Ben and Sean agree with Garfield: Lasagna is the food of the gods. They like a tomato-based lasagna, rather than a meaty Bolognese, and above all no bechamel. Our current favorite includes diced pork, mushrooms, eggplant, and basil. We like a lot of mushrooms, so I use 400 g (nearly a pound). You could cut [...]

Quince is an old-fashioned fruit that I rarely saw when I lived in the U.S., but it is very popular here in Chile. It is often eaten raw (I truly cannot imagine why)—to the extent that raw quince was on the orthodontist’s list of prohibited foods when Ben got his braces recently. It is also [...]

We brought in the last of the Cabernet on Saturday. What a relief! (Sorry, Ed, but this harvest has been hard, thanks to my shoulder problem.) It was about three-quarters of a ton, whereas we were expecting a full ton. Our grower says that Cabernet yields are down everywhere, so we wound up with less [...]

Our golden retriever is very true to type, in that she always has something in her mouth. If she can’t find her tennis ball, she’ll pick up a rock and carry that around instead. She also likes to collect things. Whenever anything is missing (slippers, in particular), the first place to look is in her [...]

Sean really likes pizza. I  make pizza so often I’m tired of it, but still, it isn’t often enough for Sean. So he recently decided that he needs to learn how to make it himself, so he can have it whenever he likes. We started with the sauce. This sauce is one of the basics [...]

Saturday was Labor Day in Chile (May 1st), which limited the amount of work we could accomplish. In particular, we were only able to bring in one and a half tons of Cabernet Sauvignon from Gonzalo’s Encon vineyard. We’ll be getting another ton next Saturday to finish out our harvest. The fruit looks very good, [...]