Contemporary Art and Contemporary Food

These dogs continue inside

Santiago, February 5, 2014

We depart for Valporaiso today at noon.   We look back on our five days in Santiago with pleasure.  We have enjoyed this capital and seen most of the tourist sights and parts that are unknown to most tourists.

Art Museum

Vitacura, Tim’s neighborhood, is very upscale and could be in any city with a climate like this.  In many ways it has reminded us of the upscale suburbs of Los Angeles or parts of the Peninsula south of San Franscico with its well-trimmed gated homes and sprawl.   Vitacura also has a good collection of restaurants and excellent transport to other parts of the city.

Yesterday we headed downtown to the Bellavista area of town to the central park, home to the National Museum of Art and the Contemporary Art Musuem.  We spent a while in the Contemporary Art Museum at a show called Trasnochada, which we couldn’t translate, but assume to be something about the art that underground artists produced during the Dictatorship from 1973 to 1980.   One piece that John found astounding was a collection of toys, from Lego to Bibindum, the Michelin Man, all laid out on a plank, marching forward, and all with masks on their faces—to remain unknown.   

We lunched at Wonderful Cafe, Ben getting his XXdry skim cappuccino to go with his bowl of assai and yoghurt (assai=açai, a fruit).  He enjoyed it while John enjoyed his Montreal bagel with excellent lox, cream cheese, onion, tomato and capers.  

Back at Tim’s home, we rested around the pool for a couple of hours, did some reading and then headed out to dinner at Miraolas, one of the city’s best fish restaurants, about a ten minute walk from here.   None of the waiters spoke English, and we were the only English speaking people in the room, as far as we could make out.   They did have menus in English, though.

Razor Clams

John enjoyed a national cocktail, the pisco sour to begin.  It’s excellent.   Then we got a lovely sauvignon gris from Leyda Winery to go with the shrimp John ordered and the sweet tiny razor clams Ben chose.  These were completely unlike the razor clams on the US East Coast.  They were rounded, not straight edged.  Very sweet, and served with a mozzarella cheese melt.

Main courses were reineta for Ben, which is hake we think, served with  a concasse of tomatoes, garlic and oil.  John had sea bass txerliche, which is a Basque dish of grilled bass with a sauce of squid and squid ink.   Very mild, very soft on the palate.   

And then home to bed.

Hills and Wines

 Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Yesterday was wine day.   We ate fabulous food and tasted seven Chilean wines varying from two sparklers to pinot noir, and three whites, two sauvignon blancs and a chardonnay.   We finished with a carmenère.  

So to begin,  we met our host’s friend Danilo at the house and walked from there to the Mestizo restaurant where we had tried to eat on Sunday in Parc Bicentario.  We sat on the terrace overlooking the hills of the park, golden like the hills around Los Angeles, and even saw some of the local pink flamingoes…apparently they are pink from the grubs they eat in the ponds where they live.  There is a group of glider enthusiasts who use the hills as well.  We watched them towed around by a prop plane before they took off in the vectors.

Lunch started with a sauvignon blanc from the Amayna Vineyard near Santiago.  Excellent.  Not so dry and tart as a Marlborough New Zealand or a Sancerre from the Loire, but very nice.   The second, which we did not write down, was pleasant but fuller, more in the style of an Italian chardonnay.   Lunch—well, we started with three tapas size plates.  Grilled octopus on a bed of thinly sliced potatoes with salad; loco, a local form of abalone, with light lettuces and very small cubes of boiled potatoes; and Chilean empanadas, two of spicy ground meat and two of light almost runny cheese.   After this we had three salads—with varying toppings.  John’s was shrimp and squid tempura style, Ben’s was covered with sliced ahi tuna and  Danilo’s had sliced salmon and salmon croquettes.  

After this filling lunch, we headed off to Cerro San Cristobal, a large hill rising about 300 meters from the city floor—the floor is about almost 600 meters above sea level…that means were were about 3200 feet up—enough to make ears pop at the top of the hill.  The views of the Andes, as well as the city, at that altitude are grander than any we have seen before.  As the Andes range in the distance, you can almost feel the glaciers melt.  Haze from the summer dust gives them an ethereal atmosphere of blotches of white—the glaciers—to the golden brown of the dry hills all softly defined by the summer air.  Not crisp but fine.

After our day in the park, climbing almost to the Virgin Mary who stands atop the hill with her arms open to all, we hopped in a rush hour taxi for the cheap (taxis are very cheap here) ride to the house. The incline railway (funicular or ascensore depending on your language) was unfortunately inoperative. We also overdosed on sugar, almost diabetic shock, with a mote—this is apricot juice over a dried apricot, often served with cereal in the bottom of the glass and eaten with a spoon.  Without the cereal a really sweet treat, with we think we could do without.

