La Vega

At the dinner party we went to last week (for which I made the brownies), our Chilean hosts made excellent food. Good meat, tasty dumplings, and great salads. Of particular note were the tomatoes, which were much more flavorful than any tomatoes we had eaten here thus far. It turns out they shop every weekend at the big vegetable market downtown--called La Vega--the same market I went to on a city tour with school way back in September. They confirmed that it's definitely worth it. Now, I feel a little dumb that I haven't been shopping there, since I knew about it all along, but I will contend that the difference between the market and the supermarket was less in September--winter/early spring--than it is now. Regardless, we decided to try to shop there more during our last month in Santiago.

So yesterday we decided to make pasta with fresh tomato sauce for dinner, and I took Taylor to La Vega to buy the tomatoes. We went after an afternoon meeting Taylor had with a government official, so when we arrived the market was closing up and Taylor looked totally out of place in his suit (and hot, both literally and figuratively ;-)). Therefore, the trip was rushed, but we did successfully buy heirloom-looking tomatoes and Taylor was sufficiently impressed with this part of the city he had never seen before. We're definitely going back on the weekend. Oh, and the pasta sauce was good, especially with the fresh basil we planted in our balcony flower box a few weeks ago.

This week and next I am playing tourist in Santiago. Yesterday afternoon I walked around downtown, and this morning I did more of the same, plus I visited a 19th century mansion. The mansion was built and occupied by one of the country's mining/wine/shipping barrons. The inside was filled with original french, italian, and asian fabrics, scuptures, glassware, furniture, etc. Here's a picture of the outside:

Palacio Cousiño

uh oh, I haven't spoken/heard/read enough Spanish today to have a word of the day. Tonight we're going to a despedida=going away party for Alexandra and we will be meeting her Peruvian boyfriend, so maybe I will learn some new words there.