Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Feathered Friends and Food Follies

¿Donde esta Lynnette?
For those of you who don´t know, I have a very dear friend named Lynnette. A few years ago Lynnette started to get a little bird-brained on us, but I mean this in a good way. Her degree in Biology took a turn when she discovered birds, and ornithology has become her passion. Every summer she spends months in the bush all over Alberta listening and studying birds...and though she only visits Vancouver in the summers, she puts us to shame with her knowledge of the birds around the coast. So every walk we go on when she´s in town turns to us asking her to identify each bird we come across. On a recent hike in Parque Provincial Llao Llao, we saw some crazy-looking birds, to which Dave exclaimed "¿Donde esta Lynnette?!" (where is Lynnette?) A moment that had me in fits! Lynnette, your presence (and bird knowledge) is missed.

Las Comidas
We know everyone is curious about how a vegan and a vegetarian can survive in Argentina when the national dish (and pride) is steak, steak, and more steak (or, more generally, meat, meat, meat).



The answer lies in repetition, at least for now anyways. A typical menu in Argentina consists of a section of carne (beef), pollo (chicken), pizzas (with 2 lbs of cheese per small pie!), pastas and papas fritas (fries). For lunches and snacks you´ll often find empanadas (delicious, stuffed pockets) and tostadas (toasted sandwiches). So, it is often a case of ordering something fried which makes a nice green diet a likely situation upon our return to veg-friendly Vancouver. One thing I keep learning, is that "sin carne" may mean "without meat" but it does not mean "without ham" which is on every sandwich vegetariano, always unlisted in the ingredients, but, like pickles on a burger, it´s always there. The number of times I have pìcked ham off a sandwich is large, but I am confident we can now order "sin carne, sin jamón" and for Sandra "sin quesa" with no more waste. This morning in San Rafael, we had a completely perfect meal with no picking off, no papas fritas - just freshly-squeezed jugos (juices), delicious café and crisp tostadas.

2 comments:

Gerry said...

Donde estas Dave y Sandra? Is that the correct form of "esta"? And why doesn't my keyboard have upside down question marks? Anyway, glad to hear you guys are having a good time. Was there any doubt you wouldn't? I'm back in Van on Thursday. I wonder what you're doing for New Year's... If I had lots of money I would join you!

Dave + Sandra said...

I think you got it there, Gerry. And I bet your keyboard doesn´t have these: ñ or é or ç or ¡ or ¬ ¿now does it? For Nochevieja we hope to be on a 4wd trip through a massive volcanic park. But we´ll see...thanks for writing! Feliz Año Neuvo, amigo!