As the evening began we took the bus and then the metro down to Barrio Lastarria to the Bocanariz (Mouth and Nose) wine restaurant for dinner.   Lastarria is a pretty street of restaurants and strollers, said to be one of the “in” barrios of the city, where we had walked on Friday.   Our host Tim is friendly with the Bocanariz owners and arranged for a table for us right next to the sidewalk just inside the restaurant.  The interior walls are covered with wine lists and corkscrews!  The wine list is huge at 362 altogether, ranging from inexpensive flights of wine to bottles in the cellar that range up to 800,000 Chilean pesos (about USD 1,500)!  We saw them after dinner in a tour of the cellar.

Dinner started with two tapas, one of salmon roe with guacamole.  The roe was served on a cornet of crisped egg roll wrapper with creme fraîche in the point under the roe.  Very light and very nice.  John may well make this at home.  The other tapa was a small plate of Chilean oysters.  These are very sweet but they are tiny, no more than 2.5 cm or 1 inch diameter.  Rather than scream as you eat them, they are so small they only make a slight squeak.

The mains were shell pasta stuffed with pignolis and various vegetables for Ben.  The dish was light, but it had a creamy sauce that made it very substantial in taste.  John had conger eel on a bed of mushrooms, artichoke bottoms, little boiled potatoes and sliced miniature zucchini in a short broth.   Very tasty.   The eel had been grilled.  Small potatoes are ubiquitous here.  

The Chilean wines were very interesting, all very fine, but some of them quite different from what we expected.   We accompanied our tapas with two sparkling wines, a rosé and, the second, a mix of pinot noir and chardonnay.  We preferred the mix, though the rosé was lovely.   Sweeter than John expected, and not so dry as the sparkler Tim served us on Friday night.  The second set were a pinot noir, which they serve cold here, and a chardonnay.   The pinot noir was lovely.  It had a very nice nose, quite full in flavor, and just what Ben wanted.  John’s chardonnay was excellent too.  Since Chile’s signature wine is carmenère we thought we should finish off with one, but the sommelier didn’t speak too highly of the varietal and only had three in the cellar.  One she described as light, the second as rather sweet and the third full in the style of a shiraz.  We had the third which we enjoyed, but I look forward to trying more in Valpo.

We head off to Valpo a day early tomorrow morning and return to Santiago on Saturday before heading down south to Punta Arenas on Sunday.  This will reduce hassling transfers on Sunday morning and give us a chance to enjoy lunch on Saturday in Valpo with friend Tim and then another fine night in Santiago before we leave.

And now to the Museum of Contemporary Art….

Vitacura

Bernardo O'Higgins, Founding Father

Municipal Center of Vitacura

Skyline of Santiago, Providencia

Monday,  February 3, 2014

We head off around the city with our host’s friend Danilo this afternoon.   This morning we enjoy a bit of quiet.  Yesterday, though, was rather busy with a trip to San Miguel, a working class suburb south of the city.   That was where the woman who found my passports works.  When we arrived she sweetly produced them and did not want the reward for finding them.   John pressed her and she accepted.   She is in her mid-20s and very pleasant.   An hour to get there, two minutes in the huge El Lider grocery store that felt like Wal-mart.  

San Miguel and environs are definitely the other side of Chile.  Not poor, but not well-off.  Much like the less wealthy parts of the US, but more extensive, miles and miles and miles.  And since Chile doesn’t get rain, to speak of, during the summer months, dusty and harsh.

Not the same in Viticura.   We spent a good bit of the afternoon exploring the Parc Bicentario near Tim’s home.  It’s a grand expanse of riverfront, really an arroyo, with no water in it, well planted with indigenous and imported flowers and bushes.  And a grand view of the Andes.

It’s also a statuary center.  We found the statue of Bernardo O’Higgins, one of the founding fathers of Chile, and several other war heroes.  The interesting municipal building, a three sided triangle was quite unique.

Andes from Park Bicentario

Red, black-necked Swan and green billed duck

Two Busy Days in Santiago

Friday, January 31, 2014

Welcome to Chile.  After a totally ordinary flight from DC to Miami and then from Miami to Santiago, it was an easy landing, easy immigration and no problems traveling into this country of 17 million people, six million of whom live in metro Santiago.   Our driver took us the long way around to get to our friend, Tim’s home in Viticura, one of the city’s poshest neighborhoods. Since he is a diplomat, what would we expect!  And his driver knew all the places to see on the way!

