Adventuring en Espanol

(Ushuaia Harbor and the Beagle Channel, named for Darwin's ship)

I’ll be spending the next few months in South America, making my slow way up the western edge of the continent. Which means that I’ll be moving through several varieties of Spanish language (the accents, the idioms) as I go.  

I'm embarrassed to admit that I feel so disoriented among these Spanish-speakers.  By all logic, I shouldn’t, really, given all the Spanish that surrounds me:  our near national neighbors to the south, the fluency of my kids and my brother in the language, Jay’s Puerto Rican origins, and the welcome native speech of B’s lovely AJ.  Moreover, I’ve been to this very location before, when my kids and I hiked around in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia a couple of years ago, though I freely confess that I was completely dependent on E and B for all Spanish-language interactions on that trip.

Moreover, I understand Italian fairly well, and Latin very well, and so you’d think that Spanish would be relatively near to my apprehension. After all, Spanish is a Romance language and near to Italian, but (as my amused and mortified kids can attest) that proximity seems to make Spanish somehow more confusing for me, more brain-stuttering.  Maybe it’s the proximity itself that makes the problem:  When I was down here with the boys in 2023, I would role-play brief ordering scenarios with them before the restaurant waiter came to our table, trying to ingrain the Spanish in my mind.  Then the waiter would come and I would smoothly say, with a nonchalant smile, Per favore, signore, vorrei due empanade di verdure.  I think that my brain just glitches, overwriting the slightly familiar with the more familiar when it runs up against a block—for, now I think about it, I have also requested my bill in Rome thusly: Posso avere il conto nunc?  Adesso is Italian for now; nunc is now in… Latin.  Right location, wrong century.

I’m particularly frustrated by my Spanish-language disorientation because I’ve spent several months in the not-too-distant past navigating through countries where the primary language (Kyrgyz, anyone?, or Uzbek?) was completely opaque to me, and the secondary language (either Russian or Arabic) was too.  Why, then, should this much more familiar language system throw me off so much?  I suppose that no one in Kyrgyzstan had even the slightest expectation that I might be familiar with Kyrgyz, so they were deeply forgiving of my ignorance. With all the Spanish in my vicinity, I really don’t have any excuse for not knowing how to do much more than order dos empanadas badly.  My ignorance in Spanish makes me feel sheepish and self-conscious.  Which probably just intensifies the brain-crashing. 

(Pan de Indio, an edible fungus that grows in Tierra del Fuego trees and bushes)

OOH-shuaia

 Top of the morning to you, from the bottom of the world.

(Ushuaia, Argentina)

Foods of Ireland, butterfat edition

In honor of St. Patrick's Day!....

(Tofu dandan biang biang noodles, Xi'an, Galway)

For the longest time, Ireland could not have been described as a foodie’s paradise, but the farm-to-table movement and the country's generous immigration policy has really made for some exciting and innovative cheffing in these parts.  Galway has become a surprisingly rich food town, cementing its status as my favorite city in Ireland, if not the world.  Dublin does pretty well (though honestly less consistently well than Galway).  And, breaking powerfully with the pre-Euro state of things here, vegan and vegetarian options are ubiquitous.  I mean, none of these people can manage a competent burrito yet, but at least they’ve finally got the ingredients on hand.

(Candied pumpkin, chamomile ice cream, and pepita praline at Glas in Dublin)

I can certainly recommend good restaurants to folks who might at some point be planning a trip to Ireland, but for now let me single out some foods not to miss.  You may notice a common thread.

1.  Dairy.  All forms.  People in the US who are willing to drop extra cash on Kerrygold butter know: there’s something unusual going on in Irish dairy.  It involves grass-fed cattle and a long-time program of breeding to produce milk with natural butterfats surpassing 4%.  I’m telling you: the butter is decadent, the cheese is flavorful, the ice cream—even the cheap soft-serve (or “whipped”) that you can buy in every gas station—is luxuriant, and the milk is rich and creamy and sweet.  I have to run extra miles here to make up for the cream and butter I add to everything, unrepentant.  Check out this amazing milk vending machine from Ennistymon.  Will I refill both my milk and my chocolate milk every other day?  Yes, yes I will, thank you.

2.  Hazel Mountain Chocolates.  So Butler’s is the brand that most folks know from Irish storefronts and supermarkets, with their Atlantic Sea Salt Dark varieties etc.  But I am telling you that this small artisanal chocolatier on the north fringes of the Burren has the whole chocolate-making thing perfected.  They’re bean-to-bar producers, with creative single-origin options.  The dark chocolate is without question worth detouring for.  But the real surprise (from my dark-chocolate-preferring point of view) is their line of milk chocolate products.  They're the only chocolate maker whose milk and cream are sourced from Irish dairy products (see item 1, above).  Their 42% milk chocolate is distinguished by its creamy lingering aftertaste, in which the Irish grassfed cow of it all endures into far more complexity than one-dimensional crap milk chocolate.  And their caramels?  Forget it.

3.  French pastry shops.  Tarts, croissants, etc., all somehow more rich and full-bodied than is the norm. Again, I refer you to item 1.

4.  Brown bread.  The simplest of staples: whole flour, buttermilk, soda, salt.  What perfect chemistry that combination catalyzes.  Don’t be distracted by other more flashy bread options.  Get the brown bread, as much as you’re offered (which is pretty much an endless supply).  And pave it with butter, obv.

Chasing (a little) altitude

Okay, there’s not much of it in Ireland, but I continue to get up as high as I’m able to.  

I hit the woody peaks of Killarney National Park earlier in February, and have moved on at the tail end of the month to the bens and bogs (sometimes both at the same time, the verticals as soaked as the lowlands) of Connemara National Park.  

The reward is some lovely coastal views, broad sweeps of headland rolling greenly into surf.  Not gonna lie, though—I’m ready to get back to actual mountains in March.