The Best Day of the Year

Wish we were celebrating today with the family at that one particular harbor. (Silver Lake Harbor, Ocracoke Island, NC)

As Colbert said earlier this week "In honor of thanksgiving I´m doing the whole show  I´ll spend the whole day with my pants unbuttoned."


Thanksgiving is absolutely the best. A day dedicated entirely to friends, family, a frantic  yet fun day in the kitchen and lots of delicious food.  Oh how we will miss it. And to make it even harder… my family is celebrating on Ocracoke Island. So it´s a quadruple whammy -Thanksgiving, Family, Ocracoke and the dogs! Boy are we missing out. Unfortunately we have to work on this turkey day so my idea is to boycott the books and grammar and teach my students all about Thanksgiving.  How it began, why we have it, what we do and of course what we eat!

We are planning a belated "Dia de Gracias" on Saturday at a friend´s house. (a friend who has a much larger kitchen than ours.)  I have been planning out the menu for the last few weeks trying to determine the dishes that I can actually make down here corresponding with the available ingredients. For the most part I think we´ll be able to manage something quite delicious.  I´ll be sure to post all about it after Saturday to let you know the success.

I think today is the most homesick we have been and will be in our whole year here in the southern hemisphere. But despite being homesick,  we are so thankful for all of the wonderful family and friends that we have, our opportunity to live in Chile this year, our health, our happiness and for the many beautiful years we have ahead. What a truly wonderful day this is.


 We miss you all so much and will be thinking of you savoring the turkey, ´taters and pumpkin pie!

 

 

 

Valle de Casablanca

Only an hour outside of Santiago towards the coast lies Casablanca Valley, filled with quite a few wineries and even more grapes. It is primarily known for more of the white wines produced there but many of the wineries do grow grapes for their reds as well. I was fortunate enough to take a day off work and explore some of the Casablanca Valley with Linds when she came down.

We traveled to three different wineries; Veramonte, Emiliana, and Casa del Bosque. At each we tasted at least four different types of wines. (Don´t worry, we stopped for lunch in the middle.)

Here we are at stop number 1  - Veramonte.

All three wineries had delicious vinos but Emiliana was by far our favorite winery all around and it had our favorite wines of all that we tasted. Emiliana is an organic and biodynamic vineyard that utilizes natural processes and flora and fauna to aid the growing of their grapes for their wine.

They plant rows of cover crops in between the rows of grapes to promote soil fertility, prevent erosion, and attract the beneficial insects. Some of the plants in these rows also act as indicators for the grapes. The bad pests often attack the flowers first and this tips off the growers that they need to prepare for the possibility of the pests attacking the grape plants.

They have Alpacas to clean up the cover crop rows after harvesting is complete, and they use the chickens year round to help combat the bug pests as well.. eating them for snacks. I love the chicken house on wheels. One day they can be eating the bugs off the merlot grapes and the next they are driven over to the Syrah grapes to search out their lunch.

At this vineyard they don´t actually have a winery. They send their grapes that are grown here to be made into wine at their larger winery in the Colchagua Valley just south of Santiago. There is where they grow most of their grapes for their reds. But I enjoyed the wine tasting building. The forms reminded me of Henry´s senior project.

Personally I´m more of a red than a white wine fan but this sauvignon blanc gave me a new appreciation for whites again.  It is light in color and at first glance it appears that you may be drinking water. It is so refreshing on a warm spring day.

And of course our favorite of all. Coyam. The name means ´Oak Forest´ in the native Mapuche language. The original winery where Coyam was started is surrounded by oak trees. This is one of their most famous wines and it is composed of 6 different types of wine: 41%   Syrah,   29%   Carménère,   20%   Merlot,   7% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Mourvedre, 1% Petit Verdot. I know some people aren´t fans of blended wines but this is delicious. This is the composition for the 2009. But each year it changes a little bit.. sometimes they add more or less types of wine or change the percentages to make it just right for the grapes from that year. There best wine is called Ge. This one we didn´t get to try... but maybe next time. Good news for you, they export a huge percentage of their wine (over 75% though I can´t remember the exact amount) but you could find it there in the states if your craving a good chilean wine.

We wrapped up the day at Casa del Bosque (which means house of the forest). It was nice, and to my suprise I ended up being an interpreter for our tour guide which was interesting to say the least. But all in all, Emiliana just couldn´t be topped.

Stay tuned...

Last week, Lindsay came down to visit us. She brought good news from home, american delicacies that can't be found here (ie goldfish) and lots of stories to catch up on. Stay tuned because I'll be sharing our adventures in the next few days.

Along with snacks and stories she also brought a new charger for my computer so I am back up and running! Hopefully getting back to more regular blogposts again! Thanks for your patience while we had the lack of updates- I'll try and get you caught up on all that we've been up to. Stay Posted!

CHI-CHI-LE-LE! VIVA CHILE!

On Tuesday, I joined Henry and some of his ArchDaily crowd for the Chile vs. Paraguay World Cup Qualifier game.

The track and outside portion of the field didn't make for the most aesthetically pleasing stadium but the backdrop of the Andes was awesome.

We learned some of the traditional chants and rants (most of which are a bit too inappropriate to post) but the most common one goes something like this (sung to a catchy tune):

"Vamos! Vamos Chilenos! Esta noche tenemos que ganar!!!"

Which translates to:

Let's Go! Let's Go Chileans! Tonight we have to win!

Chile won 2-0! YAY!

CHI-CHI-LE-LE! VIVA CHILE!!!