We passed all the major downtown sights, the Presidential palace and the various national galleries, as Nelson pointed some of the places and events dating back to the Pinochet dictatorship, now fortunately long gone.

At first glance Santiago is a rather ordinary city of not much great architecture.  But after two days here we begin to realize that it has some very charming sections and all of it doesn’t look like a combination of Los Angeles and Denver with its mountain backdrop.  The Andes are very grand, but there is no snow on them at this time of year.  

Tim's Garden and the Andes

Our first day, yesterday, after a quick breakfast at our friend’s home, we went off to find pesos and go exploring.   We walked to the nearest bank and then decided it was such a lovely day we’d enjoy the walk, about a mile, to the nearest metro station.  We passed the Escuala Militar which we learned is the home of the last Prussian trained military in the world, whose graduates included Dictator Pinochet among others.  They still wears Prussian style helmets (which we did not see.)

Grand Old Station

From there we bought our BIP cards, similar to Washington’ s SmartTrp cards, and headed off to the rubber-tired Line 1 for our trip downtown to do a self-guided walking tour.  We started at the old 19th century railway station, from the days when Chile had a very active functioning train system.  Now it’s an art center but it still has the gorgeous steel work of a 120 year old station, designed in France and then assembled in Chile.  After that a quick walk through the Eiffel designed city market, now a disappointing collection of fish markets, and then strolling through the crowded pedestrian walking streets to the Plaza de Armas.   

Santiago Cathedral Altar

This plaza is the oldest in Chile and site of the huge cathedral, now restored and rebuilt, as many older churches are not, after the 2010 earthquake that rattled Santiago and destroyed many freeways in the southern city of Concepcion.  The cathedral is really quite grand in a very typical Spanish Roman Catholic colonial style, with lots of g gilt and saintly statues. 

Lassataria

Since the Plaza itself is closed for renovations we walked along the arcades of hot dog sellers (one is supposed to eat a “Cpmpleto” which we have yet to do).  From there we wandered up Ave Merced to a clothes shop Ben had read about in the NY Times and a lunch at Emporip Rosas, an ice cream shop with good sandwiches.   We can very much recommend their passion fruit with black pepper sherbet and their mint with thai basil ice cream.  MMMM.  

After lunch Ben tried to find a pair of shoes at the Times-recommended store, to no luck,  We then headed to Lastarria, a street of wine shops and fine restaurants to saunter on the way home,   Some time during the afternoon walk, or on the metro, John got his bag picked, losing his folder with passports, money and business cards,  (He dd not realize his loss till this morning—Saturday—and had panicky calls to the American Embassy, etc,  However, while coffee-ing at Starbucks, he received an email from an angel to say she had found the passports and some papers, and that would we contact her to pick them up!   We will do this tomorrow.  What a wonderful baker—she works in a Lider supermarket about an hour from here on the Metro.  Rewards!  Of course, the money is gone.)

Yesterday night we had a wonderful evening outside on the terrace, watching the sun turn the Andes pink and enjoying an excellent Immobile rosé sparking Chilean wine with Chilean style hamburgers, salad grown in the garden and pequin pickles, a slightly spicy Chilean relish of chili peppers, cucumbers and cilantro freshly made.   Dessert—made by Sonia, the housekeeper from a German style kuchen recipe from the southern Chilean provinces settled by many Germans.   

Much good conversation and an early night.

Saturday, February 1

After good coffee we headed off to lunch with Tim’s friend Cata, a senior administrator to the Minister at the cultural affairs department here in Santiago.   She lives in a restored house in Barrio Yungay, one of the first barrios of Santiago, full of old, and somewhat dilapidated homes from the early 19th century—in some ways reminiscent of the French Quarter in New Orleans where it has NOT been gentrified.

Lunch and Huge Sandwiches

First we lunched a typical Santiago sandwich shop, the Fuente Mardoqueo, at Liberdad 551.  The restaurant is quite well-known to Santiagoans, but not many, if any, tourists.   The inside walls are full of historical items like radios, typewriters, electric meters, and such attached the walls.   The sandwiches are huge.  John had a pork sandwich, about eight inches (20 cm) across with mayo, pepinillo relish and tomatoes with a Kunstmann beer with honey (not to his taste).  He couldn’t finish the sandwich.   Ben, who had a similar sandwich with chicken, managed a good bit of his, but also couldn’t finish it.   It’s a real treat of a place:  you order when you go in and then the sandwich is given to you and you find a seat at one of many long tables.  You pay at the cashier by the front door when you leave.

