Culinery Experiences in Chile and Visit to Calama

I´m still learning my way around the kitchen. In fact I had to have the AP´s help me turn on the stove. It´s a little like camping with this stove. But the grilled cheese sandwiches turned out great on Friday night. Talk about gourmet.

On Thursday night we had our first Empanadas from the highly recommended place called Florencia´s. Here is a picture of the order that came out before ours. We had ours to go and so they were bagged up. One word...Delicious!!! And another word or two...five pounds!!! We had chicken with peppers and cheese empanadas. I´m a fan. The crust was flaky and hot and the inside fillings were delicious. And they were cheap. On the menu they had one called Pollo and Choclo. I thought it was chicken and chocolate and that sounded terrible. But later I found out that choclo is corn here in Chile. Now it doesn´t sound so bad.

I´ve got crushed ice in my refrigerator. And the Coke Lite is good. So now I´m enjoying diet coke at home and it´s all good. And...my refrigerator is soooo cold. Yesterday I baked a cake and the eggs were frozen. Kinda gross...frozen egg whites, but the cake turned out fine. We delivered it to the senior missionary, Elder Richardson, whose birthday is July 4th.

Last night we arrived in Calama for their Stake Conference. The Elders drove with us and after we checked into the hotel they went on splits with the Elders in Calama. So Leland and I went for a walk to explore the city. In the plaza there was a concert at the arena and there were hundreds of teenagers in line to hear the group. It was like Aliso Viejo theaters on a weekend with teenagers everywhere.

We found a restaurant that had plenty of people in it called Bavaria. Don´t understand the name because there was nothing German about it except that the speciality of the house, and apparently all of Chile, is the Hot Dog Completo. We had to order it with two diet cokes. No ice but the soda was very cold. I think I´m getting used to this country because the non-ice issue isn´t bothering me too much. Here are our sodas. Notice the red bottle in the background. You would think it is ketchup because it is next to the mustard, but you would be wrong. Don´t put it on your french fries because it is Chile´s version of tabasco.


This is the Hot Dog Completo: hot dog, onion, tomato, lots of avocado and even more mayonaisse. The Chileno´s love their mayo. They have an entire aisle in the market just for mayo. They even wanted to put mayo on my french fries. In this regard I am not a Chileno. Nevertheless, without the mayo it was really good.

I tried scraping off the mayo from my Hot Dog.

And I enjoyed myself immensely. By the way, the bun is the wonderful bread from Chile. I could eat this bread all day. Bad combination of bread and empanadas. See a trend beginning?

Bad news....by midnight I was visiting the bathroom. Something went awry with the Hot Dog Completo. But I´m not giving up on this local delicacy.

This is the Stake Center in Calama. It´s a pink brick chapel and actually really large. Notice the dirt sidewalks. There is dirt everywhere. This entire part of the city is dirt. Everyone has dusty shoes.

Here is the scenic three hour drive from Calama to Antofagasta. It really does look like the moon. The landscape never changes throughout the entire mission. Except here in Antofagasta I have the ocean to look at towards the west.

Mountains made of brown dirt. Not rocks, just dirt.

We are home for a quiet Sunday afternoon. This week will be busy with new Elders arriving on Tuesday and a group of missionaries going home on Wednesday. I´ve got lots of food to make and plenty of meeting and greeting. Each day is busier than the last and the time is already flying by. Love the missionaries and the saints in Chile, even if I can´t understand most of them.