"To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth"
Thomas Wolfe

Friday, May 28, 2010

Eating in Uruguay and Futbol

I read a blog with some criticism of Uruguay's sometimes repetitious culinary fare, praising of all things, the sushi here. Wow! Sorry, but what passes for sushi here is nothing to crow about. I know there are few Japanese or authentic Asian practitioners in this small country. It's an expensive dish when most people here are quite careful about luxuries. This is true for even those with some expendable income to throw around. Uruguayans can appear quite cheap at a glance, but there's much more to it. The social ethos is vastly different from countries who have long gorged on an abundance of everything with the easy credit to get even more. People here are careful about how they spend, it's ingrained.
That said, sushi can be somewhat affordable. People do eat out, but alas the Uruguayan is not very adventurous with food, it's true. The writer of the post doesn't need to see another milenesa, but that I think says something about their willingness to be creative in the kitchen. But praising the sushi here, really?
We've found a few spots, including the new 'take out' mentioned and found the quality fine. It was the alarming lack of variety that left me unsatisfied. Tuna, Salmon, various white fish and Sweet Shrimp was all we got. Some rolls, most include Philadelphia Cream cheese, something that I thought only belonged in a Philadelphia Roll. I miss the roe, the eel, Unagi. Mackerel is my favorite, I miss it. Yellow Fin Tuna maybe?  There wasn't much and for the price I'll make my visits sparse.


Both of the boys had soccer matches this weekend.
Luca's was a bit disappointing. Not that he and his classmates didn't play well, but they kinda got sandbagged- again. LatinoAmericano has a bad history of not really organizing their weekend games against other schools. It's a somewhat informal thing, not a league or anything, but they could ramp up the effort a little. This is not the first time the kids didn't know the location and time until the morning of, no transportation was discussed and it was none too close (Carrasco) and worst of all, since it was 1st and 2nd year high school participating, making sure some of the older kids went was fairly important. They were up against older, mostly larger kids on a big field, one it looks like the other team was used to. It ended up a lopsided victory. It breaks your heart to see those guys busting their asses to compete. They played with a lot of heart. Luca did well and worked hard and as he said, it's a benefit to play against better players. It helps you improve.




Vincent had a better situation. His mates organized themselves for the annual Dannon Little World Cup. Luca played in it last year. The kids had only practiced once, but did really well. They won all of their games and qualified for the finals. Yeah, we were there from 9am until about 5, but it was nice. Not too cold and very exciting. They couldn't overcome their rivals in the qualification round, but for a while it looked like they might. A great effort and much to be proud of.
Vincent was goalie and was amazing. Here he is with Mom.