Lesson in Cooking: Mussels

In case it isn't clear, we live by the ocean.  This means that there should be a ton of fresh seafood options.  We have two big fish markets (one south in Colosso) and one north on the main drag.  It is quite difficult to go to these places with kids, so I only go about once a month.  The fish we have gotten has always been very good.  The other option is that sometimes there is local fresh seafood in Jumbo.  I look every time I go, and yesterday, we found very fresh mussels.  I'm not a huge fan, but Steve insisted since he LOVES them.  So, we bought about a kilo, and last night I made them.  Here is my story.

Have you ever prepared mussels?  I haven't.  I've never even thought about buying them and attempting to prepare them myself, but I like a challenge.  After reading some things online, I decided to use wiki instructions to clean them: http://www.wikihow.com/Clean-Mussels
It took quite awhile to choose, soak, scrub and rinse a kilo of mussels.  The most fun part for me was watching them "breathe" while soaking them.  I was extremely careful about making sure the mussels were still alive, so I ended up having to throw some away (they must have died in transit from the store to our house).  After an hour worth of cleaning, I used this recipe to actually cook them.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/steamed-mussels-recipe.html

I sauteed some shallots, garlic, and fresh thyme in olive oil, tossed in the mussels and added chicken broth, white wine, red pepper flakes and butter for a good steam (I omitted the recommended tomatoes only because I didn't have any).  It was pretty quick to cook them - only 5-10 minutes.  I poured them in a bowl and served with fresh bread and steamed artichokes.  It was a great grown-up meal, and the mussels were fantastic! The broth was especially good.  Try the recipe!

Our first tsunami evacuation

It's no secret that Chile is in the "ring of fire".  The country experiences many earthquakes and is full of active volcanoes.  The strongest earthquake ever recorded OF ALL TIME was in southern Chile in 1960 (it was a 9.5!!).  I experienced my first earthquake last year in Santiago, and since living in Chile, I have now lost count (many are very small and hardly noticeable).

However, on September 16th, a very large earthquake (magnitude of 8.4) rocked Chile, northwest of Santiago. I didn't feel it, so I had no idea what was about to happen.  Steve and I had just put the kids to bed and were sitting down to watch an episode of Downton Abbey when he got a very loud, very annoying alarm on his phone.  He said, um there is something about a tsunami warning.  I didn't quite understand at first, since we hadn't heard about the earthquake yet, and I hadn't received a warning on my phone.  But, then within a span of 5 minutes, one of my good friends here texted and said her and her family were on their way to my house, I saw on Facebook many friends in Santiago were posting about the earthquake just happening.  Posts like "OMG DID YOU FEEL THAT?!" "That was such a long one!!" "Is everyone ok?".  Then, I also got a message on my phone, the same alarm that Steve had.  It was basically a text message saying there is a tsunami watch for the ENTIRE coast of Chile.  My city is nestled between a row of large hills and the coast.  We live about 100 meters from the beach, but luckily, we are on a hill, which puts us in the tsunami safe zone. 

Then, we heard it.  It wasn't real until we heard it.  The local VERY loud, VERY annoying tsunami siren.  I'll be honest, I wasn't worried until I heard it.  The siren sounded scary.  After the siren came a voice saying (in Spanish obviously), "This is a tsunami warning.  Please go to the evacuation area."  I had lots of emotions.  First , I was really hoping the kids wouldn't wake up, Second, I was worried/scared, Third, I was excited for the experience, and Fourth, I was curious.  We ended up having two families join us in the house that night, so it felt more like a tsunami party than anything else.  I offered people water, etc, but everyone just kept saying, No No No, let's wait to see if we need to conserve it (jokingly, obviously, but still a hint of "what if"). 

We are right on the line of the tsunami safe zone, so when people evacuate, they literally come to our street, right outside my front gate.  It was bizarre to look out front and see probably 50 cars lining my street and even parking in the desert mountain that is my front yard. 

Here are two pics I took to show what I just described.  It was dark, and tricky to do this, so it might not do it justice.

My favorite part: No one knew when the tsunami warning was over.  There was never any kind of ALL OK siren or notification.  Literally nothing.  Just a police car that drove down the street that everyone said, ok, that's the normal sign that you can go home.  So after about 2 hours, people started clearing out. 

So there it is.  Chile has an excellent earthquake/tsunami preparedness structure in place.  I was very impressed about how timely all the warnings were.  In fact, here is an interesting article if you want to read more about why Chile fared so well in the earthquake that was larger than the one in Nepal earlier this year.

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/25/how-chile-survive-earthquake-virtually-unscathed?CMP=share_btn_fb

Mendoza

Mendoza.  I finally made it.  I had been thinking about this far-off place for a long time, ever since I heard it even existed.  At first it wasn't because of the wine - I didn't even know about that - it was because of the name.  I felt a connection.  I was drawn to it as if it held a secret about my past.  Well, apparently, my past included some winemakers!

