to back home…midnight…1…2…this is when the clubs start to get crazy. 

We decided to meet at Café Journal around 11 and then head to El Huevo from there. We ended up leaving for El Huevo around midnight, after a few cervezas at Journal. We took a micro to El Huevo, paid the cover charge (5000 pesos, about 10 dollars) and walked inside to see what we’d been missing. El Huevo has four levels with two or three dance floors on each level. We meandered through the whole place, scoping it all out. However, we were a little disappointed. Too much hype, too much reggaeton, not enough of whatever it was we were expecting. But…we did discover salsa lessons on an outdoor patio. We joined the group, flailing about in uncoordinated gringa-ism. And of course, not five minutes into the lessons, the guy next to me starts talking to me and telling me how to salsa better. It soon turned into one-on-one instruction…his name was Sebastián…the chilenos love me. ha. (But don’t worry friends…Mother, do not fret…he was much less creepy than my dear friend Pablo.)

So all-in-all, a pretty eventful weekend! Stay tuned for more adventures, chilenos, and handicrafts. All are guaranteed.

Everything I touch this week is apparently doomed.

After much consideration, I believe my lovely Pomaire yarn will be better suited for some other project.  I had originally planned to use Tonalita for my entrelac scarf, but the shipment hadn’t arrived yet.  Well, at lunch today (after a stressful morning, I needed to pet some yarn) I dropped by my LYS.  And guess what had just arrived this week?   Tonalita!  Woo-hoo!  I picked out color 2378 Country Garden, which has blue, green, purple, and a peachy pink.  I think this yarn will mask those pesky problems that were glaringly obvious to me in the much smoother cotton yarn.  I feel excited about my scarf now.

As for my Tomato, it is no more.  I started the fair isle bit last night.  Made a mistake on the very first row on the very first stitch.  I fudged a little in the hopes of covering it up by making the last st of the round the first stitch.  After two more rounds it just wasn’t working.  So before I ripped back, I thought I would try it on.  The deep neckline is too deep, and my fair isle band was not at my narrowest part.  I think because I am shorter through the torso, I need to move the neckline up.  And I need to make my waist decreases closer together so that I can start my fair isle sooner.  It also seemed too big.  I had extra fabric under the arm in the back, and there was no negative ease.  Which is confusing because my gauge should have resulted in negative ease.  After trying it on, I ripped the whole thing out.  Very disheartening.  I think I will go down another needle size, or I might knit the small size.

Whatever I do, I need to get something on my needles that will make me happy.

hola!

acá les dejo lo que fotocopiamos con Matías de algunos de los libros de la Biblioteca Nacional.

Saludos!

dos-puertas-abiertas-a-la-historia-de-pomaire2

pasado y presente de pomaire

planoguia-melipilla-2004

oficios y trabajos de las mujeres de pomaire

bárbara

Santiago is an honest-to-god city, a big city, a place where the buildings are tall and the streets are packed and people walk quickly. There’s a subway system, and a financial district, and a constant fleet of taxis and buses buzzing down the wide avenues that criss-cross the city. And in the distance, when the smog isn’t too bad, you can see first the foothills and then the Andes themselves. It feels quite different from Valparaiso, which is quaint and a little bit more run-down. New city, new experience.

We stayed in Bellavista, one of the more posh barrios (neighborhoods) of the city, in one of the more popular hostels – a huge, spanning place called the Hostal Bellavista (apparently one of the top ten hostels in Latin America, according to some website or another). The surrounding streets were filled with nice restaurants, and we were a stone’s throw away from the barrio’s main drag, a street called Pio Nono, that was packed with tourist restaurants, streetside cafes, and numerous discotheques. The barrio itself became fashionable back in the 1950’s when Neruda bought a house there, named La Chascona, a place which single-handedly led to the gentrification of the entire neighborhood. Apparently he used to throw huge, raucous parties to which he would invite tons of prominent Latin American artists, writers, and intellectuals – for instance, there are photos of him getting drunk with Picasso. Que chevere.

