Patacones are one of my favorite side dishes or entrees that you can find in Latin America. It’s a versatile kind of food that can be a side dish with fish, chicken, or beef but you can also make it a kind of entrée by putting two patacones together with a type of meat or fish inside along with lettuce, tomatoes, and other toppings. This food also makes for a wonderful snack if you want to munch on something between lunch and dinner. Patacones are relatively easy to make and don’t take too much skill because the recipe is pretty simple to follow.
Commonly known as ‘Tostones’, which comes from the verb tostar, “to toast” in Spanish are slices or pieces of plantain that have been fried twice over. While they are known as ‘tostones’ in countries such as Puerto Rico, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, etc. They also have a different nickname of ‘tachinos’ (Cuba), ‘bananas pesees’ (Haiti). However, since I have been living in Colombia for almost a year now, I will refer to this delicious food as ‘Patacones’, which is the common name here and also in countries like Panama, Peru, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. You can find patacones of all shapes and sizes across both Central and South America, and there are many ways to put this food to good use.
When it comes to preparing and cooking patacones, you first have to pick up a few unripe plantains (green in color) from the local food market. After buying the plantains, you’re going to have to peel them and then slice into individual pieces that are circular in appearance. You should make sure that they’re big enough in length and width before you decide to begin frying them.
It’s important to put enough cooking oil in your frying pan, and to heat up the pan sufficiently first before putting the raw slices of plantains in there. For the first time, you’re going to want to fry the plantains for one to two minutes on each side until they start to look cooked enough by showing a golden color. One time isn’t enough to make patacones so you’re going to want to fry these patacones a second time to finish the job. However, before you decide to do that, it’s important to remove the patacones from the frying pan for a few minutes in order to get rid of excess cooking oil.
The patacones should be patted down and flattened before being fried a second time in the pan. For the second frying, the patacones should only be fried for a minute or two on each side before they are finished cooking. After they have been thoroughly fried, you should make sure to pound them flat with some kind of utensil that has a large flat surface like a bowl or a pot cover. By the time you’re done, your patacones should be golden, and crispy brown. It’s pretty common to add extra ingredients like salt, or some seasoning depending on if you want this food to be a bit spicy or not.
Patacones can also be served with garlic sauce (ajo in Spanish) or with hogao sauce as is done here in Colombia. You can make the comparison that Patacones are almost like French fries in that you can have them as a side dish or snack without too much effort. It’s easy to make between six to ten patacones to serve you and your guests. If you’re looking for an appetizer or a snack dish to serve friends and family at a house party, patacones are a great option. Patacones have their origin in West African cuisine, and made their way over to Latin America within the colonial period of Gran Colombia during the eighteenth century.
The best thing about a dish like patacones is how versatile it is. You can put anything on top of it whether its’ shrimp ceviche or avocado paste. It can function as a sandwich if you put two of them together with a kind of meat or fish in between to add additional flavor. They’re easy to cook, prepare, and delicious to eat. Be careful though because it’s likely you won’t be able to stop at just eating one patacone.
Whether it’s in the Caribbean, or in Latin America, or throughout the rest of the world, you’re likely to find patacones being served at a restaurant, or being sold as the original plantains in the supermarket. Personally, I look forward to learn how to cook patacones, and serving them to friends and family in the future. Now that I’ve tasted patacones many times and enjoyed this food, I’d like to make my own and have a taste of Colombia when I’m outside of this lovely country.
What is an Interjection? You may reading the title of this blog post and appear to be slightly confused. The concept may sound familiar to you but it’s possible that you may have forgotten the meaning of the word since you left high school English. If you’re learning English as a non-native speaker, you may be even more befuddled. Luckily, if you keep reading on, you’ll discover that ‘Interjections’ are more common than we think they are and play a huge role in English literature. There are also a number of examples when it comes to what are interjections and where they are used in a sentence. If your curiosity has been piqued, keep reading on to find out more about this underrated and underused form of speech.
