Of the odd draw of culturally specific sports
Posted: May 16, 2011 Filed under: Food, Wandering in the city Leave a commentSo, here’s the thing, queridos lectoras y lectores: An American abroad does things she would normally ignore and avoid at home. Case in point–tonight I watched the Bulls vs. Heat NBA game at a well-known ex-pat bar in my neighborhood. I even ordered a plate of hot wings. Bless the flying buffaloes from whence those alitas came! They were a.) actually picante and b.) delicious. I suppose I should be clear that I love hot wings at home, too, but oh how disproportionately tasty they are in a far-away and virtually spice-free land. I should also be clear (and you will have figured this out by now) that I couldn’t care less about NBA games State-side, excluding the occasional basket-ball themed gathering with a few boys in Atwater Village who can explain things to me. Somehow here, though, I love them. U.S. sports touch the weird, if shriveled and black, American heart in me. And sometimes it’s just so comforting to be present in a room full of people who share your fatherland.
This was a particularly good day for sports in Buenos Aires, not so much for the NBA game (obviously) but because today the local futbol rivals went head to head for the ‘Superclasico,’ title. The Boca Juniors and River had quite a show down. Boca took down River in a 2-0 home win. I passed a bar where folks were watching the game this afternoon in Palermo just as the winning goal was made. The ‘gooooaaaaalllllllll’ screams could have been heard for a good mile but there I was, entirely accidentally, amid the hinchas.
I may be a lover of chicken wings but sports don’t really don’t it for me. Except, of course, when they are a phenomenon so specific either to the culture into which I am trying to enter or the culture from which I hail.
Of the glory that is Sarkis
Posted: May 13, 2011 Filed under: Food, Language and text Leave a commentLast evening, oh readers of mine, I went out for dinner to celebrate that little baby chil’ whose birth you read about in my previous post. (Worry not: no baby talk follows–even if I am an Aunt, I remain committed to dark humor, an extremely guarded optimism, and a deep appreciation for the futile).
The selected restaurant was Sarkis. It happens to be the first place I ate a meal in this country, lo those many months ago. Sarkis serves Mediterranean food in the posh Palermo neighborhood. There is always a line and those crowded around the entrance waiting are usually highly attractive porteños between the ages of 25 and 35–though a few of the jet-setting older crowd join in as well. As it happens, I very consistently arrive a bit before the folks I plan to dine with and thus have ample time to gaze, longingly, at the bearded hipster types* and their outrageously attractive girlfriends as they smoke and chat on the corner waiting for their names to be called.
It’s really a scene. The doorman is megalomaniacal. If you know him well enough to exchange kisses, you get bumped up on the list. Each time I’ve gone up to put my own name in I can see the joy of absolute power light up his eyes–especially when he notes the foreign accent.
But once you do get in, it is sooooo worth it. Some of the best food I’ve had in this city. Falafel, tabbouleh, hummus (although why they won’t use the fantastic olive oil this country produces is beyond me–even if whatever it is they are using is a cost-cutter). Last night we went with lamb kabobs, a Greek salad, and one of the greatest versions of vegetarian moussaka I’ve ever eaten. And oh did we eat. ALL of it. Plus dessert and Turkish coffee. Walking a few blocks after our dinner to catch a cab home one of my comrades and I were dangerously close to passing into a cuisine-induced coma.
Ahhh, Sarkis. How I adore thee. Tonight, for dinner, I’ve been invited to a friend’s house for Colombian cuisine. So, off I must go, in search of the avocados I’m charged with supplying. Happy eating, readers, wherever you are!
_____________________________________________________________________________
*I’m no longer sure if this is an appropriate expression in English. Here, in Spanish, it is common to refer to a man (not necessarily a hipster, just any fellow) as “un tipo.” It functions as a very informal pronoun, though my sense is that it can, if inappropriately deployed, be derogatory. It is also quite common to refer to a man as “el man,” although this may be more common among the Colombian crowd. “El man,” if mishandled, can also be derogatory.
Of cafes and minor thievery
Posted: May 5, 2011 Filed under: Food, Wandering in the city Leave a comment
This afternoon I went with a few classmates of mine to a well-known cafe in San Telmo called La Poesía (pictured above). It’s a typical porteño cafe, on a corner. Big windows with two-person tables lined up out front on the sidewalk. Inside, one can sit and chat under the swinging fiambres and feel, well, literary. (Most of the tables at La Poesía are adorned with tarnished metal plaques indicating the great writers who might have sat in your very spot, composing their master works while sipping cortados or tragos into the wee hours).
