One distinctly Chilean food is piñones, usually translated as pine nuts. They aren’t from pine trees, however, but rather the Araucaria, or monkey puzzle tree. The nuts are quite different from Italian pine nuts. Pine nuts have a higher oil and protein content, whereas piñones are starchier, with a texture much like a chestnut. Also [...]

When I was chatting with a friend at the wine tasting this weekend, she mentioned her recent trip to Canada and commented that she really enjoyed the toasted cinnamon-raisin bread for breakfast. That was all it took to kick-start a craving, even though I haven’t thought of raisin toast in years. I worked out the [...]

I’ve mentioned our caretaker, Don Ismael, who lives near our property and helps us out with odd jobs. His wife, Sra. Zunilda, often sends Ed home with a gift of farm eggs or homemade bread for me, since I rarely get all the way down there myself. This past weekend she very kindly offered Ed [...]

Gnocchi are one of my all-time favorite foods. Potato pasta—what more could I ask? Not just any gnocchi will do, however. The gnocchi sold in grocery stores or even in most restaurants tend to be quite heavy and generally disappointing. The good news is that they are really easy to make at home, with delicious [...]

Flaherty is an Irish name, and Ed is of pure Irish decent… on his dad’s side. His mom, however, is Cuban. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1958, the year before Castro came to power. The family doesn’t eat a lot of Cuban food, though, other than the ubiquitous beans. I’m not exaggerating when I [...]

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 [...]