To answer the question that I posed in the opening paragraph, an Interjection is considered to be one of the eight parts of speech along with nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. While interjections are unnecessary to be placed in most sentences and are considered to be the least important part of speech, you can still use it quite effectively to grab the reader’s attention especially when you’re writing a short story or novel.
You need nouns, verbs, and even adjectives to make a complete sentence that makes grammatical sense but you do not an interjection to make that happen. However, to convey the depths of emotion within a sentence, interjections are an important part of speech that must be used in those cases. You can express either emotions or feelings with interjections but they are not as grammatically important as other parts of speech. If you plan on using interjections in academic or professional forms of writing, I would not recommend doing that. Instead, interjections would be perfect for more artistic or creative forms of writing that allow you as the author to express your emotions or feelings to the readers.
When it comes to the placing of interjections within a sentence itself, there are a couple of options for you to consider. It is quite common to put an interjection like “Wow!” or “Oh no!” with an exclamation at the beginning of a sentence to signal that it is a strong emotion.
Examples:
“Oh no! I forgot to do my homework last night!”
“Wow! That was an exciting football match!”
Interjections don’t solely need to be at the beginning of a sentence but can also be found in the middle or at the end of a sentence. Emotions and feelings can be conveyed in any part of a sentence as long as it makes sense within the story or article you’re writing.
Example: So, it’s going to rain today, huh?”
In this case, the interjection here is “huh?” which comes at the end of the sentence to express disappointment or bewilderment that it’s going to rain. When you use ‘huh’ as an interjection in English, it mainly conveys confusion rather than excitement or wonder, which would allow you to place an exclamation point after a different interjection (!) such as wow!
As for an interjection that can go in the middle of a sentence, let’s look at this example below.
Example: “According to what you just told me, my gosh, that’s the most intelligent argument you have ever made.”
You do not need an exclamation point in this case but you should understand that the author of this quote is expressing his sentiment that what the other person just said was very smart and insightful.
Last but not least, interjections can even be their own sentences on their own especially when they are followed by an exclamation mark (!) or a question mark (?). Even though, interjections are very short in length at only one or two words, with the emotion or feeling they convey, it can be its own sentence. The complete thought has already been expressed in terms of the emotion that the narrator or character is feeling. In this rare case, you do not need either a subject or an action to make a complete sentence. Some examples of an interjection making up an entire stand-alone sentence would be “Wow!” “Huh?”, or “Oh gosh!”
If you aren’t clear what interjections are at this point, let me give you some more common examples to help you out.
There are over hundreds of examples of interjections that you can look up to start using in your own stories or articles. These examples above are just a few of the most commonly used ones that you’ll see in the English language. When it comes to interjections being used within larger sentences, there are some examples that I can show you to improve your comprehension.
Examples:
Yowza! That was a close call with those hooligans.
Hurray! We won the baseball league championship.
It was a great celebration, my goodness, you missed out on it.
Oh no! I forgot to do my Science project that was due today.
Boo! The creepy ghost scared my friends and I away from the haunted house.
Remember, it’s important to know when and where these interjections should be used. Academic and formal forms of writing should have no place for interjections because you are trying to convey facts and relevant information rather than emotions and feelings. However, when it comes to artistic or creative forms of writing, you can use as many interjections as you want.
While interjections are considered to be an unpopular and relatively unknown form of speech, they are actually used quite frequently and are very popular when you think about it. During those times when you are texting back and forth with your friends or you need to write a captivating fictional story, interjections play a large role in the English language and shouldn’t be overlooked.
“Oh…People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”
Field of Dreams is a quintessential classic American film and a movie that gets better with repeated viewings. Field of Dreams is almost thirty years old but has aged like a fine wine since it was released in 1989. This film is a unique mixture of the fantasy, sports, and drama genres and shows how crucial the game of baseball is to American culture. While some people who watch Field of Dreams think that this film is an original story, it is actually based off a novel by W.P. Kinsella titled, ‘Shoeless Joe’, which was critically acclaimed as well.
