Weekend Report: The Not-So Itsy Bitsy Spider

Ernesto's sister (Laura) and brother-in-law (Pablo) drove up for the weekend and we had a great time with them.  They returned last week from a month-long holiday in Argentina (Pablo's home country), and brought us wine and delicious alfajores (these amazingly delicious treats consisting of dulce de leche sandwiched between two buttery cookies, and sometimes covered with chocolate).  They also brought me a cookbook filled with recipes by the Julia Child of Argentina.  The book includes some more adventurous recipes that I probably won't attempt, such as "brain pie", but also many stomach-friendly recipes, like alfajores and pasta dishes.  I will report on the success of those recipes in a few weeks, once I've mastered the requisite words in Spanish, and the metric system.

We had a pretty relaxed weekend.  Both Laura and Pablo started their Friday off with lemon cake, chocolate cake, and cinnamon rolls (all compliments of me).  Then, for a mid-morning snack, they each got an ever-so-dense, rich, and creamy milkshake from the Monteverde cheese factory.  They bought the treats at 10:30 in the morning and finished them by 10:40.  Most impressive.  We spent much of the afternoon lounging around, recovering from sugar induced comas.  We had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Monteverde, called Tramonti, and three of us went to bed happy.  Ernesto woke up with some stomach problems that led him to spend more time in the bathroom than he desired.

On Saturday we went to the feria and Ernesto bought vegetables while the rest of us ate a delicious, greasy breakfast.  Later we picked wild raspberries from the farm.  Though we spent a good hour picking, we didn't make it back to the house with too many raspberries - for every raspberry in the bag, Laura and Pablo ended up with three in the mouth. 

On Saturday night we invited some friends over and Pablo grilled a huge leg of pork that was - and still is - fabulous!  Laura made an equally delicious chicken and vegetable dish with potatoes, eggplant, and onion.  I drank too much wine and apparently reverted to uttering the most immature phrases that I know in Spanish, none of which had anything to do with the conversations at hand.  While the rest of the group discussed police bribes in Argentina, I proudly slurred  such truisms as "Ernesto esta hediondo . . ." (Ernesto is stinky).


At some point during the weekend, Ernesto and Pablo decided that they were going to be "handy" and make a chorreador.  A chorreador consists of a sock-like bag that hangs from a wood or wire support.  You place a mug under the bag, fill the bag with ground coffee, and pour hot water through the bag.  Ernesto and I had the filter bag, but not the stand that supports the bag, which made pouring the boiling water through the bag a bit precarious.

Pablo and Ernesto ventured to the back side of the house in search of some wood for the chorreador.  Shortly thereafter, they started tapping excitedly on the window, telling Laura and I to come outside and look at the spider they'd found.  Pablo asked me to bring a container with me, to catch the spider, and when I grabbed a fairly large tupperware container (about 2 qrts) and he said, "no, bigger!" I started to question whether a trip to the backyard was a good idea.

The spider in question was a "red-kneed tarantula".  Apparently they're quite common here, but also quite harmless.  Pablo placed his wallet next to the tarantula for some perspective.  Not sure what happened to deter them from pursuing their original goal of relocating the spider.  Presumably, he's still living quite happily in our wood pile, hopefully eating the kissing bugs that transmit chagas.