Mucho mas comida

Thought an update on what we've been eating might be welcome...

At yesterday's dinner, Sonia made two different kinds of quiche-like dishes (I'm not sure of the Spanish name) and assembled a big platter of salad. The blue pitcher you see is chillled bottled water, and the large bottle on the right was a dark beer, Patricia. There are only three brands of beer made in Uruguay - Zillertal, Pilsen, and Patricia.

The quiches had a typical filling of primarily eggs, but the crust was different than traditional pastry; it was more like a biscuit dough.

The zucchini dish was fantastic. The other was ham, and it was good, too, but for some reason the flavors in the zucchini quiche were awesome.

Whenever we've had a salad, they are presented in a similar way. Ingredients are presented separately, never tossed together. The lettuce is always shredded. This night, we had lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and hearts of palm. I've never had those before, but they are really good, and very tasty in a salad. On the table, Sonia placed a small platter of olive oil and balsamic vinegar carafes, with which we dressed our salads.

Today was the first day we were at La Corona for lunch. On our other days here, Sonia packs us a lunch complete with silverware, napkins, bottled water, and plenty of food. I think we've brought back food each day because there was too much to eat in one sitting. In the field, she's packed us sandwiches with breaded, fried meat (sandwich milanese) in them and also some fruit, she's assembled a rice dish that included tuna and corn (which was oddly tasty), and yesterday she packed us breaded, fried spinach patties and ham sandwiches.

Their sandwiches typically just contain a meat and cheese, or in yesterday's case, just meat. No condiments. The sandwich milanese had lettuce and tomato as well, and it was pretty fantastic (and much better than the attemped lunch at the gas station on the way up to La Corona our first day).

Today's lunch was at La Corona. We installed half the plots at our second site in the morning, and came back for lunch before heading back out to finish. We had planned to take a lunch out in the field with us, but Sonia had left for the weekend, and there was some miscommunication on one of our parts about whether or not to prepare a lunch for us ahead of time. We left a note that we'd be back around 1, and hoped for the best.

As a contingency plan, I quickly raided the cupboard and fridge in the kitchen and figured we could make a lunch out of pasta or rice, and the veggies and milk that were around, if we needed to.

When we came back to La Corona for lunch, we were in luck. The man taking over for Sonia while she's staying in Tacuarembo, who we assume is her husband, and may or may not be named Quique, is great. For lunch, he fixed us hamburguesas, complete with condiment dishes of mayonnaise and ketchup. He then went back into the kitchen and returned with two small plates of french fries. If that weren't enough (and not quite American enough), he brought us a dessert of neopolitan ice cream and a large rolled wafer stuck in each scoop. It took a lot of willpower to return to work after that, and not just nap away the afternoon.

Tonight, he cooked another good meal. This was more modest than some of the other's that Sonia has prepared, but no one is complaining here. We had thin cutlets of chicken, seasoned with herbs and pan fried. They were served with mashed potatoes. I missed the veggies a little at this meal, but I figure between the salad at lunch and the veggie-centric meal we had last night with the quiches and salad, I'm probably still doing okay.

Every dinner seems to be served with baskets of bread. Because of the humidity, it's common practice to serve things that don't dry out as fast as a loaf of bread. Instead, these are made as a cross between bread and a cracker. To the right, these little squares bake up into small towers of layers of dough. You can peel them apart and eat them separately. The crackers on the left are more what we're used to.

Dessert again. At first we thought that every dinner comes with a dessert, but after lunch we realized that every meal (except breakfast) is follwed with something sweet. Tonight it was arroz con leche, which was awesome. It's a traditional dessert in Uruguay, especially in the countryside. He gave us a taste of it before dinner to make sure we liked it. When it came time for dessert he asked us if we preferred the arroz con leche or ice cream. I'm not one to pass down the local delicacy...

This dessert is like a very thin rice pudding. It's mostly cooked milk with a little bit of rice in it, and sweetened. He suggested we top our bowls with a few shakes of ground cinnamon, which really made it taste great.

Stuffed, and tired from the sun and humidity, I'm off. Buen noche...