Part of the reason why Field of Dreams was so successful is because of the great cast of actors and actresses that helped make the film so popular. This was one of Kevin Costner’s most famous roles and also stars Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta, and the late and legendary Burt Lancaster who starred in his final role in this movie. Another fact that most fans of this film wouldn’t know about is that Field of Dreams was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Original Score, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.
Of all the places in the world to hear a voice whisper the phrase, “If you build it, he will come…” a large cornfield in the middle of Iowa wouldn’t be your first guess most likely. However, that is exactly the premise behind Field of Dreams. A local farmer, Ray Kinsella, who has a troubled relationship with his father, John Kinsella, a former baseball player who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps feels guilt at what a strained relationship he had with his father before he passed away.
Ray then sees a vision of his cornfield being turned into a baseball field and decides to go along with this vision by turning his farm into a real baseball field. Ray is an adamant defender of ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson who believes he was actually innocent and didn’t do anything wrong despite the fact that he was banned from baseball due to the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Ray’s father, John, was also a big defender of ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson and that’s the one major thing that Ray and his father could agree upon. His daughter, Karin, and his wife, Annie, are skeptical of Ray’s plan to build a baseball field at first but end up trusting his judgment after some convincing.
After Ray completes the building of his baseball field in Iowa, many months go by and the bills for maintaining the field start to pile up causing Ray and his family to feel some serious financial stress. When all hope seems to be lost regarding his vision, Karin spots a baseball player moving through the baseball field one night and Ray recognizes the player as being no one other than ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson (played brilliantly by Ray Liotta). John, Ray’s father was a big fan of ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson and would be thrilled to know that Ray’s vision came true and Mr. Jackson was here out on his farm in Iowa absolutely thrilled to being playing baseball again. Shoeless Joe ends up bringing some of his teammates from the Black Sox who were also banned from baseball due to the 1919 scandal and they start practicing together on Ray’s field.
Unfortunately, not everyone in Ray’s family can see the baseball players on the field. Ray’s brother-in-law, Mark, warns Ray about how much of a financial drain the baseball field is on his farm and Ray may have to foreclose on the property unless he is able to generate some money from it. Mark thinks Ray has gone crazy because he keeps referencing the baseball players on the field who Mark is unable to see. Luckily, Ray’s wife, Annie, and Ray’s daughter Karin can see the baseball players and believe Ray to be doing the right thing leaving Mark quite flustered and angry.
Ray ends up hearing another voice whisper through the field telling Ray to ‘ease his pain.’ After seeing how the local town wants to ban the books of one of his favorite authors from the 1960’s, Terence Mann, Ray ends up doing some more research about his favorite author and discovers that one of Mann’s dreams was to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers professionally. One of the reasons why Ray ended up quitting baseball even though his father wanted him to play professionally was because he read one of Terence Mann’s books when he was a teenager and never played catch with his father, John, again.
Ray and Annie both have a dream about Mr. Mann one night in which Ray is attending a baseball game at Fenway Park together with Terence. With Annie’s support, Ray goes all of the way to Boston to seek out Mr. Mann even though he has become a curmudgeon recluse over the past few decades and mainly keeps to himself. With a lot of convincing, Ray takes Terence to a baseball game at Fenway where they both end up hearing another voice telling the two of them to ‘go the distance.’ They also see the statistics of a baseball played of Archibald ‘Moonlight’ Graham who starred in only one game for the New York Giants but never had an actual at-bat. Ray and Mr. Mann do more research about Graham and end up driving together on their way to Minnesota to go see him.
When Ray and Mr. Mann travel all the way to Minnesota, they realize that Moonlight Graham became a doctor and had passed away over fifteen years ago in 1972. When Ray goes for a walk one evening, he realizes that he has transported himself to that time before Moonlight ‘Archie’ Graham had died and encounters him on the street where they have a conversation about his short-lived baseball career. The older Moonlight Graham is content to be a doctor but wishes for that one chance to face a major league pitcher.
