Heads or tails?

Today was a big food day. As in big day of lots of new food, and big food.

My family told me we were going to eat "chochlo", pig, and told me I was going to eat the whole thing and asked me if I preferred the head or the tail. We took a long drive out to this little town in the "burbs" of Quito to get Hornados, a tradition especially popular on Sundays. On the way to the restaurant, we saw more similar establishments displaying entire pigs, head to tail.

I was excited to try this new food, but I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting myself into. I could tell that my family was kidding with me, but I wasn't sure how much (if you know me, you know I'm extremely gullible and have absolutely no "joke radar"). In the car, they kept on telling me I was going to have to choose which head I wanted once we arrived. "Yeah, okay, uh-huh..."

We pulled up to a pretty large building filled with picnic tables and people eating parts of the pigs that were displayed out front. As we walked up to the counter, Said asked me if I had spotted the head that I wanted. I didn't know how to respond to that...haha. I chose the same (enormous) plate as my family:

- Potatoes (mashed, but nothing like our mashed potatoes)
- A whole platano maduro (score!)
- Half an avocado (double score!)
- Corn (but not the small yellow kind, the large white kind - it's good)
- Maize tostado (like large, not quite popped popcorn kernels that are pretty dry and salted - not one of my favorites, but a popular Ecuadorian snack), and...
- An entire pig's head. yiiiiikes.

Just kidding. I didn't have to eat a pig's head or tail. It was more like the part they use for pulled pork, but not yet pulled. Just a couple of chunks of pork on my plate, plus a piece of fried pig skin, which I thought was an ear at first and slightly freaked out by. I tried the skin, but I didn't like it a whole lot, so Miriam ate it. The pork was pretty good. I actually think the best parts of the meal were the avacado, potatoes and the APPLE SODA that we got to drink. It was soooo good. I wish we had it in the U.S. If you've ever had Jones Soda, it was similar in potency of taste. And if you haven't had Jones Soda, I highly recommend you try it, starting with Fufu Berry.

I finally learned that avacados are ripe when they're slightly squishy. Pretty much common sense, but somehow I always manage to end up with brown avacados when I want to make guacamole.

When we got back to the house, Yolanda accompanied me to the supermarket to buy food for la cena. Unfortunately, there were no jalapeños (who would've thought?), so I had to substitute ají (the extremely popular pepper here that is used to make the aji sauce served everywhere). Back at the house, making dinner, I didn't know how much ají to put in the veggie mix, and neither did Yolanda, so I decided to take a bite. Yolanda told me not to but I didn't listen to her. She was so scared for me that she couldn't watch, kept on saying "no!", and making disgusted faces...hahaha. It was definitely picante, but I enjoy spicy things, so it wasn't half as bad for me as it may have been for Yoli. After I finally took a big enough bite, I could taste the hotness. I decided to throw two Ají peppers into my mix, and a few more bites into my mouth. Unfortunately, my eyes are burning a little bit right now, after taking out my contact lenses, because of the ají that remained on my hands after multiple washes.

I make pasta for myself allllll the time at school in my apartment, which usually takes about 20 minutes and minimal amounts of ingredients. So, I had a little trouble determining how and how much to cook for 7 people. I guestimated correctly with everything except for the pasta. I made about 3 times too much! Hence, I'm going to make some pasta salad tomorrow. After an hour and a half of making dinner with Yolanda (who wanted to learn how to cook "my food"), dinner was finally served:

- Penne Noodles
- Tomato Sauce
- Fresh Sautéd: Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Ají, Yellow and Red Bell Peppers, Onions, Garlic
- Salchica (sausage, which I boiled with onions and ají)
- Shredded Parmasan
- A baguette of fresh bread with butter

Said loved it, and Miriam really liked it because she likes pasta a lot and is half Italian. I made brownies for dessert, and this time I did not forget about them in the oven, so they didn't burn. However, they ended up really soft and squishy - but still very chocolaty and tasty. It's a lot harder to bake things like that here because the of the altitude. Maybe I'll figure it out sometime in the next 4 months.

On a semi-related note, I highly recommend Aquafresh Ultimate Whitening toothpaste. I bought it before my trip, not having high expectations nor even caring enough to monitor my teeth and their color. But the other day, I happened to get a glimpse of my teeth in the mirror and noticed that they were whiter! Nice!


And to end, here's a pic of me and the fam before we went out last night. Carlos (cousin, 18) is far left, Gabriel (20, brother) is middle left, Amy (21, gringita) middle right, Freddie (23, cousin) far right. We went to Hotel Quito's Casino. It's the first casino I've been in since my 21st birthday last September, so I figured I might as well play some games. I played a little (and I mean a little) Blackjack. I won once, lost twice, and then I decided to be done. I lost four dollars :( I don't think anybody won.

Earlier on Saturday, I played soccer with Gabe and about 10 of his friends, who are all really great people and extremely fun. I got a few good headers and almost scored two goals...yeah, yeah, I know, almost doesn't count. I thought I was going to be completely winded after playing for a short time because of the altitude. But somehow, I was completely fine. There were a lot of teams who wanted to play, so our rule was to have the losing team rotate out after two goals. Of course, our team won probably ten times in a row (it was me, Gabe, Carlos, Freedie, and two of Gabriel's friends), so we didn't get a break. It felt so good to work out, though. I had been scared to go running because one of the girls in my program fainted on a public bus after she had gone running and had thought she was completely fine. But now I know I can handle it. I think we're going to play every Saturday afternoon, and I really hope so.

By now you probably know the names of my family members, but we have nicknames, too. Freedie's "Torta" (cake), Carlos is "Tortón" (a larger cake), Gabriel is "Tortín", Yolanda is "Tortilla" (I'm jealous), and they named me "Tortamy" :) Today on the way home from eating hornados, I came up with the verb "Tortear" which will loosely be used to refer to any instance in which we are all together doing anything at the same time. For example, "¿Vamos a tortear esta noche?" Haha. They loved it and started teasing around, asking what the pluscuamperfecto and gerund form of my new verb would be...haha.

So no big trips or big bugs this weekend...just a tranquil 72 hours in Quito.