Our first day, we walked down to the Museo de Bellas Artes, one of the primary art museums in the city and, according to the guidebook, one of the best collections of modern Latin American art in all of South America. The building was wonderful in its own right. The central hall of the building has an enormous paneled-glass roof comprised of thousands of small panes and, looking up, it seems reminiscent of a 19th century train station; the main space below is filled with a few dozen large sculptures of varying styles and time periods, arguably the best exhibits in the museum (though I’m quite partial to sculpture in general). Smaller exhibition halls formed an outer rim to the main hall on three separate levels, and these contained everything from 1920’s modernist sculpture to early 18th-century portraiture to a 2008 exhibition on the consequences of photography in the digital age. The digital photography exhibit was particularly cool: one wall was dedicated to modern renditions of South American folk tales, in which the photographer paired staged photos with brief synopses of the stories that served as their counterpart. It was extremely well done, and I’m kicking myself for forgetting the name of the artist.

We were equally impressed (and delighted) by the Museum of Pre-Colombian Art. Again,  the museum housed one of the best collections in all of Latin America – their exhibits contained artifacts from northern Mexico all the way down to the far reaches of southern Patagonia. Separated by location, then by culture and again by time period, the exhibits had a diverse array of exceptionally well-preserved pieces, some dating from as far back as 2500 BC. They were, on average, strange and fascinating objects: jars shaped like a woman turning into a wolf; massive wooden grave markers with blank, asymmetrical faces; tiny statues of men with huge eyes chewing on coca leaves. The sheer size of the collection and the quality of the artifacts was simply remarkable, and I could easily spend a whole other day there.

But the highlight of our time in Santiago, I would argue, was our trip up Cerro San Cristobal, the huge hill north of our barrio that provided a perfect view of the city below. We took a long funicular ride to get to the top (which petrified Eric) and then an equally-long cable car ride to another vantage point (which petrified Jessie), both of which felt more rickety than I’d like to admit. At the top of the Cerro, there’s a massive statue of the Virgin Mary, whose outspread arms supposedly signify her embrace of the city. And the view (consult Jessie’s forthcoming pictures) was simply stunning: on several sides, you can  see the entire city below you, stretching from the suburbs all the way to downtown skyscrapers then fading out into more suburbs towards the horizon. We went up around sunset, strolled around the different paths and gardens on top of the hill, and snapped a few pictures of the view. Quite a nice way to spend an evening, all in all.

Unfortunately, the city itself is still tinged with a touch of bitterness for me, a fact owing almost entirely to one small encounter. After our trip up the Cerro San Cristobal, we ended up plopping ourselves down at a restaurant on Pio Nono, a place called La Rueda which had particularly annoying touts (but we were just too tired to keep walking). We ate a fairly modest meal and had a couple of beers and were generally just enjoying the evening. Our waiter was leaving, so we paid for our bill up to that point and got switched onto a fairly young and timid-looking waitress. We ordered another round of drinks with her and, after drinking them, decided to settle the bill. When we got the bill, it was astronomically high, considering that we only had a couple of beers and a few rum and cokes. Reading over it again, I realized that they had doubled the price of the mixed drinks Renee and Ben had bought, charging us an extra 2200 pesos beyond what the menu had said.

I chased the waitress inside and asked her, in my most polite Spanish, why she had charged us that rate. She very meekly looked at a harpy of a woman behind the counter who, thinking I didn’t speak Spanish (or understand her), told her that she had charged me the “tourist rate.” And I flipped. If there’s anything I loathe about traveling, it’s being duped for being a dumb gringo. Luckily, I had snatched a menu on my way in, one I had seen the waitress give to the table of native Chileans that had sat down beside us. And then, holding the menu with the correct price listed, I proceeded to yell, in Spanish, at the woman and the surrounding waiters. Our poor waitress was, as far as I could tell, just a pawn in the whole scenario, so I directed most of it at the woman (the owner, I’m guessing). I held forth on how it was unacceptable for them to try to dupe foreigners and how I was going to post a note in the hostel and then all over the Internet, warning any future travelers away from their hole of a restaurant. Throughout the whole experience, I had a strange clarity of mind and, at least as far as I could tell, a pretty good handle on my Spanish. Never in my life have I yelled like that – but then again, never in my life have I been so absolutely certain that someone was in the process of cheating me or that they were insulting me as I stood there. The difference in the bill was only $4 or so but the principle implicit in the situation touched something profound inside me. I know that, being a large group of white tourists, we’re probably getting cheated more often than that, but the sheer gall of the owner…that was what made the whole thing insufferable. Ah, well. So it goes. I came out victorious, with 2200 pesos in hand.

