Friday in

One night together alone.  That's all Conrad and I were getting in between trips.  Van and I got back on Thursday in time for all of us to have pizza.  Tonight Van and I are off to see Odesza in concert.  Conrad heads to Chicago tomorrow morning.  So last night was it for us.

I think we did a good job of making the most of it.

Mid-afternoon we headed to Bristol Farms to pick up some groceries.  I got us an assortment of seafood, mostly shellfish, and a few other things.  Once back home, I set to work on making a pumpkin seed sauce in the style of a pipian, seared some wedges of pattypan squash, and made a little fresh corn salsa.  I cooked the seafood directly in the sauce, then distributed it and the squash along with the sauce into two bowls.  I garnished each with some corn salsa.  Dinner!

Oh, and Last Words.  You know us!

A nice evening, smiles all around.  We added on some wine, and that was a little indulgent, I would admit.  We ended up sleeping a little later this morning, but we went for a nice little walk and our usual Amara breakfast. 

Hooray!

And now it's almost a week apart for us.  The summer travel is kicking into gear.  Here's to a lovely summer ahead!

Valparaiso

No, not the town/university in northern Indiana.  No.  Instead, I’m talking about one of the largest cities in Chile, a seaport west of Santiago.  Our Saturday adventure was to head there and look around a little.

We headed directly to the waterfront on arrival in town.  The city spread up steep hills and along the coast for ages, or so it seemed.  

Down where we were, there were tankers or other large sea vessels,

a working harbour with tourists milling about.  We poked in a few small shops then headed to Restaurant Bote Salvavidas for lunch.

Let me say a few things:

• Yum to the pisco sour.  The Peruvian one that others enjoyed was richer and also tasty.
  
  
  
• The chupe de locos was not at all what I expected.  Described to me as something of a sandwich with fish but also cheese, it turned out to be a casserole of bread crumbs, cheese, broth (I think), and locos.  Locos is abalone, I later learned, and which explained why the seafood in the chupe was so very chewy.
  
  
  
• The pink clams served gratinéed were delightful.
  
  
  

Lunch in our bellies, we wandered into the nearby streets.  The hilly city has at least a couple of working funiculars,

and we rode one up into a neighbourhood that was busy with stores and restaurants, decorated with an abundance of murals and street art.  

That was welcome after seeing the older buildings below tagged so horribly.  Parts of Valparaiso and Santiago reminded me of Lisbon, what with the unfortunate profusion of graffiti.

We didn’t stay in Valparaiso long, really just an afternoon.  We were back in Santiago by dinner time.  Another place visited for me where I think, if we’d only had a little more time there….