After Ray and Terence leave Minnesota, they encounter a young hitchhiker on the road who introduces himself as Archie Graham. The two of them are amused by this crazy coincidence and take him with them to Iowa. During the ride, Ray confides in Terence Mann that his father was disappointed in Ray for throwing away his baseball career and for denouncing his father’s hero, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson as a criminal. One of Mr. Mann’s books led to Ray putting down the baseball bat as well. Ray really wishes to make up with his father and make things right again if he had a dream to spare.
The amazing thing is that this young Archie Graham character gets to play on Ray’s baseball field in Iowa. In this only “major league” play, he is able to hit the ball into the outfield and get a sacrifice fly run in for his team miraculously after winking at the opposing pitcher as he always wanted to do even as an old man. Facing financial pressure from Mark and his associates, Ray thinks about selling the field to save his farm but Terence Mann encourages Ray to re-consider.
Considered to be one of the greatest monologues in modern film, James Earl Jones gives an amazing speech regarding the central role that baseball has played as America’s pastime and how it has formed our culture, and made the nation stronger during times of peril and tragedy. “People will come, Ray, people will most definitely come…” Terence Mann’s beautiful speech to Ray convinces him to keep the baseball field and not sell it off because he knows that baseball fans will come to Iowa to see their childhood heroes play America’s beloved game.
Mark, acting increasingly incensed, causes Ray’s daughter, Karin to fall from the bleaches, but Archie Graham who has a sense of both his past and future to come, steps off this magic baseball field to save Karin from choking. Mark then becomes a believer and sees all of these historical baseball players and encourages Ray not to sell the baseball field. He most likely believes that the field could be a major cash crop within itself and that people will most definitely come to see it. The older Moonlight Graham thanks Ray for the chance to make his dream to come true and that he doesn’t regret how he became a doctor too.
Terence is invited to leave with the baseball players one day to go through the cornfields to a destination that is unknown. Ray is going to miss Terence but trusts his judgment that it could ‘make one hell of a story one day’ about ‘Shoeless Joe Jackson coming to Iowa.’ Ray has his own family and can’t go with Terence who may be entering a realm or destination beyond our comprehension as the audience. Still though, he’s confident about his next destination and isn’t worried about not coming back.
One day, A younger version of Ray’s father shows up on the baseball field and Shoeless Joe Jackson references that the voice in Ray’s head was not Joe’s but rather Ray himself wanting to have a better relationship with his father and to ‘ease his pain.’ In the climatic scenes that can make even the most stone-hearted person cry, John is reunited with his son, Ray, on the baseball field, and he even gets introduced to Ray’s wife and his granddaughter, Karin, who he never knew in life.
John Kinsella remarks to Ray how “it’s so beautiful here, it’s like a dream come true.” The young John, asks Ray if this is heaven. Ray replies simply that, “It’s Iowa.” Even though John believes it still could be heaven, Ray asks if there is a heaven having never experienced it. John replies, “Oh yeah…it’s the place where dreams come true.” An uplifting emotional moment takes place in this scene as Ray Kinsella looks around at his beautiful farm, his wife and daughter happy and smiling, and to be reunited with his estranged father again as being a sign that maybe they, in fact, are all in heaven together.
Ray is so overcome with emotions at being with John again that before John leaves to go through the cornfields as the sun sets, he strikes up the courage to ask his dad to have a catch with him as they did in the old days. They start to throw to each other and Ray is struggling to believe that this is actually happening until John throws him the baseball, which Ray catches in his glove, and he can actually feel the soft baseball in his mitt knowing that his dream finally came true.
This last scene of ‘Field of Dreams’ is an iconic one and shows the power and love of the relationship of a father and son. Despite their differences, they still want to share the tradition of having a catch together after all of those years had passed between them. As the final scene fades out, you can see thousands of red lights emanating from the cars who are lining up to visit the ‘Field of Dreams’ and see their old childhood heroes play the game of baseball. People most definitely will come if you build it.
A truly remarkable film, ‘Field of Dreams’ is hard to get through without tearing up and having some tissues near you. More so than just Ray and John’s relationship, many characters have their dreams realized because of this baseball field. Archie ‘Moonlight’ Graham gets to swing the bat for the first time, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson gets to play baseball again as apart of his shamed Black Sox team, and Terence Mann gets to see what’s on the other side of those Iowa cornfields. The powerful musical score by the dearly departed James Horner stirs your emotions with every scene, and you can feel the weight of Ray and John’s relationship with each sound of the orchestra. James Earl Jones steals the show by giving one of the best monologues about baseball and its’ importance within the history of America.