That being said, our other food- and drink-related experiences were quite good. One of our (Jessie’s and my) personal favorites was a classic Chilean dish called pastel de choclo, which is made by filling an earthenware pot with semi-sweet corn meal, chicken, raisins, olives, and hard-boiled eggs and then baking the whole thing until the top is golden brown. We apparently violated custom by spooning the mixture over rice, but the result was absolutely delicious. Chile is also known for its empanadas, which are – for the uninitiated – dough shells filled with meat, cheese, corn, or whatever. The national empanada of Chile, called pino, is filled with ground beef, onions, olives, raisins, and hard-boiled egg. Jessie found them gross (she dislikes all but one of those ingredients); I more or less loved them. Best of all, there was an emapanaderia just around the corner from our hostel which offered something like three dozen different types, all of which cost under $1.50 US.

The seafood was equally delicious. We ate in the Santiago fish market one day, a place filled with restaurants geared to tourists but which nonetheless offered up some outstanding dishes. I finally got some decent ceviche (raw fish mixed with lemon juice, cilantro, and onions), Ben had a pretty killer sole fillet, and the table shared an order of – gross though it may sound – giant barnacles. The barnacles are something of a delicacy here, and they have about the flavor and the consistency of clams, though ours seemed to have a more fishy, saltier flavor to them. At least some of us enjoyed them, even if it was more for the shock value than the actual flavor. Oh, and an interesting side note, courtesy of Jessie: The fish market is such an iconic place in Santiago’s culture that one of the country’s main telenovelas, or soap operas, was set there. It was called “Amores del Mercado.” I guess fishmongers must make great lovers, despite what Renaissance literature would seem to suggest.

The last thing worth mentioning – and here I’ll finally shut up – was our day trip on our final full day in Santiago. Minus Ben and Renee, who went to check out the city’s used clothing district, we hopped a bus out of the city to a tiny artesanal town just past the outskirts of the city, a nice (though touristy) place called Pomaire. Word is that, on the weekends, the place overflows with both foreigners and Chileans who come to shop for the clay craftwork for which the town is known. We had the good fortune of going on a Monday, when the town seemed sleepier and the various shopkeepers were a bit more relaxed. We all bought small versions of what was, as far as we could tell, the town’s signature commodity: a clay pot adorned with the face of a pig and little hoofed legs. They were ubiquitous but still pretty neat. However, by far the best thing we purchased there were these clay wall-masks (I don’t know how else to describe them) that a local artist had made. Very distinctive, reasonably cheap, and one of the most interesting things in the midst of a sea of junk geared to tourists.

I’ll stop here. We’ll leave off Mendoza – and the simply stunning road between Santiago and Mendoza – for the next post. Ciao.

It’s official: I’m in love with a new yarn.

We first met at WEBS in the sale corner. She was on a lower shelf, easy to overlook, but something about her colorway got my attention. When I picked her up for the first time, I noticed a unique softness and drape that I had never felt in a yarn before. And the colors were unique, painterly, stunning.

I’m talking about Araucania Pomaire, 100% pima cotton hand dyed in Chile. It took me a little while to find something to knit with it, but when I did it was wonderful. This yarn is so soft and stretchy, unlike most cotton yarn I have worked with. And the colors–hand dyed in unusual combinations and interesting colors. So it came as no surprise to me that the next time I happened across this yarn, I simply had to buy some. This time I got 3 skeins, hoping that I could make another summer top.

And then a couple of weeks ago, while I was innocently shopping for some sock yarn for a gift, I was once again wooed by something out of the corner of my eye. Araucania sock yarn, on the top shelf, in the most delicious colors. After picking each one up, I eventually settled on this one.

It reminds me of a tie dye t-shirt, which I’ve never had yet always wanted. Again, it’s hand painted and made of 75% wool and 25% polymide, so it’s soft and machine washable! I cast on for a pair of Hedera socks and we have been knitting along very well together. Until last night, that is, when I started decreasing for the toe.

