I was surprised and happy to see that the pork ribs served at the unassuming Rancho Doña Maria appeared over at Eater on two bloggers’ lists of their favorite dishes from 2013.

Surprised because I would never have expected a traditional Chilean empanaderia to be listed amid the likes of such foodie destinations as Saison, Atera, and Boragó.

Happy because I knew I’d soon be in Santiago and would, I hoped, be able to tear into those pork ribs, too.

As I told you earlier, I contacted one of the bloggers who’d raved about Rancho Doña Maria, which eventually led me to Karla Lodis and Carlos Reyes, two Chilean foodies who (among other things) took us the restaurant in Chacobuco, about forty minutes outside Santiago.

If you weren’t deliberately hunting for Rancho Doña Maria, I doubt you’d find it. It’s in a small unsigned building by the side of the highway, and unless you knew what was waiting for you there, there’s no way you’d stop. (more…)

The two restaurants I most wanted to visit during our time in Chile couldn’t have been more different.

Rancho Doña Maria, by the side of the highway forty minutes outside of Santiago, serves empanadas baked in clay ovens and pork ribs to die for. Boragó, in the heart of Santiago, offers extravagant eight- and sixteen-course tasting menus, and could be considered South America’s Alinea.

Yet both represent the county’s cuisine at its finest.

Boragó currently comes in at #8 on a list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants, which therefore puts it at #1 for Chile. And after having eaten the restaurant’s most elaborate option, the Raqko tasting menu (the shorter tasting menu, still apparently mind-blowing, is called Endemica), we’d have to agree.

When we arrived for our 8:00 p.m. reservation, we were greeted by name and ushered into an empty restaurant … which again told us that if we want to dine at fashionable hours while in South America, we’re going to have to start making much later reservations! (If I remember correctly, the tasting menu at Astrid y Gaston in Lima wasn’t even available before 10:30 p.m.) The next patrons didn’t arrive for another half an hour, so for a brief period, Boragó was ours.

But a note of apology as I begin—my report on Boragó will be picture heavy and text light, because the explanations given by the (extremely friendly and knowledgable) servers for each dish were very complex, with the sourcing and harvesting of each ingredient being explained in depth, with far more detail than my memory could process. Luckily, the dishes themselves are so beautiful that the photos alone should still satisfy. (more…)

This device may (or may not) change the way I cook. I’ll know more soon. Well … in about 55 hours.

The dishes I’ve eaten at restaurants over the years which were prepared via the sous vide method have been among the most mind-blowing. (more…)

I checked out Richard Guion’s fun site Giant-Size Marvel today and was pleasantly surprised to see that he’d posted the original art to the cover of an issue of Captain Marvel I wrote a long, long time ago.

When I asked Richard where he’d found the art, he told me that it had sold yesterday at Heritage Auctions—for $26,290.00!

And if I’m correctly interpreting the Heritage stats, it’s the second highest price ever paid for a Gil Kane cover, exceeded only by the cover to The Avengers #134, which went for $41,825 on August 13, 2013.

I guess when I wrote, “oh, what a killer cover from Gil Kane,” I knew what I was talking about!

Ten days ago, I complained to TAM Airlines about the Hell we were put through boarding their flight out of Santiago due to gate agents who seemed clueless about Brazilian visa rules.

This afternoon, TAM had this to say:

Thank you for contacting the customer relations department at TAM Airlines. We appreciate the opportunity to reply to your concerns.

We regretted learning of the misunderstanding that took place when you and your wife Mrs. Irene Vartanoff, were returning from Santiago to Charlotte via Sao Paulo on February 9th. We can certainly understand your disappointment.

Please allow us to explain that our agents are expected to contact the pertinent supervisor, manager or security office when in doubt, to ensure our passengers do not experience any problems at their connecting points or destinations. Furthermore, to ensure the company is adhering to international travel regulations.

Nonetheless, we have reported matters to the pertinent department head, so that our staff is reminded that U.S. citizens can transit without a Visa when connecting in Sao Paulo (Guarulhos) or Rio de Janeiro (Galeao) Brazil, and to certify that our representatives are reminded of the importance of providing precise and accurate information to our clients.

Once again, thank you for contacting the customer relations department at TAM Airlines. We trust we can count on your understanding and future presence onboard our fights.

Cordially,

I’m glad we finally received a response, but the comment about what agents are supposed to do “when in doubt” raises the question—

Doubt? What doubt? How poorly trained are TAM employees that there would be any doubt? How is it that all three gate agents (maybe there were four, I no longer remember for sure) were unaware Brazilian law is clear that “there is no need for a visa if the traveler arrives in Brazil on a flight, remains in the international transit area, without passing through immigration control, and departs on another flight from the same airport.” That whole paragraph makes TAM’s answer seem more like an excuse than an explanation, because there was never a reason for doubt.

We’re surely not the first people this has happened to … and based on TAM’s unsatisfying answer, I seriously doubt we will be the last.

And I, unlike TAM, have reason for my doubt.

As I explained earlier, the five-day ticket to Rapa Nui National Park allows for unlimited access to all sites save two—Ranu Raraku, the moai quarry, and Orongo, the village central to the Birdman cult. The guide we’d hired for our initial two days on the island, Cristin Arvalo Pakarati, included Ranu Raraku during our Monday tour, while he took us to Orongo on Tuesday, along with Ahu Tepeu, Ahu Aki, Puna Pau, Ranu Kau, and Ahu Vinapu.

