Buenos Dias, Chile.
Expresso. Actually, the expresso in Ecuador was much better than Chile (at least in Quito). Then again, I'm comparing the expresso at an Italian café across from my hostel in Quito to the expresso at the snack kiosk at the Santiago airport, where a cappuccino is basically half coffee and half whipped cream... okay, I'm pretending I didn't drink it (it was fatty, sweet, disgusting, and delicious), but still.
Maybe the real reason I like Chile better than Ecuador is that I'm staying in Valparaíso, which is the San Francisco of South America. Isn't San Francisco just about the most wonderful place on earth? I wish I could afford San Francisco. Combine that with the quirks (leche comes in a 31-gram bag, for example, while the smallest measurement for beer seems to be the 330cc) and pace (porteños start their day at around 11:00 am, from what I observe, and siesta is a three-hour process which begins just two and a half hours later) of Latin America, and I'm happy. Plus, there is that wonderful relationship Latin Americans have with safety (Ines, my landlady, told me if I get cold, "sleep with the gas stove on," while at home, I obsessively check to make sure the gas is off before I fall asleep); and death (Peruvians tie the rungs of their wooden ladders together with string); and insanity (while Argentines plan their vacations around therapy, Chileans simply call "losing your mind," "brushing the doll" and move forward).
But the focus of today's blog is expresso. Whoever rented this apartment before me was kind enough to leave their Moka Express and a half kilo of coffee. Have I mentioned that I don't drink coffee? I don't own a coffee pot, or an expresso machine. I don't have coffee when I wake up in the morning. Instead, I take my herbs, vitamins, live active yogurt cultures, and SNRI with watered-down coconut water, a shot of Noni, a shot of aloe vera juice, a banana, and sometimes small bowl of oatmeal.
A few hours later, I have been known to say, "Hmmm. If I could find some coffee, I'd drink the shit outta it!" Then, I go to Starbucks and order one of those Angelino cuntaccinos, with embarrassing precision - size, temperature, strength, fat content, sweetness, etc. all articulated in under one second. So, perhaps the more accurate statement is not, "I don't drink coffee," but rather, "I don't make coffee."
So, faced with all the tools this morning (a Moka Express, a kilo of café, a sack of leche, a gas horno, and a fistful of fosforos), I found myself helpless, having to google, "How do I drink expresso with one of those Italian metal stovetop expresso things," upon which I was corrected by the google search engine, "Do you mean, 'How do I make expresso with a stovetop Moka Express?'"
Don't tell my students, but I used the Wikipedia answer because it was the easiest and came with a diagram. I also warmed the milk in the teapot, and if you leave the lid off (it was a happy accident) and the flame too high, it creates a nice, overflowing foam.
Three hours later, I was starting my day at the typical coastal Chilean hour (el hora typico de porteños), and fitting right in, realizing why there isn't a phrase for "good morning," but rather Chileans are satisfied instead with "good day."
Ideally, milk should be served cold. One of the worst things you can do to spoiled milk is heat it beyond its boiling point to make foam for expresso. Symptoms of Botulism include, but are not limited to: cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, night sweats, muscle weakness, paralysis, and blurred vision. Lack of oxygen worsens the symptoms of Botulism, and there is less oxygen present in higher altitudes- like Chile.
