La Comida

I just got home from grocery shopping with Ma. Terésa and Irma. Whew. Ma. Terésa was shopping for the house, while Irma helped me shop for us girls. Irma is going to cook for us a few times a week! (so we don't always eat easy prepared foods). Up till now we've been making it pretty well on our own, buying soups, fruits, pasta,sandwich stuff, and TONS of frozen empanadas (and lots of alfajores too - basically chocolate soft sandwich cookies with dulce de leche in the middle. They're my favorite sweet from Chile and Argentina!). But with Irma's help, we'll get to try more typical Chilean foods, not to mention eat healthier in general. She is a saint! We must have looked so funny today in the store - two tiny chilean women and a tall gringa, with three carts of groceries!

There are so many random little differences in how they sell food here. For example, condiments. First of all, mayonaise is the number one, they eat it on everything, and lots of it. And all the mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard come in bags, not bottles. Same for yogurt and jellies - they come in little plastic bags! Oh, and the milk comes in cardboard boxes with spouts, like Chicken broth or Ricedream in the states, and it's never in the refrigerated aisle.

In Lider, the grocery store closest, they have an "international" aisle. The "United States" section was pretty pathetic...among other random things, they had peanut butter, bottled condiments and organic pre-made spagetti sauces. Hilarious!

At lunchtime at the university, especially on sunny days, the lawns are completely full of students sitting and eating. Lots of people bring tupperwares with homecooked meals, usually made by their mothers and nanas - they have no idea how good they have it! But we have a pretty good choice of cafeterias with good hot meals (especially in comparison to Jester or Kinsolving back at UT). You can buy premade sandwiches too. I really like the veggie ones, they put corn on them! There is also a place called "Doggie's" that has delicious hot dogs totally covered in avocado! That's how they eat them here, with palta (avocado), diced tomatoes and a huge squeeze of mayonnaise. Actually they put palta on everything. When you order a sandwich, salad, or anything with palta, they put like a whole avocado, or more. And for breakfast it's totally normal to serve avocado slices with slices of meat and cheese for your toast. There's no way I'll be able to enjoy this much avocado in the states, it's so much more expensive there!