Orongo rests on the lip of the extinct volcano Rano Kau between the caldera and the sea, but there’s a viewing area (from which the photo above was taken) before you pass through the visitors center that limits access to the village itself. So it’s possible to return and view the crater—which is nearly a mile across—as often as you’d like. (more…)

Something unexpected popped into my head while reading some recent eloquent commentary on SFWA’s current culture war. (To which I won’t be adding an essay of my own, because others have been expressing what’s in my heart and on my mind much better than I ever could, so I’ll just say that I’m all set to enlist in John and Mary‘s Insect Army and leave it at that.)

The memory that showed up to surprise me was of this artifact from one of the most divisive moments in science fiction history, this ad—two ads really—from the June 1968 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. (I’ve smirched the image from Marooned.)

In the ad, opposing camps of SF writers either “believe the United States must remain in Vietnam to fulfill its responsibilities to the people of that country” or “oppose the participation of the United States in the War in Vietnam.” Yes, I was only 13 when these ads was published, a fan not yet a pro privy to the inner workings of the field, and no, this was not officially related to SFWA, but rather a project generated by Kate Wilhelm and Judith Merril that only coincidentally overlapped with the names of many SFWA members, but still, the contentiousness created by the public choosing of sides seems familiar.

And even though it was painful at the time for the participants to live through, you’ll forgive me if I say that from this distance, colored by time and perhaps my naiveté, these two lists of names and the statements to which they’re appended seem quaint and reserved, especially when compared to the incendiary language of Dave Truesdale’s recent petition (to which, interestingly, a few of the same writers have appended their names).

I don’t think any of us will look back with nostalgia 46 years from now at the current culture war the way I do now for 1968’s. But maybe, by then, if we work really, really hard, and we’re really, really lucky, we won’t still be fighting this one.

I never expected to find a great restaurant in Valparaiso. In fact, I never expected, during my few days in Chile before and after visiting Easter Island, to even find time to leave Santiago and visit Valparaiso. But then Karla Lodis, one of the guides I hired to help me navigate the Chilean food scene, suggested a day trip, and she managed to make it sound so tempting I thought, Valparaiso it is!

We took off early in the morning, stopping along the way for a breakfast of pork sandwiches and hardboiled eggs at Lo Vásquez market. Once in Valparaiso, we wandered the city’s hills, which were filled with colorful street art (a sample of which you can see above), toured Pablo Neruda’s home, rode in one of the famous funiculars, cruised the harbor, and more.

We packed a lot into our one day there, and I hope I’ll be forgiven for feeling that the highlight was lunch at Espiritu Santo. It’s not a restaurant I came across during the culinary research I did for our trip, but Carlos Reyes, one of our food guides, listed it as one of the 10 best restaurants in Chile in his book on the country’s 100 best restaurants.

And now that I’ve had a chance to eat there, I can only say … I agree! (more…)

Looks like this is the year for ancient photos of me I didn’t even remember having been taken turning up.

First, Sam Maronie surprised me with a 1974 photo of me threatening the world’s greatest comic book inker Joe Sinnott with a broadsword (plus two other pics). Now David Lubkin coughs up a 1979 photo of me and Damon Knight at Noreascon Two, the 1980 World Science Fiction Convention.

Damon was one of the six instructors during my six weeks at the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop in 1979, the others being Robin Scott Wilson, Algis Budrys, Carol Emshwiller, Tom Disch, and (of course) Kate Wilhelm.

I have no memory of this moment. Lubkin had captioned the photo, “Damon Knight admiring Stacy Mandell’s puppetcraft while Scott Edelman shows off his coiffure. Noreascon Two, at which Damon and wife Kate Wilhelm were Guests of Honor.”

When I asked him about the pic, which he’d shared on Facebook, he wrote, “I was sharing the dealer’s table with Stacy and organizing a Clarion reunion party, for which Damon & Kate volunteered their GoH suite and kicked in $150. I’m not sure if you were with Damon or were independently checking in with me.”

I’m not sure either. And if any of you out there think I remember after all these years whether I was trailing Damon or checking in about a party, you have a higher opinion of my memory than is deserved!

It occurs to me that when I complained about the way we were treated last Sunday by employees of TAM Airlines as we were boarding—or trying to board—a plane out of Santiago, I only offered my personal interpretation of the rules. But there’s to need to just take my word for it. Here’s what the Consulate General of Brazil in Washington has to say:

NOTE: There is no need for a visa if the traveler arrives in Brazil on a flight, remains in the international transit area, without passing through immigration control, and departs on another flight from the same airport.

Which is what I explained to TAM a week ago today when I emailed the customer service department about how their employees wouldn’t (until after much wailing and gnashing of teeth on our part) let us board a flight to Sao Paulo—where we would not enter Brazil but merely wait to board our continuing flight to Charlotte—for want of a visa.

A week later, here’s where we stand …

@scottedelman Hello, your case is under review. When finalized will contact you. Thank you.

— TAM Airlines (@TAMAirlines) February 18, 2014

It will be interesting to hear why the TAM gate agents had a different opinion of visa requirements than the Consulate General of Brazil.

Any bets on how long it’ll be before TAM’s investigation is finalized and we get an explanation?