Wall Mural in Yungay

Earthquake Damage

Wood Interior

From there we toured the Yungay and Brazil barrios with their huge number of very old homes, buildings, factories and churches.   The area was fashionable till about the First World War and many of the homes, somewhat in disrepair, are grand.   Cata made sure we saw the whole area with its two plazas (Yungay and Brazil), and its huge population of Peruvian immigrants.  The wall murals range from extravagant art to ordinary graffiti.  Some of the churches and buildings were severely damaged in the 2010 earthquake and one lovely church is still closed.  Others, like the Capuchin church, with its memorial to Pi Pio, a monk who was reported to have stigmata like Christ and capable of miracles, was in great repair.  Made entirely of wood, it has faux marble paintings inside on the interior supporting columns.   Cata arranged for us to see the inside though the church is generally kept locked to keep out thieves.

With the two hour tour coming to an end, we jumped into the car and headed home.  We stopped for bread for our hot dogs and a magnificent Austrian chocolate cake.  A quick swim, and the dinner with several of Tim’s friends, Cata included.  Jose-Carlos, a Spaniard, Danilo, a chef, Christian, a businessman like Jose-Carlos, Tim and us.   Lots of fun conversation and a great time.   Dinner was salad from the garden, grilled chicken breasts marinated in orange and spices, and sausages.  At home Chilean food is not generally highly spiced, mostly simple grilles and roasts.   Roasted potatoes are the norm.  Not into bed till 1:30 AM.

Off to Chile and Argentina later this week

It’s been something of a drought for us as far as travel is concerned in the past few months since our September post.   We had an excellent week in Massachusetts in late November, but since then we have stayed close to home…in fact hardly venturing off Capitol Hill except for nights at the theater and one or two holiday parties.  But now we are in the last few days before a major trip to South America.

We’re off to visit a friend in Santiago, spending five days there, then a few days in Valparaiso, a flight to Tierra de Fuego in Chile’s deep south for a cruise through the Straits of Magellan, and then a flight up the eastern shore of Argentina for a week in Buenos Aires.  I am also rooting for a quick day trip by hydrofoil across the River Plate to Uruguay, but we will see.

We have a dose of cold feet with the money situation in Argentina, though undoubtedly our U.S. dollars will go further than they would have a few months ago, as the peso devalues.   We have plans for a lovely dinner at a private supper club in Buenos Aires, and Ben has plans for tango lessons. 

John plans to ride the oldest trolley busses in use in the world in Valparaiso and use the funiculars there (that’s what they call their inclines up the hills.)  We expect to do a tour of the nearby Andes in Santiago and browse that city and Valparaiso till our feet give out.  We will keep you informed and post pictures as we undertake this trip in terra incognita to us.

Pittsburgh

We both have spent a lot of our lives in Pittsburgh.   Ben was born there and John lived there for several years about 30 years ago working for WPXI-TV.  We have been there regularly since then, once a month for many years to see our folks and more lately once or twice a year for family activities and seeing friends.  In 30 years the city has changed dramatically.  While Ben went to lunch with his friend Russell, John went exploring.

He took the Busway downtown (since over 65s travel for free in Pennsylvania and who wants to hassle with parking!).   The Busway was under construction when he arrived in 1980.   At Penn Station, he got off to start a walking tour of downtown.   Penn Station was derelict in 1980, now it's an upscale condo.   The new bus station across the street takes the place of a dank smelly old Greyhound terminal on the same spot, torn down about 20 years ago.   He crossed Grant Street, shadowed now by the UPMC Building, formerly the US Steel Building, and down Liberty Avenue, scene of many a gay evening 30 years ago.  Liberty Avenue now houses lofts and theaters, parks and restaurants, and the August Wilson Center, named after the playwright who grew up in the Hill District.

Liberty Avenue still has a bit of a raw edge at some parts, but it is changing dramatically, and after a turn toward the Allegheny through streets lined with buildings that were crumbling 30 years ago and are now totally restored and grander than when they were built, he arrived at the 9th Street Bridge.  Now it's the Andy Warhol Bridge and leads to the Warhol Museum on the North Side.  The 6th and7th Street Bridges are also renamed--Roberto Clemente Bridge and Rachel Carson Bridge.  What's special at the moment is the Warhol Bridge, nicknamed for three weeks the "Knit Bridge."   The bridge towers are covered with fabric and the pedestrian walkways are lined with knitted panels, all individually done, in a variety of colors, patterns and designs.  It's a three week show sponsored by the Warhol Musuem, and surely enlivens downtown's street scape.

