Thanksgiving Pre-Funk

While slogging our way through Patagonia and subsisting on oatmeal, tuna, and freeze dried dinners for 5 days we were all doing a little food craving. You know those half-crazed conversations you have while you are a) in the wilderness b) in a foreign country with food you don't like c) on a diet? I've never been on one, but I think it would be like this. Anyways, Thanksgiving came up and we were all spitting out foods we couldn't wait to devour, salivating, stomachs curling at the thought of more tuna. Ok, I'm being dramatic. But we were excited for Thanksgiving. Additionally, Matt has had this dream of making his very own deep-fried turkey for oh, forever. Foreverrrrr (insert Sandlot voice here). We came up with the grand idea of having a Friends Thanksgiving. The idea developed and morphed to include our wonderful friends Bret + Jaci and our fabulous Kestrel wine club wines.

This past Saturday we all gathered together to give thanks, eat some good food, drink some good wine, catch up with B&J, and have the adventure of cooking a deep fried turkey. It turned out swimmingly. Matt & I hosted, and in case you haven't been to our house, our kitchen in miniature. Positively tiny. But we were creative and everyone did some prep and home and it all worked out. The food was fantastic. Everyone loves their family Thanksgiving, but you all know that probably half the dishes there are there for just two people. Grandma and Auntie so and so who just can't let go of....cranberry jelly? Jello? What's the name of the smelly fish Nimrods? (Grandma, I know you're reading this. I love you. And Mom loves the cranberry jelly).   We went out with the old and in with the new. Jaci is from Arkansas, so we even got some green bean casserole (definitely not a NW dish) but with a NW twist: no bacon, no bacon drippings involved.

The deep fried turkey was truly an adventure. If you have never tried this (and you probably haven't) I would highly recommend it. It is NOT at all greasy or 'deep-fried' seeming. Matt injected it with a marinade and put a dry rub on it and it come out with a nice crispy skin, great flavor, and is the juiciest turkey you have ever had. Yum Yum. Additionally it only takes an hour to cook, and leaves your oven free for the 100 other things that need to be in there that typically result in some cold stuff, some late stuff, some forgotten stuff. However, proceed with caution. Everyone has stories of their friends friend who burned their house down doing such a thing. :)

A big thank you to my parents who let us invade their house while they were in Mexico and steal their fabulous, gigantic deep fryer for the momentous occasion. And if you actually want to try this thing, click here, and here, for some great advice.

Lowering the turkey into the basket

Lowering the basket into the boiling oil

Verrryyyy carefully

So close to overflowing and destroying out hard-won grass. But it didn't :)

The proud boys

Taking out the turkey after its done

*Note the dark crispy looking outside, yum!

**Also note the pliers, hammer, and chisel that the boys are using to accomplish this task

Besides the turkey our menu included

Pumpkin Dip w/ Apples
Over Fried Sweet Potatoes
Garlic and Chive Mashed Potatoes
Rolls
Waldorf Salad
Green Bean Casserole
Cranberry sauce
Stuffing
and delicious Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie for dessert.

Everyone's food was amazing!

Matt and I really enjoy cooking and do a lot of when we have the time so I'm thinking I'll be sharing some of the recipes that I really enjoy on here so that you can enjoy them too! Yum Yum. Most of my recipes come from myrecipes.com because: they have pictures, which I love, they have reviews, and they have test-kitchen tried and true recipes. While some of those people off the street have great stuff you just never know. But you almost always know with myrecipes.com. Plus I love the pics. SO, here are two of the new ones I tried out for Thanksgiving. If you're looking for something new for Thanksgiving, give them a try!

Pumpkin Dip

Yield: 12 servings (serving size: 2 tablespoons dip and 2 apple slices)


Ingredients
• 3/4 cup (6 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 2 teaspoons maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 24 apple slices

Preparation

Place first 3 ingredients in a medium bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add syrup and cinnamon, and beat until smooth. Cover and chill 30 minutes. Serve with apple.


Oven-Fried Sweet Potatoes
Yield: 7 servings (serving size: 1/2 cup)


Ingredients
• 4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch slices (about 1 1/2 pounds)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• Vegetable cooking spray
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon grated orange rind
• 1 small garlic clove, minced


Preparation

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a large bowl; toss gently to coat. Arrange sweet potato slices in a single layer on a large baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until tender, turning the potato slices after 15 minutes.


Combine parsley, orange rind, and garlic in a small bowl; stir well. Sprinkle parsley mixture over sweet potato slices.