If you love the game of baseball and you enjoy a story about achieving your dreams when they seem out of reach, then you should watch ‘Field of Dreams.’ They really don’t make too many Hollywood films like Field of Dreams anymore and even though it was released in 1989, it’s still an American classic, which has stood the test of time. If you ever go to Iowa, that special baseball field is still there to visit. If you’re a father or a son, you’ll also really connect with this film and it will touch you in your heart and in your soul.
You have the money, you have the time, and you have some destinations in mind: you’re ready to live the nomadic lifestyle for a while and travel the world. This may be your dream life but the question is: are you prepared to make the jump? and do you have everything you need to make the journey? Having the right backpack with you could make the difference between having the time of your life or booking an early flight home.
Where’s Your Backpack?
Despite having the money, the time, and the destinations finalized in your mind, do you have the gear that you’ll need in order to complete the journey? Unless you plan on lugging a suitcase through the Andes or the Himalayas, you’re going to need a sturdy and reliable travel backpack. However, thankfully for you, there are more options now than ever when it comes to travel backpacks and they’re not as expensive as they used to be.
There are dozens of backpacks that I could write about but then this article would be ten thousand words total. Instead, I’m going to focus on three great options that you should seriously consider, one of them which that I have personally used during my travels throughout South America and can highly recommend to my readers.
You can check out a number of options if you visit the website titled, ‘Live Once Live Wild’ and see their ‘What is the Best Travel Backpack’? article which you can access here: http://liveoncelivewild.com/best-travel-backpack/. Regardless of which backpack you choose, you’ll have plenty of good options to choose from.
JanSport Katahdin 40L – Best Bargain
If you’re not looking to spend a lot of money but still want to get some good value out of a travel backpack, you may want to consider buying the JanSport Katahdin 40L. This backpack is made out of Polyester material so it can withstand the elements pretty well and it can store a good amount of camping gear as well as a laptop if you’re going to need to do some work when you’re on the road.
There’s a top loading main compartment, a padded hipbelt for comfort, and dual water bottle pockets on the sides in case you get thirsty. The price may vary depending upon which store you buy the JanSport Katahdin but if you go to (goo.gl/MuNVtX) you can get it on sale now for about $55, which is a pretty good discount considering the original price is about $80. While not as flashy as some other options on the market, this travel backpack has a good amount of features that make it worth a look when you’re shopping for a bargain option that still gets the job done.
Mountaintop 50L
If you can’t spend all that much money, the cheapest option you may want to divulge in would be the Mountaintop 50L. The best thing about this travel backpack is the amount of storage for your items and clothes that you can fit in there. You can do a lot with 50L of storage and there are a lot of deep pockets, expendable collars, a big front pocket, and even a hydration system that make up this backpack. It’s also a comfortable fit for your body and back.
There’s a good amount of cushion and comfort for you so that you won’t feel too uncomfortable during your journeys when you are carrying this backpack around. Even though this Mountaintop 50L is one of the cheapest options out there, it’s still a top rated travel backpack that has become increasingly popular over the past couple of years. If you’re looking to buy one of these bad boys, you can go to (goo.gl/dTCNXI) where you can buy one for only $45, which is extremely affordable compared to other options. As if that wasn’t enough, you can buy the Mountaintop 50L in different colors including red, blue, green, gold, etc.
Osprey Farpoint 55
A personal favorite of mine that I have used during my recent travels in South America is the Osprey Farpoint 55. Depending upon how big you want your backpack to be, Osprey has you covered by offering the average traveler the Farpoint 40, 55, and 70. The bigger your Osprey is, the more expensive it’s going to be to buy. Osprey’s are top-notch quality but they are among the costliest backpacks on the market. However, in return, your Osprey backpack will last for years because of its’ high quality. It’s made entirely of polyester, is resistant to most weather elements, and comes with a lot of storage and space including an extra daypack bag that’s attached to the front of your Osprey backpack.
