bread and novels

So, the book club was a success!  The French cafe we went to was excellent.  The medialunas (Argentina’s croissants) are pretty good, but there is nothing like French croissants filled with chocolate.  Yum.  Now we’re trying to think of a story to read for the next meeting, something short (like 50 pages) and preferably available online since, since we are all going on summer vacations. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Today, I’ve locked myself in my office and I’m working on own story, a novel, about a young man from the US who comes to Argentina to find out about his roots after his Argentine mother dies.  I’ve written for about an hour today and I will try to write for at least half an hour more.

Yay!  L just came home and announced that he bought bread so I think I may go take a break and have some lunch.  I love the fresh bread here!  You can buy a half kilo of delicious fresh bread from any bakery for about 6 pesos (that’s like $1.25).  And there are bakeries literally every five blocks.  Why don’t we have this in the US?  Bread is always so shitty.  Decent fresh bread is so expensive.  Bad, bad, US.

I’ve quit smoking again- this is day 4.  I feel so much better, not that I was smoking much, just a few cigarettes a day.  But my appetite has returned fiercely.  So I will try to keep my fresh bread habit to a minimum.

Okay, sandwich time.  One roll of bread only, but with some prosciutto and olive oil- yum.

besos

book club!

Okay. So, I haven’t added any new blogs in a LONG time, but I feel the urge to start again. Maybe its because I miss my family and friends back home and feel a need to let them know how things are going on a day to day basis here in BsAs. Granted, I talk to my parents and little brother once a week on the phone but so many things gets lost in chats that only happen once a week.
So anyway, today, Sunday, I’m going to a book club. Its going to be at a swanky French cafe- I love French food! I’ve never been to before but it’s pretty close to my house so I think I will ride my bike We read the book Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Excellent book- a strange mixture of British boarding school drudgery and science fiction.
That’s it for today.
Ciao

Do You Tango?

Tango

La Dia De La Memoria

La Dia De La Memoria is a national holiday in Argentina when people remember the horrific events of Dirty War, where over 30,000 left leaning Argentines “disappeared” thanks to the military dictatorship of the 1970′s.

Today its a day for political organizations to show their strength, as happened with the Partido Obrero (Worker’s Party) in Plaza de Mayo.

End of the Summer Asado

Underground: Tales from Buenos Aires, Argentina

LA CUCARACHA

A really weird thing happened to me today.  In my small, rural town of California cockroaches sightings are not a common.    So today, I saw an enormous cockroach on the counter in the kitchen of my house (gross!!!!).  I screamed (I’m really wimpy when it comes to insects).

The weird thing was, the cockroach looked at me.  I swear it looked straight into my eyes.  In that silent moment, I felt a connection between us.  As if we both recognized something of ourselves in the other and our connection to the eternal conflict prey and predator.  Then the moment was broken, and then we both ran.  Well, the cockroach scurried and I ran to the counter.  The cockroach ran into silverware drawer (gross, gross, gross!!!).  I looked around for something to kill it with, muttering and swearing to myself.  I found an OHLALA magazine, which I rolled up in one hand and ran back to the silverware drawer.

I tentatively opened the silverware drawer and poked into it rather deeply with the magazine.  The cockroach jumped at least five inches into the air. (I’m not kidding.)  It scuttled up some of the big wooden spoons and leaped out of the drawer and under a stack of wooden shelves on the floor.  (We have a very strange kitchen set up made up almost entirely of found or gifted furniture   I tried to hit the cockroach with the magazine as it ran across the drawers but it went into a crack so I missed.  Damn.  This gave the cockroach the opportunity it needed to escape under the fridge.

