foreign

funny sounds
bright colors
strange tastes
real stares

you wake up
you're not there
that place you knew
you're not there

funny voices
bright clothes
strange feelings
real faces

you take a walk
where do you go
that place you are now
where do you go

the you that you knew
you do not know now
not now that you know
you know you don't know

HUEVON!

***WARNING***
This blog is about balls
***WARNING***


BALLS!
Not the kind you play sports with....
Gonads
I personally love the phrase, "oh balls" when something goes horribly wrong, but Chile takes it to an entirely different level!
Huevon, derived from the word Huevos, yes, eggs!  What do eggs remind you of in shape and size?

HUEVON  = BALLS

The word I was taught my first time in Chile wasn't Hola, it was Huevon!
Bienvenidos a Chile!
For a Chilean it is so much more!  It is EVERYWHERE, EVERYTHING, EVERYONE!!

There is a great deal of Chilean Spanish I have a hard time saying, not because I don't understand it, it's more of, did I just hear that?!?  Chileans use a lot of slang!  Dirty slang!  Huevon is just a mere glimpse of the avalanche of poetic loveliness....
between friends
father to son
Anyone!

Random meeting on the street:
Hola Juevon!  "Hello balls!"

Answering a phone call from your uncle you haven't seen in 2 years:
HUEVON!  Como 'tai'?  (Chilean pronunciation of Como estas)
"BALLS!  How are you?"

Or reverse it!  Como 'tai tu huevon?!?
"How are your balls?!?

It's pretty awesome!  I can't help but smile every time I hear it.

Juevon to me symbolizes the general attitude of Chile.
Great.  Big.  Balls.

Even the dogs in Chile have big balls, which can be a little unnerving for those of us growing up where dog gonads are rarely seen a danglin'!  Just THIS week, I witnessed two different canine couples copulating publicly.  I was not at all prepared.  In Chile, men are men and dogs have balls.  Nuf' said!

Big, small, heavy, itchy, tired, bored....there is some kind of Chilean saying for all of that!

Bad day?  Good day?  Grumpy boss?  Happy boss?  Toast is burning?  HUEVON!

Huevon is also a state of mind.  I guess I have to give Chile credit, the machismo (macho) cowboy attitude that I really only knew from Western movies growing up is alive and well here!  For better or for worse, I don't think it's going anywhere any time soon.  There is no such thing as politically correct and no one is off limits.  Anyone and anything can be turned into a huevon...err...joke.

My Chilean spouse is house trained with the laws of the liberal gringa land expectations (i.e. all chores are shared, whatever needs doing, you do it!) but I'd say for the most part, Chilena's like their men with some HUEVON!

I don't care if you do the dishes, as long as you fix my car and grill my meat!  HUEVON!

I have to admit, one of our first fights was over how to split the bill and the Huevon did finally win and pay for the entire meal...grr...  He also still opens doors for ladies, gives compliments, buys bottles of wine, total Gent....all thanks to Chile!  (I do secretly love this.)

He likes a cold beer after a sweaty soccer match and occasionally sits around proudly scratching his.....
I think you know what to call it now?!?

For me, I guess a little Huevon once in a while..never hurt anyone...

Chilean food

I just wrote a friend about Chilean food and realized I haven't really written anything here....

I'm realizing it's a bit difficult for me to blog about life in Chile because, well, I'm boring!

No crazy adventures involving near death experiences with bug eating or elephant attacks.  Now I'm simply doing normal day to day stuff, making the bed, eating breakfast, going to school...blah, blah, blah.  

R man and I head out tomorrow for a month long vacation in the south of Chile with family and friends...all that stress of being on vacation for a year adds up and then you need a break!  Also, it's freaking hot in Santiago!  Like a Thailand summer, you stop going out during the day to avoid the extreme heat, plaster on sun screen when you do and wear a great big hat and light colored clothing....it's a lot of effort and no fun.  I'm looking forward to the cool rainy climate of the South Chilean Island of Chiloe for some crazy hiking in some rugged terrain near an ocean!  Grr...roar...after that, it's off to a cabin on a volcano near Puerto Montt, Bariloche in Argentina and some family time in Los Angeles, Temuco and Tome on our way back towards Santiago.

Who cares, FOOD!

So!  Here's some personal food insights I've noticed about Chile....purely generalities of course!  Prejudiced and biased, unfair probably...

Chileans tend to be uninventive cooks in general, but there's a lot of fresh produce, which makes up for it!  Why mess around, when the product is so perfect?  Spices and flavors aren't spectacular like they are in Thailand or India...Chileans don't like spicy, they like basic...kind of a Spanish variation of down home cookin'....barbecues and sandwiches...basic, that's where it's at!