You can choose from three different colors and you can find the price for the Farpoint 55 at (goo.gl/z3EvQc). As noted, the price of this backpack can range from $160 – $190 so it’s important you make sure to save some money up before you go ahead and click the ‘buy’ button.
If you want to check out some more backpack options for travel, go to your local camping store and it’s likely that you’ll find what you’re looking for. I hope you choose the backpack that you believe is right for you and I’ll see you out there on the road.
If you consider Salsa to be wild and exhilarating, then Bachata could be considered the opposite kind of music in that it is both suave and smooth. While Bachata may not be the most exciting kind of Latin music, it is a genre that is both popular and historical. It may not be as skill-based as Salsa or Merengue, but you do need to keep a good rhythm and there is a good amount of variation to this kind of dance. The most important thing to be aware of when dancing Bachata is to watch your steps and make sure you’re moving seamlessly with your lady or gentleman partner in tow.
Bachata is a Latin music genre originally from the Dominican Republic, which came of being in the first half of the 20th century. One of the cool aspects about Bachata is that it combines European, African, and Indigenous musical elements to really captivate its’ listeners and dancers. Jose Manuel Calderon of the Dominican Republic did the first compositions, which formed the original Bachata songs back in those early days of the 20th century.
Bachata is considered to be a mixture of its’ predecessors: Merengue, Bolero and Son, which are other distinct Latin music genres. Similar to Salsa, Bachata takes both the form of a song and the form of a distinct dance that are supposed to go together. The mood of a Bachata song can be either very exuberant or more melancholy. Bachata’s original name was ‘amargue’ which means ‘bitter music’ or ‘blues mules’ reflecting in its’ origins the fact that Bachata used to be more somber and reserved when it was first created in the Dominican Republic.
A surprising fact about the Bachata music genre is that it wasn’t always that popular until the past few decades. Throughout most of the 20th century, especially in the Dominican Republic, this form of music was associated with rural communities who were mostly working class or poor in terms of their status. For a long time, Bachata was not allowed to be played on television or radio because it was too vulgar or crass for the elite members of Dominican society.
However, this attitude began to change in the 1980s and 1990s when both the instrumentation and the styles of Bachata multiplied to become more urban and diverse. Bachata has ended up in the 21st century as being one of the most popular forms of Latin music, up there with both Salsa and Merengue, and is played in bars, discotheques, and dance halls all across Latin America.
Bachata requires a group of musicians playing diverse instruments in order for an actual song to be played from the genre and for dancing to occur. There are seven instruments that usually make up the structure, rhythm, and beat of a Bachata song. You have your ‘Requinto’ (lead guitar), ‘Segunda’ (rhythm guitar), electric guitar, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, bongos, and guira. While none of these instruments are mandatory, you need them all in order to create a dance-oriented form of Bachata rather than a more classically oriented form that is most similar to Bolero.
While Bachata started originally in the Dominican Republic and became popular there eventually after a few decades, Bachata has now become one of the most popular forms of Latin music in the region. You can find Bachata music playing in countries such as Cuba, Panama, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, etc. Anywhere you go within the region, you’re likely to hear a Bachata song being played in your neighborhood or in your city.
The first Bachata songs that were composed by Jose Manuel Calderon, considered to be the modern founder of the genre, were titled ‘Borracho de amor’ and ‘Que sera de mi’. These songs came about in the early 1960s, which shows that the modern form of Bachata has been around for over five decades now. Hundreds of musicians, singers, and dancers have contributed to this unique and popular genre. Some of the more famous contributors to Bachata include names like Marino Perez, Leonardo Paniagua, Luis Vargas, Antony Santos, Juan Luis Guerra, and Romeo Santos. If you have the chance to listen or dance to some Bachata music, do yourself a favor and tune in, kick off your shoes, and enjoy this very popular genre of Latin music.
The Life and Times of Ben Weinberg 