Aji de Gallina

Aji de Gallina is a Peruvian typical food. The first time I tried this was in a visit to the house of one of my mother’s Peruvian friends. We liked this a lot, so my mom tried to learn how to cook it. And here it is:

Ingredients:

-1 big chicken breast

-2 breads

-1 cup of milk

-1 onion

The night before soak the bread in the milk.

Boil the chicken breast until it’s done. Wait until it is cold and then remove the meat from the bones and shred it into strips, 4-5 mm wide.

Chop the onion finely and then saute it for about 5 or 10 minutes.

Put the onion, the shreded chicken and the soaked bread into a big pot, stir this and simmer for about 10 minutes, always stirring. Add salt and a seasoning called “palillo”, that will make the food look yellow. If you don’t have “palillo”, you can use curry.

The original recipe includes “aji” or chile, but despite I like chile I think it tastes better wihout this.

Rice is the perfect side dish for aji de gallina. In fact, every time my mom cooks aji de gallina she also cooks rice. It’s delicious!

new family members

Here we have some pictures of Gabriela's kittens. They were born in September 9 and this pictures are from last Saturday, so they were just one week old.
As you can see we have 3 orange kittens (I think I'm going to sell them to a kitten huffer or maybe I'm going to huff one or two) and a black one (why?, why?!). Despite the black one, they are really cute (damn!...why black?). No, I'm just joking, they are all cute!
Since they are here we have had some problems with Achu, who's also Gabriela's son but he is nearly one year old. At the beginning I thought he hated the little kittens but then I realized that he was afraid of them (he can't be that coward!)...anyway, I hope Achu gets used to his little brothers...I think it won't be too hard (except for the black one...Can anybody get used to a BLACK cat?... =P...mmm...just joking again).

There's one cat who still doesn't have a house, so if anybody reading this would like to adopt a cat just tell me...













































An artistic shot by my girlfriend, Joan.
In black and white the black one looks even blacker...






This is Achu, giving a demonstration of his amazing intelligence when he "smartly" bites a cactus.

What dreams may come

What dreams may come is a film based on the novel by Richard Matheson (written in 1978).

It’s directed by Vincent Ward (story writer of Alien 3, executive producer of The Last Samurai).

Released in 1998, the movie begins when Chris (Robin Williams) meets Annie (Annabella Sciorra) somewhere in Europe. After that, the couple get married and then they have two children, Marie and Ian. Very early in the movie, Marie and Ian die in car accident. After that Annie sinks into a very deep depression, and she even tried to kill herself. Chris supported her the best he could, and she finally recovers but then Chris suddenly dies in another car accident.

Then Chris reaches heaven, where every people have his own paradise and can achieve all his desires. And so, Chris’ heaven consists on the landscape of Annie’s paintings. In heaven, Chris also meets his daughter and his son.

After Chris’ death Annie finally commits suicide and therefore she goes to hell.
After knowing what happened to Annie, Chris decides to rescue his wife from hell.

With amazing sceneries and an excellent photography this movie won many awards, including an Oscar on the category of best visual effects.

No doubt this is one of the most visually beautiful movies ever done. Also the plot is very interesting.

You ought to see it!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a tradition in the US that is celebrated every year the fourth Thursday in November.

The history of thanksgiving, particularly in the US, goes back to the year 1620, when a group of about one hundred people (named pilgrims) arrived to Plymouth in the US from England, escaping from religious persecution (they questioned the beliefs of the Church of England). They went first to Holland and later they aboard a ship named Mayflower in which they did their trip to America.

Once in America they faced a very terrible winter so nearly half of the pilgrims died (around 46 out of 102). After that winter an Indian named Squanto, who knew their language, taught them how to plant corn and catch fish. Also, thanks to Squanto the pilgrims could negotiate a peace treaty with the Wampanoag, a nearby Indian tribe.

After their first harvest in 1621 the pilgrims decided to have a three day feast to give thanks to Squanto and the Wampanoag tribe, who helped them to survive their first year in America.

Nowadays, Thanksgiving is celebrated as a familiar dinner where the most common foods served are turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes with gravy and pumpkin pie. In many families there is a special prayer of thanks before the meal. Also family members may each mention something they are very thankful for.

If you want to learn some more about the pilgrims and the first thanksgiving in an entertaining way, there is a movie named “Mayflower: the pilgrims’ adventure”. Here they narrate everything I have already told in the first two paragraphs here, so I think it’s not necessary for me to write it down again... is it?

If you want to learn some more about thanksgiving in a not-that-entertaining way, you can visit this pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)

http://www.thanksgivingworld.com/thanksgiving-history.html

http://www.rumela.com/events/thanks_origin.htm

Knut

The day that Knut made his first public appearence there were many people waiting to see him.
He is now the most famous polar bear in the world because of his life story, a story that has touched people’s heart in Germany and all over the world.
When he was born, Knut was rejected by his mother and then he was put in an incubator. After that, he survived just because of the attention he received from Thomas Dörflein, his carer.
But the exact moment that Knut became a world famous bear was when animal rights activists started a debate, because they said that killing Knut at birth would have been better for him than have been raised by humans.
Many people disagree with that point of view. Even more, schoolgirls started a campaign to avoid Knut’s euthanasia.
Finally, the zoo said it had no intention to kill Knut.
Now Knut is famous worldwide and he es even going to be the mascot of an international environment conference in Berlin in 2008.

Adapted from http://www.guardian.co.uk/animalrights/story/0,,2041865,00.html

A website I enjoy

A website I enjoy is Kitten war. Here they show you pictures of two kittens, and you have to vote for one of them. I found this website in the links of another website I really like called “uncyclopedia”. The link to kitten war was in an article titled “kitten huffing”.
The main reason I like this website is because you can find lots of pictures of cute cats there.
Another thing I like about this website is that you can upload pictures of your own cats to make them compete with other cats around the world. I have already uploaded 4 pictures of my cats. Nao and Chubi are my “winningest kittens”. Following them is Gabriela. And finally is Achu who is no longer my cat since he is a loser (he has won just 36% of his battles).
I usually visit this website twice a week or more just to see how my cats are performing.

Here I leave the link to kitten war http://kittenwar.com
Also, if you want to know about kitten huffing, here I leave this other link http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Kitten_huffing