{"id":1249,"date":"2014-08-30T15:53:49","date_gmt":"2014-08-30T14:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1249"},"modified":"2014-08-30T15:53:49","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T14:53:49","slug":"week-33-pasteles-erie-county-fair-chicago","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1249","title":{"rendered":"Week 33: Pasteles, Erie County Fair, Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

We spent most of the week with our son in Orchard Park, just being there with him and doing mostly mundane things, one of which was that my wife prepared some of our favourite Puerto Rican dishes, including pasteles<\/em>, empanadas<\/em>, and rice and beans. We also visited the Erie County Fair and towards the end of the week, we drove to Chicago to spend a weekend there.<\/p>\n

But first the preparation of the pasteles<\/em>, a traditional Puerto Rican dish. My wife was inspired to make it when she saw all the ingredients at the supermarket in the Allentown neighbourhood where we lived 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

33_1<\/strong>
\nThe starting point is this bowl of minced yautilla and green plantains, a very labour intensive process. At home we use a food processor but Moses does not have one, so it was done on a grater. I offered my wife moral support by photographing the finished bowl of ground veg:
\n\"DSF7939\"<\/p>\n

33_2<\/strong>
\nYou then cook some finely chopped meat, chick peas and other goodies for the filling:
\n\"DSF7940\"<\/p>\n

33_3<\/strong>
\nA dollop of the ground yautilla and plantain is placed on a banana leaf, and the cooked meat is then put on top:
\n\"DSF7942\"<\/p>\n

33_4<\/strong>
\nThe pastel is then wrapped in the banana leaf and cooking paper:
\n\"DSF7944\"<\/p>\n

33_5<\/strong>
\n\"DSF7946\"<\/p>\n

33_6<\/strong>
\nFinally, each pastel is tied with string, and they are boiled for about 45 minutes:
\n\"DSF7949\"<\/p>\n

33_7<\/strong>
\n\"DSF7953\"<\/p>\n

33_8<\/strong>
\nThe finished product is yummy:
\n\"DSF7954\"<\/p>\n

Western New York has a rich agricultural tradition, and the Erie Country Fair is a fairly big event, although nowadays it is more about entertainment than farming. We visited during the week.<\/p>\n

33_9<\/strong>
\nThe midway:
\n\"DSF7987\"<\/p>\n

33_10<\/strong>
\nColorful booths and unhealthy foods are both fair traditions:
\n\"DSF7969\"<\/p>\n

33_11<\/strong>
\nCardiologist specials:
\n\"DSF7972\"<\/p>\n

33_12<\/strong>
\nProbably made in China, but still fun:
\n\"DSF7966\"<\/p>\n

33_13<\/strong>
\nLucky (?) winner:
\n\"DSF7967\"<\/p>\n

33_14<\/strong>
\nOne of the few booths actually showing agriculture-related stuff:
\n\"DSF7965\"<\/p>\n

33_15<\/strong>
\nThe concept is not bad, but most of the merchandise in this store was right-wing, NRA-type t-shirts, mugs and such:
\n\"DSF7978\"<\/p>\n

33_16<\/strong>
\nThere was a large display of campers; having just toured Denmark in July with a tent and sleeping bag, I took a look:
\n\"DSF7961\"<\/p>\n

33_17<\/strong>
\nThe fisheye lens came in handy. This has nothing to do with Lars’s and mine little tent:
\n\"DSF7962\"<\/p>\n

33_18<\/strong>
\n\"DSF7963\"<\/p>\n

33_19<\/strong>
\nScreaming baby:
\n\"DSF7988\"<\/p>\n

33_20<\/strong>
\nGuidance:
\n\"DSF7991\"<\/p>\n

33_21<\/strong>
\nThe Wizard of Wood travels around the country to fairs like this one, showing off his skills making wood sculpture with a chain saw:
\n\"DSF7983\"<\/p>\n

33_22<\/strong>
\nFinally, we reached the animals. Given that I consider Budweiser horse piss, this image was quite fitting:
\n\"DSF7959\"<\/p>\n

33_23<\/strong>
\nCow with a newborn calf:
\n\"DSF7992\"<\/p>\n

33_24<\/strong>
\nThese cows have won prizes at various cow beauty contests:
\n\"DSF7998\"<\/p>\n