South America - Valpo (aka, Valparaiso, aka, The Beach)

We decided to end our trip on a nice, warm, relaxing note after all of that hiking and running around, so we headed out to Valparaiso, which is on the coast about 2 hours outside of Santiago. The weather was nice, the beach was beautiful and the town had a lot of character. Lots of character. And we dragged the Germans with us. Not dragged exactly. And not with us exactly either, because our little Gold Peugeuot could barely fit us and our luggage (though it had also managed to fit the 6 of us on shorter journeys) and there was no way six humans and 10 bags were gonna fit. Just no way. So Chris and Bernie met us there.

We stayed at a sweeeet hostel called Casa Verde Limon which totally had lots of character. The whole town is built on a very, and I mean very, steep hill and everything is painted with very bright colors. There is graffiti everywhere but it is almost entirely cool graffiti. Not the stupid ugly stuff you normally see, but artsy.

Casa Verde Limon (the green one)

Cool graffiti. And us (thanks for the pic Bernie)

(cool picture credit goes to Val on this one)

We:

- Took a looonng walk to the beach. We stopped along the way admiring the millions of cool cafe's and breakfast spots and beseeching people to help us find the Ascensor Concepcion. If you have ever seen the movie Motorcycle Diaries (the one about Che) this town is in the movie and we got to ride on the cool little elevator box things that go up the hills.

- Drove up the steepest road ever (straight up the hill) trying to find Pablo Neruda's house (the poet), but the road turned into dirt all of a sudden and it had gotten dark, so we had to give up

the town

- Apparently walked down the wrong street at about midnight, and then when we asked a business which streets were safe to go on he pointed only in the opposite direction of our hostel, so we ended up taking a taxi home from dinner.

- Had a delious breakfast the next morning

- Had the pleasure of arriving in town while the garbage people were on strike and had been for a week. The town was still cool but we saw lots of trash tornados and it reeked.

Saturday, our lovely last day we took a drive over to the next town, Vina del Mar and spent most of the day there. The two cities are actually connected, but they are nothing alike. Valparaiso is hilly, and brightly painted, and lots of character, but kinda dirty, Latin-American-City-like. Vina del Mar is like a resort town. It was clean and new and had palm trees everywhere. The beach was beautiful and it was nice to be away from all the garbage, but I loved the character of Valpariso.

We spent the first few hours lounging with our toes in the sand, reading our books and were highly successful at both a) enjoying warm sunshine in the nasty month of November and b) burning ourselves crispy. But again, you have to enjoy such things when its November and you live in Seattle.

After a picnic lunch and stocking up on airplance snacks we said good bye to the beach and left in time to stop at some wineries we had seen along our route in. We hit up two of them, and came away with mixed impressions. Both were absolutely stunning. These people go big or go home when they are building their wineries, and wow. At the first one we did a tasting and then were able to get a tour, which was quite interesting. They showed us around the whole winery, and explained the whole process which was very interesting to get to see and also fun to experience in Spanish. So, Vina del Mar (winery named after the town) was a cool experience, beautiful setting, not the greatest wine. Next we went to Vina Indomita, which was a much better tasting experience. Apparently we had arrived just after wine tasting had ended (tasting closed at 5 but the store part was open until 6) but a very nice man looked furtively around then began to let us taste anything we wanted, waiving the tasting fee! Oh goody! These wines were much better (though still not spectacular) and very inexpensive. They had Malbec (grown primarily in the Mendoza region), Carbernet Franc, Syrah, and a number of other traditional ones, with the addition of Carmenere, which I had never heard of before. Maybe you big time wine experts out that have, but from what I am told it is only grown in Chile, it was originally a French varietal but they got some bad disease in the vines over there and they all died and only the ones in Chile survived. Something like that. Anyway, it was good, and we brought home two bottles...their credit card machine wasn't working and it was the last day of our trip so we were almost out of cash. After I had asked how long both of the wineries had been around and both had said about 10 years the guy admitted to me that that region is pretty new as a wine growing region so almost all of the wineries are pretty young, which explains the not-spectacular quality. Maybe we'll be back in 10 years and give it another go!

Winery tour

Anyways, after boozing it up in preparation for our long plane journey we headed back to the airport, drugged ourselves, and proceeded to sleep all the way to Los Angeles where we weere able to get on a stand-by flight and make it home 3 hours early. Left Santiago at 10 in the evening, and well rested, back in Seattle by 10:30 the next morning.

Andes from the plane, leaving Santaigo

It was an amazing trip. We saw so many cool things, met so many great people, relaxed, and just generally had a blast. And I can't stand sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day, so I'm already planning the next one! :)

South America - Over the Andes....and into Argentina

Our second-to-last South American adventure involved renting a car and driving over the Andes from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina. The drive was insanely spectacular. Spectacularly insane. Both. They built a road straight up the Andes...and then put a border crossing at the very top. The drive itself was beautiful. I know I keep saying that, but we just saw so many amazing things on this trip. The road is a major trucking route but we got started very early in the morning and for some reason the trucks were lined up for miles waiting to go through so pre-customs sort of thing at the base of the mountains, so we had the road almost entirely to ourselves.

