Recommend July 2011 - (Page 32)

NEW WORLD adventures in food other local specialties such as mankaskanca, hajchalorcro and chairo de tunta. Tours are offered monthly through 2011, and the cost is $2,495 pp dbl, including local air, accommodations, breakfasts and four lunches and private guide services. carla hunt chile We are accustomed to excellent wine touring options in Chile, with vineyard visits and tastings now possible at many estates producing award-winning wines all through the Central Valley, and between Santiago, west to the Pacific coast. Chile is a land of splendid vegetables and fruits, among them notable strawberries, and Chilean cooks make wonderful chupe (much like New England fish chowder), extra special meat empanadas with raisins, and porotos Granados, a vegetable casserole of beans, squash, pumpkin and corn. However, when travelers leave Chile, they are raving about feasting on fish, for the cold Humboldt Current gives the country the most unusual seafood in the world: giant sea urchins, giant abalone, giant crabs, mussels, clams, shrimp, langostines, oysters and congrio—a splendid fish native to these waters. The fish markets in Santiago and Puerto Montt in the Lake District are good places to go to survey these creatures of the deep. The port city of Valparaiso, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is known for its Victorian architecture and fine fish restaurants. “Valpo,” as the town is nicknamed, welcomes clients who love to cook and want to spend a few days mastering some Chilean specialties. Martin Cooking Classes—from one to three days—accommodates a maximum of four participants per group who help select the day’s menu, shop for ingredients at the market, and prepare a meal with an expert chef. The company can package a day trip from Santiago or arrange an overnight for longer stays. Additionally, the website offers a good look a Chile’s special foods and wines. The cost of the classes per day is $70. Several lovely boutique hotels are available in Valpo. Consider Casa Higueras on Cerro Alegre (Happiness Hill). With grand views, this design-hotel charmer has 20 rooms occupying a refitted 1920s mansion; room prices start at $203. Preparing and unearthing curanto, a traditional meal in Chile. The tour begins with a 4-night stay in Buenos Aires at the Alvear Palace, clients spend one day at Estancia Santa Susana, where the pampas experience includes a traditional bbq lunch, tango music and dancing, gaucho “games,” and carriage and horseback rides. Other highlights include a cooking workshop, whose chef teaches the techniques of preparing empanadas Argentinas (meat-filled turnovers) and pastelitos (pastries), and an afternoon at Lo de Joaquin Alberi, a boutique wine shop to learn all about wine and taste the fruit of the vine, pared with cheeses. That’s followed up with a 3-night stay at Cavas Wine Lodge, a Relais & Chateaux property outside Mendoza. Daily activities include visits to three wineries and two sports activities such as rafting or horseback riding; lunch is included daily either at Cavas, a winery or on a vineyard picnic, and each evening features a la carte dinners in a choice of restaurants, including Francis Mallman’s 1824 at the Bodega Escorihuela. It’s all topped off with a 3-night stay in San Carlos de Bariloche at the Hotel Llao Llao, where sightseeing includes private car touring of the Lake District, golf and spa time, as well as a culinary outing to the gorgeous Los Juncos Lake House where clients join the chef in preparing a full meal, enjoyed with cocktails, appetizers and appropriate Argentina wines. This luxury tour with deluxe hotels, private car transport with guides, and most meals, is priced from $8,450. On a 9-day Taste of Argentina tour, Adventure Life takes cuisine and culture lovers to another corner of Argentina, the northwest, starting in the colonial town of Salta to enjoy its treasures of colonial architecture and colorful markets stocked with avocados, peppers, spices and calabashes, then moving on to the vineyards of Cafayate to learn about the region’s distinctive wines and sample Malbec-Cabernets. This region—one of spectacular landscapes—is also a center of Andean cuisine: tamales, humitas, meat empanadas and casseroles of grilled goat meat. During the tour, sightseeing mixes with visits to a cheese-producing farm in Cafayate Valley, a pottery studio, and a local silversmith in Barraco. One tour highlight is a hike through Humahuaca Gorge with its multi-colored canyons; another is an afternoon in the Andean kitchen of chef Gloria Diez Pena’s Kusika Restaurant in Purmamarca. Using traditional regional products, tour members learn to prepare tamales de Carqui with dry Andean maize, and have for lunch 32 july 2011 brazil Fans of all things Brazilian say that the country’s cuisine is the most exuberant and varied on the continent. It is a cuisine that developed since the arrival of the Portuguese, who in 1539 founded Salvador in the state of Bahia, planted sugarcane, and brought in African slaves to work the fields. The combination of foods and cooking methods of local Indians, Africans and Portuguese developed into Brazil’s most distinguished cookery: cozinha baiana. Primary ingredients are dende (palm) oil, coconut, coriander, fresh and dried shrimp, nuts and hot peppers. Cuisine in Rio de Janeiro and south to Sao Paulo is more subdued and European, except for the regional feijoada completa. Now recognized as the national dish, it’s a colorful meal of meats and black beans cooked together and served with sliced oranges, rice, cooked kale or collard greens, farofa (manioc), and a hot pepper and lime juice sauce. Travelers in Brazil also find the popular churrascarias where all manner of grilled meats—up to 18 different choices—are served on an all-youcan-eat basis. Culinary traditions from all corners of Brazil are on the “teaching menu” at the Academy of Cooking & Other Pleasures in Paraty, the continued on page 34 recommend.com http://www.recommend.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recommend July 2011

Editor's Notes
Design Hotels
Gap Adventures
Spiritual India
Experiencing the Not-So Familiar Vietnam
Sailing the Seas
New World Adventures in Food
Little Whale Cay, The Bahamas
Into the National Parks
Journeys Beyond the Ordinary
Heritage Tours to Europe
Grand Solmar at Land's End Resort & Spa

Recommend July 2011