Humitas Saturday

Fresh from a trip to the market, Arlette & The Diminutive One set about destroying the kitchen in order to make humitas. The sack of corn was a bit of a givaway, as humitas are little parcels of cooked corn and onion, wrapped in leaves. The Chicken & I were exiled to the living room for the duration.

Making humitas is a bit like buying a real Christmas tree - you are still getting needles stuck in your socks in July. Sweeping up the hairs that fall off the corn as the the leaves are pulled off is a bit like trying to bottle willow-the-wisp.

Serve up with an onion and tomato salad, and wash down with beer. Lovely.

Arlette upright before the beer
Corn mush

Making the parcels

Steaming humitas!

Mentalist

Back, due to popular demand - the original Mentalist.

Yoga

Those yoga classes are really starting to pay off.

Mine's a Pint!

I'll have none of that metric rubbish in this house!
The Chicken goes Imperial.

Mini Me

The Chicken - 5 months old.
Doll - age unknown.

Back to Basics

The Cheese Empanada has gone a bit stale. It's time to go back to basics, and get rid of all the fancy side-bar nonsense. It's time for a re-launch. I'm re-branding myself.

Prior to the birth of The Chicken (when she was born she was only 2.5 kilos, and a bit yellow, so they wrapped her in plastic and put her under the lights for a day or so, creating the 'chicken' look) The Diminutive One and I used to go out and about. I would take pictures, she would ask when lunch was. This provided the Cheese Empanada with content, for its readership of 4. I fear I have lost the 4, as currently the only out and about I do is to the fridge and back. I have returned to work, after a 2 month hiatus, but that's just a metro journey to sit in an uncomfortable chair in a dimly lit office.

Of course, The Chicken takes up a lot of time, and so she should, so The Empanada has taken a bit of a backseat of late (a child friendly backseat that adheres to international safety standards, obviously). It has also fallen out of favour somewhat, as it had to fight for my attention with an all new blog on music - http://www.itaughtmyselfhowtogrowold.blogspot.com/ - on which I collaborate with Peter D (http://www.allaboutd.com/). He drives a Fiesta and likes watching the telly.

In an attempt to rejuvenate the stale pastry of this past-its-sell-by-date website I am to once again start posting on a more regular basis, probably Chicken related items (unless something interesting happens on either my journey to a. the fridge or b. the uncomfortable chair in the dimly lit office), but you can't knock it. I've also enabled comments for the first time. This will let you ooooh and aaaaaah over snaps of The Diminutive One holding The Chicken, and make wise ass comments about how much hair I haven't got. I read this week that Facebook now has 150,000,000 members, although now I've switched on comments they will be shaking in their boots, as a rival Social Network site, full of cheese, gives them a run for their money. All Hail The Cheese.

International House Santiago

Choose either A, B or C.

A. Aaaaah, those were the days.

B. Those were not the days.

C. I have erased all memory for the sake of my mental health.

The Train in the Clouds, Salta, Argentina 2003

A friend of mine has just come back from northern Argentina. He reminded me of a fantastic trip I had there a few years ago. These are pics from very high up a mountain, so high in fact that I saw one guy get off the train and just pass out. The air is a bit thin. I think it's one of the highest trains in the world, The Train in the Clouds, that runs from Salta.