Highlight #1 of the drive: Las Curvas. There is this insane set of switchbacks on the Chilean side of the mountains. And when I say set, I mean 30. Right there on top of eachother. You must look at the picture, there is simply no other way to describe them. They were pretty tame on our way up as we were the only car on the road, but on our way back the next day there was definitely more traffic and it was a prime example of Chilean driving: no rules, pass whenever you feel like it. Again, see the pictures below.

This is only about 1/3 of them

This is what its like when the semi's pass eachother on them

Higlight #2: Ski lift? Again, you must see the picture. This ski lift is going directly over the road. Over the very steep, switchbacking road, about 5 times. Why, I still don't know.

Highlight #3 : Boarder crossing. We were told the boarding crossing could take anywhere from 1-4 hours, so when we pulled up and were the only car in sight we were pretty elated. Turns out it still took us 45 minutes. Not because there was a lot of paperwork to do, but because it was so dysfunctional. We drove up to window #1 (Chile) who stamped our paperwork and then passed us on the window #2(Argentina) who then gave our passports to window #3(different Argentina). Then Argentina made  us back our car up to Chile(#1) to fill out paperwork that Chile didn't think we needed. When we pulled back up to Argentina (#2)they didn't actually want the paperwork. They thought the other Argentian (#3)people wanted it. But they didn't either. And the scary guy with the big gun was glaring at us the whole time. But they only glanced in our trunk for 2 seconds and didn't even open our bags, so the drugs made it through just fine. Just kidding.

Highlight #4: Aconcagua. Kind of. Aconcagua is 22,000 ft tall and its the highest mountain in the world outside the Himilayas. We knew our route would take us right past it, and we were pretty excited. Turns out its hard to tell which mountain is 22,000 ft when there are a lot of other really tall ones around you. But we think we finally figured it out. And maybe some day we will go back and climb it. Because that would be neat.

Mendoza Highlights

#1: It was warm. 80 degress warm. And our hostel had a pool. We basked in the sun, and true to my nature, I got burned. But I was happy about it, because it was November and you have to be happy about such things when it is November.

#2: Yum. Yummmm. We ate dinner at Azafran, which was the splurge of our trip. We started with fabulous cheese plates. Amazing. I could eat cheese all day, every day. Then our sommlier helped us pick out some wine, including a delicous Mendozan Malbec. Yum. And then we had Argentinian steak. More yum. It was all around delicous, and classy, and we didn't eat until midnight, which was oh-so-Argentinian of us.

Lowlight #1: A rather insane set of circumstances conspired to deny us the opportunity to go wine tasting. Don't ask. Its a sore subject. But we bought some Malbecs from the area at the restaurant/store and still enjoyed ourselves and the wine.

**Side note: There is an oil refinery just outside of Mendoza, and it kind of makes the area look like LA. Go there for the wines, and the food. But not the scenery. Or maybe we just had a bad wind.

**** I can't spell. To save my life. Its my Dad's fault, so blame him. I can't figure out why blogspot doesn't have a spell check function, but until such a time as they introduce this feature, you will just have to bear with be and my terrible spelling and grammar. I am sorry.

(And I just speller grammar wrong. Like 'grammer'. But I realized it. Or maybe I'm mixed up and the other one is right. I apologize. And I promise Mom, my college degree is not faked. It just rests in the hands of Microsoft spell-check). Thats all now

South America - Santiago

All four of us (Lance, Val, Matt & I) have spent time in large Latin American cities (three of us having lived in one) and everyone who has ever done so knows that for the most part...they aren't really places you want to spend a lot of time. Mostly, none at all. Accordingly, we planned one afternoon and evening in Santiago. We wanted to see the city but we were pretty sure that would be enough time. I will admit that Santiago beat out San Jose, Guatemala City, and Managua. Definitely. But thats not saying much. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon and evening (many thanks to our German tour guide Chris) and that was enough.

Chris is studying in Santiago so he knows a bit about the city and has an apartment there. After spending a tortuous hour or so in our gold Peugeot trying to find our hostel we met up with Chris and Bernie and got the short tour. He took us to the main plaza, and then we walked up Santa Lucia hill, which afforded us great views of the city. Next, we headed for San Cristobal (is that right? I think so) Hill but got waylaid on the way and stopped for a beer. Chile is not a cheap country at all in general, but their beer is great. It comes in liters and its about $2.50 for a liter of Escudo. We saw a rad little kid dancing with some street performers. It turned out that the beer had cost us our opportunity to see San Cristobal, because it was closed when we got there, but by that point (9pm) we were all ready for some food anyways. South America has a totally different meal schedule than us. Breakfast, then afternoon siesta where everything closes (big banks and all) from 1-3 and then dinner isn't until at least 9. At least. Then you stay up until at least 2am. Despite the fact that the four of us are generally old fogies and not very good at staying up late we adjusted magnificently to the South American schedule.

