Fiestas Patrias and greasy empanadas
Happy Fiestas Patrias everyone! Tuesday is Chile’s independence day, Wednesday is sort of like Memorial day, and then off course what is the point of having school on Monday? I am not sure what the rationale behind having Thursday and Friday off was, but anyway, we have a whole week of vacations! I am leaving tonight for Pucon, which is about halfway down the country from Santiago. The bus ride is about 10 hours, but I am taking an overnight so hopefully I will sleep part of the way.
I am glad I stuck around for this weekend though, because I got to make empanadas with my hostmom! Empanadas here can come in a bunch of different varieties, cheese, ham and cheese, mushroom and cheese, etc. But the national favorites are Pino, which has a beef and onion mix and a small slice of hard boiled egg and a whole black olive in them. Some weirdos put raisins in them too, but they are wrong. Now that I have the method down, I think I am going to experiment with some vegetarian options, spinach and cheese, etc. I probably didn’t need to have a visual on how much lard goes into a batch of empanadas, since they are the cheap favorite for lunches around her, but I think I will just selectively ignore that fact.
This is my FIRST photo of Mama Claudia, she will only pose for photos when she is fully primped.