Can you see it? The top needle has 15 stitches, which means I had one more decrease round to go to get down to 13 stitches. But then count the bottom two needles: 26! In theory, there are supposed to be the same number of stitches on needle 1 as there are on needles 2 and 3 combined! I took a wrong turn somewhere, probably way back when picking up stitches for the heel gusset. I always approximate the number of stitches the pattern says to pick up and knit. I just go along the heel flap, picking up a stitch for each row of the flap, then a couple more up by the leg to close any holes. This means that I occasionally end up with weird numbers and have to improvise my decreases to get back to the right number.

So I decided to try just knitting the stitches on the top of the toe, and decreasing on needles 2 and 3 every round until the numbers matched. Finally, I got down to 13 stitches on top and bottom, and it doesn’t look weird at all. Best of all: it fits!

Then there’s the slight issue of the too-long heel flap. I had read that some other knitters thought it was too long, but knit it as described and it turned out fine. I decided to do the same (trust thy designer, especially when she is as fierce as Cookie A.), but ended up with a weird nipple at the end of the heel. It’s just a little too long for my foot.

Otherwise, I’m quite happy with how these socks have turned out, and look forward to wearing them soon. You know, after I knit the second sock. Which could be sometime in October if I’m not able to resist casting on my other Arucania Ranco sock yarn:

What is your favorite brand of yarn? Do you stick to certain brands or types of yarn? Basically, how do you decide which yarn to buy?

Coucher de voiles •

Sur les lacs au Sud du Chili. 1987 •

Isla negra •

Al fassia •

Mon premier paysage. Chili 1985 • (collection privée)

Montagnes et Saule pleureur •

Saule pleureur et montagne •

Dans l’espace de mes rêves •

Petit chemin au bord du ciel •

Quebrada •

Pointillé de pont suisse •

Pointillé encore •

Dans un coin du salon •

Bouquet •

Fleurs. Colombie 1988

Por tres para’isos. Honor à Hernando Socarras, 1988

Fruits

Frutero •

Pomaire •

Inséparables •

• Vendus ou non disponnibles

Bueno les cuento que ya cumplí con casi… casi… todos mis compromisos, creo haber salido airoso de varios de ellos, aunque con otros me gustaria afinar algunos detalles mas, para que quedaran mejor… pero por otro lado se me viene  a la mente lo que aprendí en el WorkShop,  eso de  “LA MEJOR SOLUCION, EN EL MENOR TIEMPO”, quería decir algo como: cualquier diseñador puede hacer un buen trabajo si tiene 3 semanas de plazo, pero solo algunos pueden  hacer un excelente trabajo en solo 3 días, y créanme que aprendí eso de forma practica… pero no quiero repetirlo nunca mas… a si que ni se les ocurra pedirme algo a ultima hora!!!  Jajaja

Pero… siempre el pero… como estaba entusiasmado con las entregas, se me fue al tintero el tema de “Pomaire”, si no recuerdan es el trabajo que hablo mas abajo en este blog, eso de “ al recate de las tradiciones Chilenas”, y ahora me salen con que la entrega formal del proyecto es un par de días mas, onda una ceremonia  con cóctel !!!. Destacare que tendré que tener para ese día: la marca y la papelería completa, unos tabloides explicativos, la pagina web, una presentación multimedia para ser puesta en una pantalla plana de 43 Pulgadas, la cual estará en un Stand, además de preparar un Power Point para presentar en la ceremonia para explicar que conceptos ocupe para desarrollar el trabajo…  pero también haré un reconocimiento a Alfredo, ya que el hará el Packaging, con todos sus planos, render, envases segundario y terciarios, créanme que no lo envidio.

Bueno esto es la marca que verán los gringos cuando se exporten las artesanías de los pomairinos:

Esto es  la tarjeta de visita por tiro y retiro (por un lado y otro) y la hoja carta

Después el sobre también por tiro y retiro

 
Bueno ahora a trabajar, créanme que daré lo mejor para estar a la altura del compromiso y quisas muestre el resultado final en este blog,por eso, esten atentos.

 saludos.