MEAL:
MEAT
BREAD
SALAD


(the basic outline for a basic meal)


For a family barbecue gathering it's perhaps:


APPETIZER

• Pisco sours (a lemon-pisco appetizer drink)
• Longenizas (chorizo sausages with toasted bread toppd with  pebre (fresh tomato salsa)  and mayo!

MEAT!  (with a red wine)
BREAD
SALAD
DESSERT (with an espresso or a digestif )


Good - Simple - Delicious!


Produce:

The fruit is incredible!  Everything is in season right now!

Everything meaning:

peaches

watermelons that taste like pure sugar

cantaloupes

strawberries

plums

amazing avacadoes!!!  

tomatoes that smell and taste like tomatoes!!!  Really!

They are all incredible right now!!!!!
Chile has the perfect climate for produce, which makes for good and cheap veg and fruit eating!  Lucky sods!

La Vega Market in downtown Santiago

Beef is also really good here slowly grilled on a wood charcoal barbecue....they know where it's at with cooking meat on a grill!  It's what separates the boys from the men!  

In Santiago particularly, there are tons of restaurants called "fuente ....blah blah" that are known for their sandwiches.

My favorite sandwich type is called an Italiano (green: creamed avacado, white: giant slatherings of homemade mayonnaise, which I LOVE oh so much!, red: sliced tomato) all of this on a homemade giganto bun the size of an American salad plate that's been toasted with butter on a grill and then filled with thinly slized slow cooked beef that's been marinating in its juices, plus afore mentioned green, white and red....it's so big it's a meal and you eat it with a knife and fork!

Freaking awesome!  But will definitely kill you if you eat them everyday.

Chileans love to eat bread..a few variations of a white flat bun eaten every day for every meal!  It's a bit over kill for me....I eat a little and then I feel like I can't eat bread for a week, maybe a month...but it's delicious!

Cheese sucks.  Sorry Chile.  That's a problem for me, considering I studied in Wisconsin solely to meet a dairy farmer...and wound up with a Chilean cheese hater instead.  The only cheese they have is a type of Gouda with little holes in it...flavorless...colorless...almost tofu like....bleugh....but at least they have cheese, unlike Asia where I went into withdrawl!  This is probably good for me, since I gained 10 pounds in France on cheese alone.

Chile is getting pretty good with micro breweries now, so there are getting to be lots of good options for beer besides the PBR type varieties of the olden days (Chilean Crystal is the USA PBR)

Plus, the wine here...I'm getting a bit spoiled I think.  It's so good!!  But we all know this! 

It still freaks me out to see Cuban rum in the grocery aisle..what?  Cuban?  As I look around to see if the Feds are watching....

Lastly...desserts in Chile from a female mid western view point are weird!  They are ok, but I miss chewy giant cookies and cake in a box.  There is no such thing as soft and doughy.  I think dessert is viewed more as something that will wake your senses up (they're usually eaten with espresso) rather then lull you to sleep - at my house we'd get out the "sleepy time" tea with dessert at 9pm!  Here, 9pm is when dinner begins!

The favorite dessert generally involves:

• Manjar - Chilean Dulce de Leche (kind of a caramel like sweetened condensed milk)
• ultra sugary (too sugary for me) merengue
• lemon custard

These are pretty much your options in different variations.

Cake is not cake as we know it in the States, it's more like layers of flavorless crispy flat bread with manjar smothered all over it or in between layers....it's kind of just a cardboard base for manjar....

The other very popular option is lemon merengue pie, which is good, but I can only handle a spoonful from the extreme sweetness it has, like eating a spoonful of lemon flavored sugar, R man could eat an entire pie by himself!

I love Chilean food, but for people who enjoy lots of options and variations in their daily diet and don't like to cook, this is not the place for you.  After you overdose on meat and manjar, ur' dun!  There are plenty of fast food trend setting sushi restaurants popping up in Santiago with options like: cucumber and cream cheese rolls, or grilled chicken and avacado rolls...a Chilean version of Japanese food...similar I guess to the  California Roll...same same but different.

I could write an entirely separate blog just about oriental food in different countries!  If you think Kung Pao Chicken is the same everywhere, because it must be authentically Chinese...=)  Guess again!  I love trying Chinese and Indian food in lots of different countries!  Really fun stuff!


So that's my overview on Chilean cuisine.  Good.  Basic.  Makes you want to grunt and rub your belly.  
It makes me happy.  Good stuff!