It’s been two weeks since I’ve updated. The previous post was made from the backyard of a historic mansion in Santiago, Chile and this one is being made from my desk in my bedroom in Chicago, where I impulsively Expedia’d a flight to Rio de Janeiro almost three months ago. I can’t really tell if that feels like last week or last year. It is strange how being in constant motion plays with perception of time and distance.
My camera battery died while on top of a hill in Valparaiso, and the voltage converter used to charge it died in my kitchen in Buenos Aires, therefore I only managed to shoot about 20 photos (and about two worth showing) since the last update. In addition to this, I don’t so much care to go day by day through my last days in the southern hemisphere and my return to Chicago. Instead I’m going to talk about food.
As an avid eater, I will chart the ups and downs of the past two weeks by analyzing particularly notable (for better or worse) meals.
Just over two weeks ago I enjoyed the menu del dia (four courses with a drink for about six dollars) while reading a book outside at a small cafe on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Valparaiso, Chile. It was seventy five degrees with sunshine and a slight breeze.
A few days later I dined on home cooked pasta in the backyard of a huge red house in Santiago, Chile with friends from four different continents on my last night in South America. We drank Escudo and listened to New Order, the Stone Roses, and Oasis on the patio until sunrise.
The next evening I ate undercooked pasta in an American Airlines 767, 30,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru.
The following morning, I chewed on a piece of salty bread and sipped a glass of orange juice in the same aircraft, this time while looking out my window at Cuba and the Caribbean Sea.
Less than two hours after arriving in New York, I found myself in the company of six friends at the Olive Garden on the corner of 23rd and 6th, where I enjoyed a mixed grill for lunch in what I later realized was my most expensive food purchase in the past two months. April 9, 2009 will go down in history as the beginning of the Age of the Ironic Lunch (it will end when the Sizzler goes out of business).
Easter Sunday was spent in delightful company in Brooklyn, where a trip to the C-Town Market and the adjacent produce market motivated a home-cooked egg, chorizo, and vegi scramble with fresh tortillas and guacamole. Although revenge is a dish best served cold, brunch is not. Rest assured- this shit was hot.
Upon reaching Youngstown, Ohio, which is the halfway point on Interstate 80 between New York and Chicago as well as my ritualistic point of consumption of a Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich with fries and a Hi-C, it became apparent that things were about to go downhill fast. The meal that I’d been anticipating for the past three hundred miles of Pennsylvania was shot down by a 10 PM closure. Instead I had to opt for two Burger King hamburgers at a turnpike service station outside of Cleveland (For those unfamiliar with the unfortunate 800 miles in between New York and Chicago- the dining options are about as varied and healthy as the food court at the O’Hare Oasis). FML.
Dinner with my dad at Geja’s Cafe in Lincoln Park was outstanding- but that’s a given. I quite enjoy lobsters, prawns, beef tenderloin, melted cheese, liquored up chocolate, fruit, and wine. Geja’s excels in all of these areas.
Today I ordered pad khee mao, cucumber salad, and a thai iced tea from Noodles in the Pot. The delivery guy once again inquired as to my absence and I ate at my desk while working on a project. This meal signifies the return to banality and the end of a particularly excellent era of my life. Tastes like chicken.
Oh yeah. Valparaiso is beautiful.
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