AUTUMN’S ADVENTURES

I met Emilce for the first time in person on the day that Amber surprised the Mercadal’s with her visit to Jujuy.  Since then, she has taken to me like a sister and I enjoy her company immensely.  Emi is the only daughter of the Mercadal family and she had been an exchange student in Germany for the past year.  She returned to Jujuy a week before Amber arrived.  Unfortunately she goes to college in less than a month, 4 hours away.  Just my luck, a good stand-in for my younger sister comes into my life and then leaves immediately.
When Amber left I assumed I’d only see Emi when I went over to the Mercadal’s once a week for lunch.  She surprised me with a phone call today inviting me over to make empanadas with her and 2 other friends of hers (and Amber’s).  Not only was I happy that she called, I was also happy to finally be learning how to make empanadas.  It has been on my list of things to learn to cook since I arrived.
Emi is the take-charge type in the kitchen, just like mama Mercadal.  She rolled the dough for the empanadas and batted away wandering hands picking at the meat filling for the empanadas.  I managed to spill a whole glass of water on the table and make the sloppiest empanadas of the bunch, but I enjoyed myself in the process.  When we were finished we made about 50-60 empanadas and between 4 girls we ate 37 empanadas.  I was so full that I had to lay horizontally on the couch with my jeans unbuttoned and unzipped.  I wasn’t alone in this unflattering exposure, we were all in a delirious food coma.  It was fantastic.