This past weekend I went with one of my good friends to Mendoza.  Steve stayed home with the kids, which meant it was the first time I was flying solo on an adult adventure in quite a long time.  While I missed my family quite a lot, it was so nice to have a break, and even nicer to have amazing food and wine with great company.

It started with turbulence.  Some of the worst I have ever felt in my life.  The normally 30 minute flight from Santiago over the Andes to Mendoza turned into 50 because of "crazy winds".  The entire time the plane was thrown around in the sky, and by the end I felt quite nauseous and very thankful to be on the ground.  I only bring that up because of the wind phenomenon: the zonda winds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zonda_wind). I had never heard of these until visiting Mendoza.  Basically it's just really fast dry wind coming from Chile over the Andes.  These winds caused fires, tons of dust in the air, and very bad turbulence.  I digress. Luckily on Friday was affected by weird weather, and the rest of the weekend was warm, sunny, and beautiful.

We really only had time for dinner on Friday since we arrived late afternoon.  We had dinner at a "puertas cerradas" or closed door restaurant, which means it is a private chef in a private location.  Ours was in this old house that had been converted into a restaurant in the front, and a private space in the back.  There were only 4 of us at the table, so we got to know the others.  We had a 5 course meal all with wine pairings.  The food here was very unique - sopaipillas with goat pate and carmelized pears; pumpkin soap, gizzards and fennel, braised goat and sweet potatoes, and carmelized fruit with a cream sauce.  Below are pictures from the restaurant of Julie and I then the two we met at dinner took us out dancing!  We went to Maipu until the very wee hours of the morning.  I am still recovering.

Saturday (after not getting nearly enough sleep) we walked around the city of Mendoza, enjoying the main Plaza de Independencia as well as a half-day wine tour in the afternoon.  We visited two wineries on the tour in Lujan de Cuyo, a wine region about 30 minutes from Mendoza city and one of the oldest wine regions in Mendoza. 

The first winery we went to, Melipal, was my favorite of the whole weekend.  The food was wonderful, but the wine.  The wine. YUM.  We had a leisurely 5 course lunch with wine pairings.  It ended up being a private tour as well as a private lunch (we lucked out since it was the off-season).  It was the most relaxed I have been in a long time! And, the food was absolutely fantastic.

Tomatoes, 3 ways with goat cheese.

Hummus with brie (it was actually amazing - my favorite dish)

Braised oxtail with sweet potatoes

Steak. Obviously.

Creamy banana pudding with caramel (and a malbec dessert wine that I LOVED!)

Coffee on the terrace

The second winery of the day was Clos de Chacras, one of the oldest wineries in all Mendoza (founded in the 1920s).  This was very interesting to see because it was unlike any winery I had ever seen since the building and the cellar are all original.  They even have some of the old equipment on site for visitors to see.

That night we went to an amazing dinner with a local.  Julie's husband works with someone from Mendoza, and he took us out to a really great place - a family-owned establishment for 60 years.  The food was Argentinian-Italian.  Sounds strange, right? Actually many of the families in Mendoza have Italian heritage.  Who would have thought? I had a fantastic bowl of freshly made spinach gnocci with a tomato eggplant sauce.  I would like to go back.  If you are ever in Mendoza, this is a place that you have to go! It's called La Marchigiana.

On Sunday we ventured off to the Uco Valley on a all day tour.  This region is fairly modern because it wasn't developed until more recently.  In fact, I learned that there is a ton of land available in Mendoza.  What's stopping developers is water rights.  It is very dry there, and apparently there is about a 10 year waiting list to dig a well.  We used Ampora Wine Tours (I highly recommend).  This time we had a group of 8 people, which turned out to be really great.  Everyone was extremely fun, friendly, and there were even 3 people from the US and a couple Chileans.  Pretty funny.  We visited three wineries (two before lunch, then a long wonderful 5 course lunch at a third winery.  Literally 3 hours).

We first visited Domaine Bousquet.  This was a really nice more modern bodega (Spanish word for winery).  The view of the mountains says it all.

Next was Corazon del Sol.  This winery is a very small very new boutique winery owned by an Indian heart surgeon from Houston who also owns wineries in Oregon and in Napa.  Here we had our first tank and barrel tastings.

Finally, Andeluna.  AMAZING 6 course meal and pairings.  It was a larger winery than the others, and I loved the open kitchen.  The food was fantastic.  Highly recommended!

Above is the kitchen right in the middle of the restaurant.  It really felt like a kitchen in someone's own home.

Below are some of the courses: squash and meatballs; ravioli de cacao with beef; lavender infused pear compote with cream and cardamom; plum pudding with chocolate tart.  YUM.

Finally, if you stayed with me this long, here is your reward.  The final four wines that I brought home with me.  The best of the best (in my opinion!). You will notice one is from a winery I didn't visit, but I tried one night at dinner and was amazing!  Happy drinking!