Currying Flavor

So the Chilean diet has some quirks. Or maybe it has absolutely no quirks at all. The food here is definitely not bad. But it's certainly different and not in a particularly exciting way. I like the two national street foods: giant, calzone-like empanadas and completos, which are hot dogs covered in avocado, tomato and mayonnaise. But generally the intensity of flavor around here is pretty low. Culinarily, the most exciting thing is being able to buy a kilogram of strawberries and two perfect avocados for about two dollars. Many can attest to my abiding love for strawberry-avocado salads, but like anything, one gets sick of them after a while. Especially when one is consuming strawberries by the kilo to avoid spoilage.

So today I decided to branch out a bit and make a curry. I wouldn't say that curry is a staple of my repertoire, but I feel comfortable making it. The nice thing about curry is you can make it with anything as long as you can find curry powder (or paste, but they don't even have milk in the refrigerated section of the grocery store here). When I began my adventure I wasn't sure I'd be able to find the powder. But sure enough, it was on the shelf in the international section of the grocery store, tucked behind some soy sauce. I also bought the brownest looking rice (it was not actually brown rice), some chicken legs (easy) and a can of what I thought was coconut milk. It was actually coconut cream, unfortunately. Which turned out to be really delicious and I ate some spread on a piece of bread as dessert.

Veggies were of course no problem. Cauliflower, strangely awesome potatoes, carrots, peppers... my roommate even had a ginger root stashed in the freezer she let me use (thanks, Nike!). So the curry was coming along nicely. My other roommate demonstrated the completely foreign can opener (thanks, Rodrigo!- It actually seems to just be a blade you use to cut open cans). I sort of just added gobs of coconut cream and lots of water where I would normally use coconut milk. And honestly it wasn't bad. The curry powder had a nice kick. It was definitely better than the curry powder I bought from the bodega on fourth avenue in Park Slope. All in all, I think I'll be able to figure out how to approximate all the varieties of foods I have been missing. Maybe next I'll try chili. Because puns make things more delicious.

Computer Hell

So maybe you remember two weeks ago when my computer was in mortal peril, threatened by some malignant and all-consuming disk error? After performing three hours of symbolic surgery I thought our problems were over. How naive! The freezing, stalling, restarting cycle has continued. Today the disk utility said:

Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid sibling link
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair

Terrible! "Invalid," "failure" and "repair" all seem like the sorts of things you don't want your disks to do or need. Greg and Brian (and Brian's girlfriend Marissa) are all very knowledgeable computer types and they saw the way my computer was working during my lunch shift at Aroma today and said it was absolutely super serious. So now I am on a fifteen minute wait line with Apple Care Support services since going to the Apple Store on a Friday during the holiday shopping season would be like entering the gates of hell. I am pretty sure this is going to end with my needing to send poor little computer to California for intensive Apple Care.

In some ways I guess this is perfect timing, the last day of my month long pledge to post everyday. I don't think such a commitment would be possible without a personal computer. But I really had planned to continue. Because eventhough no one ever really comments or particularly reads what I write, I really like it. Even though it's something so small, creating a product (a post in my case) everyday is very fulfilling. So come back, dear readers! Once this crazy computer problem is fixed it should be an awesome December on Eating Pie Elsewhere.

Monday Cooking Diary, pt. 2: Glorious Kale!

So my kale recipe? Was fucking phenomenal! I mean, not to toot my own horn but, Jessica Seinfeld take note, this is how to make people eat vegetables. I did modify the recipe a little as per the very helpful message board. I used more curry and a combo of low sodium chicken broth and some very old apple cider that was languishing at the back of the fridge (apparently it's better for cooking that way!). Also the seven hours in the slow cooker makes for some crazy tender beef. I wish that the broth was thicker and the flavor of the parsnips had come through more, but other than that I felt pretty good about the meal.
So anyone have ideas for what I should try to cook next? I need an eggplant-free meat dish to bring to the Pot Luck Club (the name is an extremely subtly play on the title of the Amy Tan novel) on Sunday and then dinner for the boys on Monday. So let me know. What's delicious? I'm up for a challenge. Cause if I fail, you know I can just write a better blog entry about it.