DEFEAT

RIO GRANDE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 4
I have been defeated here in Rio Grande. Puchero was the victor. Puchero is a stew. It is served in two deep bowls. One bowl contains the meat: half a chicken less the limbs, a huge chunk of beef, a large section of oxtail, chorizo. The meat swims in a broth and is surrounded by three types of dried beans, small, medium and butter. The other bowl contains the vegetables, also in a broth: more beans, cabbage, onion, pumpkin, carrot, potato. This is a single serving. Immagine these two huge bowls of food set before you. Even the fiercest appetite quakes.
Let me recomend a small cafe in Rio Grande frequented by oil workers on their week off: San Martin 86. The owner is Chilean. His Puchero, though grotesque in quantity, is delicious. Add two beers and the bill came to US$7.