Rebecca A. Foster

Who are your people? I come from hardscrabble, independent Texans and outspoken, fun-loving Chileans. What impact do our people have on us? Are characteristics inherited, or just a function of nurturing? I have no idea. But here are two of my people: My Grandpa Foster (on the far left; I'm the little scowly one below him), who as a young man had a Model-T and hauled ice in a secret compartment for bootleggers during Prohibition in exchange for gas for his car. How cool was he? He was also a rock/mineral hound and used to take us out rock hunting when we were kids. I was determined to find a geode and always asked, "Is that a geode, Grandpa?" "No, that's a leaveitright. Leave it right there." But he would take home my rocks and cut them open with his rock saw. (No geodes!) I appreciate now all those rocks he cut open for me. My great-grandma Abby, who died when I was about a year old: Her husband (my great-grandpa) in this photo died away from ho...

This weekend I was making pebre  and my serrano peppers were not getting the job done, so I pulled out a couple of habaneros. I asked my mom,"Do you think these will be hot enough in the pebre?" "Well, how hot are they?" Hmmm. I sliced one open and licked the pulp. Just in case you didn't know, licking the inside of a habanero is a really dumb way to determine how hot it is. THE BURNING IT GOES ON AND ON HOLY HELL WHAT WAS I THINKING. I couldn't feel my lips or tongue for the next several hours, but on the bright side, 'licking the habanero' is now my new favorite euphemism for doing something stupid you probably knew better not to do. Example: "Yeah. I went out with that guy even though I knew he was bad news. I totally licked the habanero on that one." Live and learn (the hard way).

The chopsticks I brought home from China are all stainless steel or melamine (melamine: okay for chopsticks! Not okay for milk!), but I have a few sets of wooden ones I brought home from Thailand several years ago. I put all the chopsticks in my dishwasher to sterilize them but most ended up in the bottom near the drain, and one of the wooden ones was snapped in half. Oops. Preface: I have this big, passion-from-across-the-room crush on our apt.'s head maintenance guy, V.  He's Chilean, looks like a Spanish soccer player and has gorgeous hazel/green eyes. I met him the day I moved in and I've only run into him twice since them but both times he remembered me and we chatted and he's charming and did I mention, super hot? This guy + light eyes = V.  Thus far, I have avoided purposefully breaking things in my apartment so he has to come fix them. I know, right? I'm so adult and stuff. But ever since the chopstick incident, my dishwasher doesn't drain properly...

Caution: this is kind of a girly post. For those who don't know me personally, I am half Chilean, half American. I inherited my mom's darker Chilean coloring and my dad's American features. I'm a mutt! And all my life people (salespersons, friends, etc.) have been telling me my coloring is Winter, because I have dark hair and dark eyes. Winters have pink undertones in their skin and look great in lots of white, black, navy blue, cherry reds, purples, etc... And gray. I LOVE gray. My mom would always tell me I looked like I was constantly dressing for a funeral because I wore so much black, gray, and white. But I noticed in lots of pictures, I looked kinda terrible. I thought I just really didn't take good pictures. So one day I'm in China innocently looking something up on the internet and I read that many Latina and Asian women are not Winter, they are Autumn: dark hair and eyes but with gold undertones to their skin, not pink, and that a quick way to check...

One of my favorite tea memories is visiting my abuelita 's beach front house in Viña del Mar and being called in from the beach at 4:00 to drink yerba maté tea. Liked the tea, hated the timing. I wanted to stay on the beach. But we'd come in and sit at the tiny tea table, still in our bathing suits, drinking tea and eating little cookies. And then run back out to the beach until dinner. You can find it in tea bags, but if you use loose-leaf, a cup and strainer straw such as this one can be used. (I use teabags and a mug; my mom keeps strainer straws at her home.) The hotter the water, the more bitter the tea. Adding sugar (or eating sugar cookies) is nice.

My mom is from Chile, so in addition to traditional "American" holiday foods we also have Chilean foods at holiday meals: raw veggies such as cucumbers and turnips sliced thin and combined with lemon juice, olive oil and salt; pasta combined with lemon juice, olive oil, cilantro and salt; three kinds of meat at dinner; plates of fresh avocados; empanadas. One of my favorites is Chilean style salsa, which can be eaten on chips but in Chile is eaten as a topping on meats, seafood and potatoes. Chilean salsa is not tomato based like the Mexican style salsas more familiar to Americans. It is made mainly of chopped onion, cilantro, olive oil, salt and very hot peppers (my mom uses serrano, not jalapeno) chopped fine, along with some chopped tomato and garlic. When we have visitors, we warn them not to choke on the salsa as it is very hot and strong. She makes different strengths, though, to accommodate the wussies. I ate a lot of this on Christmas Day.