Chris led us to a nice steak restaurant. I don't know what its called because Chris couldn't remember what it was called when we were looking for it so we were just walking around looking and asking for a restaurant w/ a big red cow on the sign. It worked out. Then Chris took the opportunity to inroduce us to the national alcohol, called "Pisco". Its made from grapes, and its not very good. But when in Chile...

Chris's apartment had a sweet rooftop deck so we headed up to the 26th floor for some more great views, Piscola (Pisco and coke) and...a lesson in German rap.

South America - Part PENGUINS

They were adorable. That really about all that I have to say. Freaking adorable. I wanted to take one home with me, but they were just too quick for me.

For our last half day in the Punta Arenas area we headed out to Seno Otway, home of about 10,000 Magellenic penguins. There weren't hordes of them or anything but we got to walk on a little path through their natural habitat and watch them coming in from the ocean, laying on the beach, walking up from the beach in a cute little line, have funny little penguin fights, and ducking into their little holes in the ground. They laid their eggs about a month ago and they are currently waiting for the little guys to hatch. Its too bad we weren't there in January to see the little ones but...I might have died of a cuteness overload if I were there. So I guess everything works out for the best.

Up next...Santiago

Pictures are up!

Picassa Album of Chile/Argentina

(I think the link works. It works for me. Somebody tell me if it doesn't!)

*All pics by M&M except for the ones that include Mackenzie. Thanks Lance and Val for being our paparazzi

South America - Part 3

DAY 4

Day four was another day of beautiful scenery. We were headed from the middle of the W to halfway up the last (right) leg. The weather was perfect and we had a great view of the mountains and the surrounding plains. We were able to find the fabled shortcut, which was glorious until we got to some really wet/muddy parts (path not maintained as well as the real route) and my tennis shoes failed me...wet feet. We met an older German man along the way and we were asking him about the Torres (the crazy cool mountains we would see on day 5, the namesakes of the Park) and he says 'the torres, they are ok. We have mountains like that in Europe too'.  Please please God, let me never be that spoiled. They were fantastic.

About a mile before we arrived at Refugio Chileno, where we were to stay for the night the wind picked up. And when I say it picked up...I really mean it. When we were going uphill, we could barely move. When we were going downhill, I just acted as if I wanted to fall forward on my face. But I never did because the wind always held me up. Everyones glasses got big nicks in the from the dirt/rocks that the wind was throwing at us. All this on a 1ft wide path on the side of a sheer cliff. It was fun. The weather got pretty nasty after we got to our refugio and we were glad we got an early start. Chris and Bernie (the Germans) joined us later and they had slept in and thus endured some much more intense weather. We had told them about the shortcut the night before, except all we knew what that it was a left that was 'obvious, but not marked'. They took a different left than us and ended up on the edge of a cliff. Bernie got knocked over by the wind, and then pinned to the ground by it. It was Halloween back in the U.S. and the six of us managed to consume three boxes of wine that evening and we taught them Egyptian Ratscrew (a card game, for those of you who don't know).

DAY 5

Our last day in the park was stunning. It was the day we hiked up to the Torres, which is what people do if they are only going to do one thing in the park. We woke up at sunrise, (early) where we could partially see the torres from our refugio. The way the sun shines on them it turnes the torres a crazy red/pink color just as the sun rises. I wish I had a picture. They are all on Val and Lance's camera, and I don't have theirs yet. After watching that for a bit we headed out for an early start. It was a relatively short hike up to the torres, but extremely steep and we were all totally winded by the time we got there. There was not a cloud in the sky and the torres were amazing. It was frigid and we were all starving (no breakfast yet), so we stayed for 30-45 minutes and then headed back down. We could not have hoped for a better last day.

The rest of the day consisted of hiking back to the park exit where we sat around for a few hours waiting for our bus, and then heading back to Puerto Natales. We all enjoyed some hot showers and then went to gorge ourselves on pizza and beer after living on oatmeal, tuna, and dehydrated food for the last 5 days. Except for the Germans. They had been living on things like 16 hardboiled eggs, pickles, peanut butter, avocados and...anything else you can think of that you wouldn't normally bring hiking.

Clean and happy

Matt, Chris, and Bernie

My pizza. It was delicious. And it had a fried egg on it. Which was odd.