Having finally moved physically from Barrio Brasil to República, and with the patient help of Pam Mandel from nerdseyeview I am becoming a digital migrant of sorts, leaving behind the orange and blue, restricted format, three column pesky tiny photo and I don't know what else of Blogger (which has been a fine host, truth be told), to move into the bigkid sandbox of my own site.
I am certain this will bring me no end of fame and fortune, or at least a whole bunch of extra work to do while I figure out how to pretty it up and make it look like something other than a shell with a bunch of stuff in it. Comments should have migrated over (hallelujah), and hopefully you all will, too.
See you over there! And yes, I have organizing and some fiddely bits to fix, and a big empty space on my whiteboard where for more months than I would like to admit, it has read "xfer blog."
www.bearshapedsphere.com
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Nary a Hanga Roa in Hanga Roa, Easter Island report 2, now with jabón gringo
Before I left for Easter Island, I was charged by one of my work gigs with doing some research (and writing) on the island. This was nearly a first for me. I am the person who managed to go to Milan and failed to see the Last Supper because I simply didn't know it was there. And you'd think I'd have learned my lesson from this tiny snafu, but I have not. I continue to go places without exactly honing in on details before landing. For the most part, it works out.
But I knew more than a smidgen about Easter Island. I had even sort of vaguely plotted out a bikeride before leaving the continent (that's what they call continental Chile, the continent, or even "conti" which makes it sound like we all live in the village of Constanza, for which Conti is also a nickname. I had learned the names of the four volcanoes, and could even name several of the platforms on which the moai stand, and had planned to go horsebackriding and even scubadiving. I had looked at pictures of the two major clubs/discos on the island (Toroko and Topa Tangi), and I had hoped to go to both of them (and I did).
But one of the things I asked myself, which has a whole lot to do with language, which Pam has identified as one of the things I blog about the most (which was confusing at first, because I thought it was culture, but then I realized she was correct, and also a very good houseguest), and which I could find no trace of, in written or online sources is whether or not there would be any hanga roas in Hanga Roa.
A hanga roa is what we (on the Chilean continent) call the vertical sliding shades comprised of strips of bamboo or other thin wood woven together with brown string. They run on metal tracks off of small plastic bobbins, and you pull them across a doorway or balcony to keep the sun out. It took me a while to catch on to the name, and then I classed it together in my mind with salsa americana (american sauce, a bit like pickled cabbage and carrots, not to be confused with chucrut, which is sauerkraut), or cocina americana (literally: American-style kitchen, meaning an open plan kitchen)
I always like to have a secret mission behind the mission at hand (a week of vacation!), and it was to see if there were any hanga roas (see explanation) in Hanga Roa, which is the main town of Easter Island.
And I looked near the horses (the ones in town, there were horses pretty much everywhere):
And down the main street:
And at the stop sign near the library:
But I never saw a hanga roa. Maybe it's like this sign for jabón gringo (gringo soap), which I've never seen before either. A misnomer by any other name would be as sweet-smelling and/or shady.
But I knew more than a smidgen about Easter Island. I had even sort of vaguely plotted out a bikeride before leaving the continent (that's what they call continental Chile, the continent, or even "conti" which makes it sound like we all live in the village of Constanza, for which Conti is also a nickname. I had learned the names of the four volcanoes, and could even name several of the platforms on which the moai stand, and had planned to go horsebackriding and even scubadiving. I had looked at pictures of the two major clubs/discos on the island (Toroko and Topa Tangi), and I had hoped to go to both of them (and I did).
But one of the things I asked myself, which has a whole lot to do with language, which Pam has identified as one of the things I blog about the most (which was confusing at first, because I thought it was culture, but then I realized she was correct, and also a very good houseguest), and which I could find no trace of, in written or online sources is whether or not there would be any hanga roas in Hanga Roa.
A hanga roa is what we (on the Chilean continent) call the vertical sliding shades comprised of strips of bamboo or other thin wood woven together with brown string. They run on metal tracks off of small plastic bobbins, and you pull them across a doorway or balcony to keep the sun out. It took me a while to catch on to the name, and then I classed it together in my mind with salsa americana (american sauce, a bit like pickled cabbage and carrots, not to be confused with chucrut, which is sauerkraut), or cocina americana (literally: American-style kitchen, meaning an open plan kitchen)
I always like to have a secret mission behind the mission at hand (a week of vacation!), and it was to see if there were any hanga roas (see explanation) in Hanga Roa, which is the main town of Easter Island.