33_25<\/strong>
\n\"DSF8001\"<\/p>\n

33_26<\/strong>
\nMuch of the agricultural part of a county fair is about the farm children and adolescents doing their work and showing off their animals:
\n\"DSF7995\"<\/p>\n

33_27<\/strong>
\nHaircut:
\n\"DSF8002\"<\/p>\n

33_28<\/strong>
\nBack at my son’s apartment, another Puerto Rican feast–empanadas<\/em>, rice & beans, and fried plantains:
\n\"R000058\"<\/p>\n

The remaining pictures are from our visit to Chicago, the first one ever for all of us. We drove the 530 miles from Orchard Park to Chicago on Thursday night (after Moses got home from work) and Friday morning, spending the night in South Bend, IN. There is a full Chicago gallery here<\/a>, but in this blog I have selected a few that give a feel for our two days there. <\/p>\n

33_29<\/strong>
\nWe started our Chicago visit by walking down to Millennium Park where people were enjoying the glorious weather:
\n\"DSF8116\"<\/p>\n

33_30<\/strong>
\nOne of the most photographed places in Chicago is the sculpture in the park known as “the Bean”, and it is not hard to see why:
\n\"DSF8090\"<\/p>\n

33_31<\/strong>
\nOne thing that really struck us about Chicago is that art is everywhere, including on the streets:
\n\"DSF8143\"<\/p>\n

33_32<\/strong>
\nLooking at photos:
\n\"DSF8118\"<\/p>\n

33_33<\/strong>
\nThe city of Chicago really<\/strong> wants its citizens to quit smoking:
\n\"DSF8138\"<\/p>\n

33_34<\/strong>
\nAnother witty and appealing sign:
\n\"DSF8141\"<\/p>\n

33_35<\/strong>
\nFlower power:
\n\"DSF8177\"<\/p>\n

33_36<\/strong>
\nWe saw this slogan painted on walls in several places around Chicago:
\n\"DSF8178\"<\/p>\n

33_37<\/strong>
\nThese signs were also on many doors. It is sad and disgusting that a cultural institution even needs to tell people not to bring deadly weapons inside:
\n\"DSF8269\"<\/p>\n

33_38<\/strong>
\nThis was one of the most enjoyable evenings of our 3-week visit to the US–listening to a free concert in Millennium park while munching goodies from Whole Foods and drinking wine on the Great Lawn:
\n\"DSF8170\"<\/p>\n

33_39<\/strong>
\nAnother great pleasure was meeting fellow LUGger Greb Rubenstein. We met last year when Greg was visiting Barcelona, but now I got to meet him on his home turf. He took me on a pleasant walkabout, the highlight of which was a visit to Tamarkin, one of this world’s Leica temples. Here is Greg making a point while we took a break:
\n\"DSF8147\"<\/p>\n

33_40<\/strong>
\nAnd here is Dan Tamarkin, inspecting some old Leica:
\n\"DSF8148\"<\/p>\n

33_41<\/strong>
\nOn Saturday afternoon we enjoyed the Chicago Air and Water Show from the best viewpoint imaginable, Greg’s 13th floor apartment overlooking the lake:
\n\"DSF8226\"<\/p>\n

33_42<\/strong>
\nThe Blue Angels doing their thing:
\n\"DSF8216\"<\/p>\n

33_43<\/strong>
\nLater on Saturday, my children and I went to Pilsen, a neighbourhood which once housed immigrants from Eastern Europe (hence its name, after the town in the Czech Republic where pilsner beer was first brewed). Today it is a mainly Hispanic neighbourhood, and not exactly posh:
\n\"DSF8251\"<\/p>\n

33_44<\/strong>
\nThe reason we went to Pilsen was to see the many murals that were mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide:
\n\"DSF8260\"<\/p>\n

33_45<\/strong>
\nInspired by the gritty urban setting, I posed Moses and Monica for this “cool” portrait on a Pilsen street corner:
\n\"DSF8258\"<\/p>\n

We really loved Chicago and I hope to come back sooner rather than later. As mentioned above, more pictures from Chicago are here<\/a>. I also have a gallery of images from Buffalo, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We spent most of the week with our son in Orchard Park, just being there with him and doing mostly mundane things, one of which was that my wife prepared some of our favourite Puerto Rican dishes, including pasteles, empanadas, and rice and beans. We also visited the Erie County Fair and towards the end […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1102,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1249"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1252,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1249\/revisions\/1252"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}