My heart was racing as I grabbed the can of “roach” or whatever its called here and repeatedly sprayed under the fridge.  I didn’t see the cockroach and I feared that I had missed and it was still alive under there.  Ten minutes later I checked under the fridge again, this time poking with the broom.  I spotted the cockroach on the side of the fridge, turned over on it’s back and wriggling its legs in agony.  I felt bad.  “Sorry dude,” I said and sprayed again, this time for the kill.  I sprayed and sprayed but the writhing of the cockroach just got more and more intense.   I felt paralyzed.  I didn’t want to watch this poor insect suffering so terribly but at that point I just wanted it to be over.  I kept spraying but I started to feel a little light headed, and not wanting to suffer the same fate as the poor the cockroach, I decided to leave the kitchen and finish watching Seinfeld.  When the show ended ten minutes later the cockroach was dead.

I heard somewhere that if there was ever a nuclear holocaust then cockroaches would the inherit the earth.  They can live without food for over a month and can survive being submerged in water for over an hour and half.  They can survive for months on limited food, such as the glue from the back of a postage stamp.  This cockroach was no exception a mighty foe…

Underground: Tales from Buenos Aires, Argentina

My best friend here, Jen, left today.  Buenos Aires and all of our usual haunts, Sugar, LV studio events, and Palermo in general, will not be the same with out you.  Oh, and thanks for the ukulele.  I think that is one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever been given.

You will be missed Jen.

Underground: Tales from Buenos Aires, Argentina

I really want to go running or do some kind of exercise this morning but its raining, everyone is closed, and there are at least two people sleeping in the living room…Hopefully I’ll find some time and space to go this morning…

Ok,  finally I was able to go running.  There was a little break in the rain around 3PM.  It was the first time in a really long time but since quitting smoking a month and half ago, I feel like I should start exercising again.

Now I’m off to a superbowl party at Casa Bar in Palermo with my American friend who’s moving back to the US next week

Underground: Tales from Buenos Aires, Argentina

Get On The Party Bus!!!

Underground: Tales from Buenos Aires, Argentina

BACK IN BUENOS AIRES (AGAIN)

I just got back to Buenos Aires yesterday.  I’d been in San Martin de los Andes with L visiting his family and hometown.  We took a six day bike/camping trip through the Andes into Chile with his sister, her boyfriend, and L’s friend and his girlfriend.  It was intense to say the least, resulting in trip to the hospital due to my horrible allergies (I feel like such a nerd!).   I woke up with my eye swollen so that it was about half the size that it normally is.  But the trip was also incredibly beautiful and peaceful.

And now we are back (again).  It is incredibly hot and humid.  The temperature is relentless and there is no relief from it unless you are submerged in cold water or are lucky enough to have air conditioning (I am not).  Since L and I are both totally broke at the moment, we’ve decided to try to cook everything (including bread) after a very tense trip to the local Carrefour.  An unfortunate consequence of this is that using the oven in this heat is a torturous endeavor.  But L and P are bravely cooking a mountain of milanesas.  The ones we don’t eat tonight will go into the freezer for weeks to come.  I made some foccacia bread that came out okay-not great.  I was not aware that the yeast and sugar mixture are supposed to “bubble”.  Oh well, I’ll try again tomorrow.  The first time is just a trial, right?

Here’s the milanesa recipe from L.  These are kind of like a chicken parmesan but with thin slices of beef.  They are delicious!:

A word of advice, however, try to avoid cooking them in sweltering hot weather

Milanesa

(for about 5 milanesas)

Ingredients

• 5 pieces of thin beef cuts (about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thickness)
• 2 eggs (beaten)
• salt and pepper to taste
• pinch of basil
• pinch of garlic
• pinch of oregano
• 2 cups flour (pan rollado- this is a crisper type of flour.  I don’t know if its sold in the US.  Its kind of like a mix between dried crotons and flour.  Perhaps these two could be mixed for the effect.)

Mix the eggs and salt together in a small bowl.  Combine flour (mixture) with spices.  Soak milanesas in egg mixture, dip it into flour mixture, pound bread with a meat tenderizer.  ( You can repeat the dipping process if you want a thicker crust.)

Place milanesas on an oiled baking pan.  Bake the milanesas in the oven at 350F for approximately 30 minutes.  During the last couple of minutes you can add some cheese and a tomato if you like.  Enjoy!