And I looked near the horses (the ones in town, there were horses pretty much everywhere):
And down the main street:
And at the stop sign near the library:
But I never saw a hanga roa. Maybe it's like this sign for jabón gringo (gringo soap), which I've never seen before either. A misnomer by any other name would be as sweet-smelling and/or shady.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Food and Drink Nostalgia, Chilean Style: Sorbete Letelier
In an apparently Chilean tradition of basing hypersweet drinks on the flavor of dried fruit (see: Mote con Huesillo), there's a soda in Chile based on the flavor of dried cherries. And not just any dried cherries, but guindas. Guindas are sour cherries, and when dried, they wrinkle around the pit and become leathery. When reconstituted, they get that "fat raisin" texture I associate with my mother's noodle kugel or Ecuadorean quimbolitos (cakes cooked in corn husks).
So what's the soda? Sorbete Letelier. It looks like this (photo with an iphone I recently was told was "a relic" so pardon the quality).
What's so interesting about Sorbete Letelier is not necessarily that it tastes like your Cherry Coke married a Dr. Pepper and the spawn had a genetic anomaly that made the Cola taste as well as the kick of the pepper disappear and the sugar content double.
What's great about this drink is that it was here, and then it was gone. And when it came back, there was great rejoicing. From what I hear, I'm new here, myself. The beverage is originally from Talca, a city I admit not to knowing, but which I'm going to get to know pretty soon, I hope. S.L. was introduced in probably about the 1920s for local production, Castel bottling took over its production in 1958 and then pulled it from the market due to production problems in 1985. It returned to the market in 1997. It's still not available everywhere, and when it shows up, there's an occiasional rush of "tienen sorbete letelier!" (They have sorbete letelier!) and accompanying coin-digging-outage. I've yet to see anyone drink an entire one, but that might just be because everyone all around is wondering if they'll get a rush of nostalgia at taking a sip.
The reconstituted dried cherry in each bottle obviously goes to the person who bought the drink. I don't think this is the equivalent of who gets the worm in the tequila bottle, but I couldn't be sure, having never tried either. The expression for artificially-flavored sodas in Chile is "bebida de fantasía." Which still doesn't explain why Bilz tastes like bubblegum, but at least there's no gum inside.
See here for the drink's official website: Sorbete Letelier, and here for Urbatorium's writeup of the drink (in Spanish, with original label pictured). Dates supplied by above websites.
So what's the soda? Sorbete Letelier. It looks like this (photo with an iphone I recently was told was "a relic" so pardon the quality).
What's so interesting about Sorbete Letelier is not necessarily that it tastes like your Cherry Coke married a Dr. Pepper and the spawn had a genetic anomaly that made the Cola taste as well as the kick of the pepper disappear and the sugar content double.
What's great about this drink is that it was here, and then it was gone. And when it came back, there was great rejoicing. From what I hear, I'm new here, myself. The beverage is originally from Talca, a city I admit not to knowing, but which I'm going to get to know pretty soon, I hope. S.L. was introduced in probably about the 1920s for local production, Castel bottling took over its production in 1958 and then pulled it from the market due to production problems in 1985. It returned to the market in 1997. It's still not available everywhere, and when it shows up, there's an occiasional rush of "tienen sorbete letelier!" (They have sorbete letelier!) and accompanying coin-digging-outage. I've yet to see anyone drink an entire one, but that might just be because everyone all around is wondering if they'll get a rush of nostalgia at taking a sip.
The reconstituted dried cherry in each bottle obviously goes to the person who bought the drink. I don't think this is the equivalent of who gets the worm in the tequila bottle, but I couldn't be sure, having never tried either. The expression for artificially-flavored sodas in Chile is "bebida de fantasía." Which still doesn't explain why Bilz tastes like bubblegum, but at least there's no gum inside.
See here for the drink's official website: Sorbete Letelier, and here for Urbatorium's writeup of the drink (in Spanish, with original label pictured). Dates supplied by above websites.
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