After walking over the Allegheny and back, he ventured into Market Square, near the Point, he passed some kids, and some child-like adults, playing in the water fountains in front of the PPG Building, the crystal like edifice that houses one of Pittsburgh's oldest companies.   A quick T trip under the river to test the new tunnel out to PNC Stadium and Heinz Field, and then over to the South Side to take the incline up to Mount Washington to see the view and then lunch at the Micro Diner on Shiloh Street.  The view from Mount Washington is incredible and gives Pittsburghers and tourists that "wow" sensation of overlooking the Point, the three rivers, Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio, and the distant countryside ribbed with hills.

We had gone to Pittsburgh, of course, to see family and friends and had two lovely evenings at home in Edgewood with friends, and then a night out at Legume, on North Craig Street, a lovely restaurant that had moved several years ago from its start-up site in Regent Square, where we had eaten.  It has changed, but clearly for the better.  It's in the space where we used to hold Ben's mother's and dad's birthday and anniversary parties, but it sure doesn't look like the old Moré's anymore.

The other reason to visit was to go to a distant cousin's wedding.  Held at the Arts and Crafts Center in Mellon Park, about a mile from where we used to live in Squirrel Hill, the ceremony was lovely.   It was preceded by a rehearsal dinner the night before at Soba Lounge in Shadyside, one of Pittsburgh's superb restaurants, an Asian fusion place with a very good bar, and then followed by the reception at J Verno's studio on the South Side---a venue for celebrations.   Since the groom works for the Big Burrito Group, owner of Soba Lounge and Eleven, the food was exquisite and seemingly never ending--from shrimp to veggies  to cheeses to meats to fish to nibbles to champagne, and then dancing.  It was superb.  We wish Samantha and Josh a life as wonderful as their wedding.

Here are some pictures of the walking tour John took...on a beautiful day.

July and August--The Beach and New England

We had a short trip to Asbury Park on one of the hottest weekends of July, the 19th through the 22nd,  to see friends.  Great to see friends but it was so hot we only made it to the beach one afternoon for a couple of hours, danced around to cool off in the waves, and had ice cream on the Boardwalk. 

Even though it was the Asbury Park Circuit Party weekend, with lots of eye candy around--though mostly tattooed to excess--we didn’t venture out to a disco or club.  Just too hot.  We read, watched movies and generally conversed with our friends, whom we regrettably see only once or twice a year.

We had one fun dinner at a down-home Italian restaurant, Vic’s, south of Asbury Park in  Bradley Beach.  Excellent pizza.

We did our normal slow run home, even wandering around Cherry Hill looking for the local H Mart Korean Market.  We eventually found it, about two mile in the wrong direction from where the maps said it was!  

Our next trip was north to Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts to see family and friends.   We didn’t eat out or visit anywhere in Fairfield, Connecticut, except for falafel at Layla’s on Black Rock Turnpike.  The Fairfield Town Museum, showing an excellent collection of photographs and a small collection of clothes from the Revolution to World War I, was a good way to spend a rainy afternoon.  The weather was fabulous and the sunset---well:

From there we traveled north to Providence to stop by the Rhode Island School of Design Museum’s show on the The Dandy, which was excellent.  It had been well written up in the Wall Street Journal and several other publications so it became a must.  We only had two hours but could have spent longer looking over the development of high Dandy style from the days of Beau Brummell during the reign of George IV through recent Dandies, including both the late Fred Astaire and George V.  Cartoons, swatches of cloth, designs, and models were very interesting.A quick run around Providence, looking at old sites from John’s childhood, including the old office building where his dad sometimes worked now acquired and being remodeled by RISD, and lunch from a food truck on the banks of the river, which was a slum part of town 60 years ago, now totally changed.  Who would have ever thought there would be gondolas on the Providence River.

Further south we spent four days with friends from New Orleans who rent a house in Tiverton every summer.  Great weather, with lows in the high 50F’s and beautiful sunsets.  We enjoyed clams, oysters, lobsters, fish...salads...and some good rum drinks.  And of course martinis for Elaine and John.   No swimming but some good walks through the town of Bristol along Hope Street and coffees at a favorite hole.

We also did a quick day trip to New Bedford for lunch at the Antonio Restaurant, famous for its Portuguese cuisine.  Good paiella, great clams, langostini, and mussels.  Very down home kind of place, but the food is good, the portions enormous and the local accent a strange noise to the ears.

We spent a morning doing a walk through the historic district of Fall River, once a huge cotton town.  Now it’s not much of a place, and the architecture of the historic district can’t compare to Providence or Bristol, which were both ports.  Mostly large late 19th century buildings, built more for show than merit.  The warships are good to see--the old USS Massachusetts from the Second World War, with three others--a destroyer and a sub among them.

We finished off the trip with a day in Arlington, Massachusetts with our grandson.   Lovely way to finish the trip.