Buenos Aires has a strong cafe culture–not unlike Paris. During rush hour the tables throughout the city fill up with cigarette-smoking locals and guide-book-toting tourists alike. They drink coffee or order liters of beer and chat until the traffic subsides or the dinner hour arrives. Also, as in Paris, the cafes are fantastic locals to eves-drop on debates about literature, foreign policy, local politics, or anything else people are talking about. And any time you’re wandering the city, you can’t go more than two blocks without finding an open cafe–no matter the hour.
What’s more: The city has developed a list of ‘cafés y bares notables‘ all of which hold some kind of historical or architectural significance. The bureaucrat who had the job of selecting these places is one lucky bastard. As is the one from the Ministry of Culture who chose all the pizza joints in the city-sponsored book, “Pizzerías de valor patrimonial de Buenos Aires.”
If you, dear readers, can keep a secret I’ll tell you something: I like to steal the tiny espresso spoons from the restaurants and cafes I go to, here or anywhere. I snuck one from La Poesía into my boot and hobbled home, a good two miles, with the thing pressed against my ankle. But don’t worry. I always leave a good tip.
Play of the day
Posted: April 24, 2011 Filed under: Food, Plays of the days Leave a commentIn Buenos Aires, as in many mega-metropoleis*, you can get pretty much anything in the world delivered. Liters of beer, cigarettes, groceries, pizza, gelato, even a single cup of hot coffee and a medialuna can be yours in forty-five minutes or less if you’ve got a phone and an address. It’s incredible.
The other fantastic thing about delivery here is that it’s called ‘delivery.’ They do not use a Spanish word for this fine commercial service. Plain ol’ English suffices–almost. The word must be pronounced as it would be in the local tongue. You ask for ‘deh-lee-behr-ee.”
I, dearest readers, finally worked up the courage to order my own delivery the other day. A courageous act, it was, because talking on the phone in Spanish is considerably more difficult than having an exchange face-to-face. When you don’t hear well or don’t understand, it can be a challenge to recover without the aid of facial expressions or emphatic gestures, pointing and the like. (And oh how the porteños love their gestures.)
I gulped. I called. I asked for a ‘deh-lee-behr-ee’ and forty minutes later two liters of beer and a bottle of Malbec arrived. Huzzah! That’s urban magic.
I didn’t actually require these items to be delivered (they were for a dinner party I hosted the following evening and I could have just as easily purchased the booze at the store next door), but hey. Sometimes minor adventures have to be chosen.
So. There you have it. A well played play of the day. Next time I think I’ll order a kilo of mint-chip along with a café con leche. Let’s hope I don’t get used to it. We wouldn’t want to have to change the title of this little blog to ‘Agoraphobic Me’.
____________________________________________________________________________
*I realize this is the alternative plural. I chose it because it is awesome. That is all.
Of pirate radio, building nodes, squatting and maté
Posted: April 22, 2011 Filed under: Food, Technology, Wandering in the city 1 Comment
Oh, my dearest of readers. This, dare I say it, was a productive week. Much of which I spent in ‘the field,’ as it were. My fields this week, as foretold in the previous post, consisted of the Once Libre rooftop and a house in one of the city’s villas. That house, as it turns out, doubles as a pirate radio station. What you see in the image above is Vampi trying to fix a computer rescued from the garbage heap by the pirate station. That very lovely lady in the background is one of the station’s co-founders. They’re planning on building a node in the autonomous network, the previously mentioned Buenos Aires Libre, along with some stronger antennas to broadcast the station beyond its current radius. At this point they’ve only got coverage for about a ten blocks.
It took a good hour to get to the house. A train out to the Liniers station, then two collectivos (buses, that is) to the neighborhood. A gloriously sunny day meant there were tons of stray dogs napping in the streets, kids playing on the sidewalks, folks milling about and greeting their passing neighbors with kisses on the cheek.
The house, like all those in the villa, is ramshackle–put together with found materials. Corrugated metal roofs serve as general protection but the elements easily pass through. Brick walls are cobbled together (and in this particular house, are covered with radical graffiti). Tarps and blankets separate space. Infrastructure exists, though it is not provided in any regular way by the city. The ceiling was hung with a mesh of plugs and wires, pulling power from some invisible source somewhere down the block. They get water, but I don’t know from where. It isn’t ‘running’ certainly. The house may be on the small side, and the modest side, but its residents were extremely welcoming.
Our hosts prepared a big feast for us–rice with vegetables and tuna, garbanzo beans, a salad, bread. We drank juice out of glasses made by cutting the tops off of beer bottles. The couple’s three kids ran in and out and were not particularly phased by our presence. Even mine–the obvious American with the weird accent.
We were given a tour of the station, which they built on the roof of the house–a kind of second-floor shack. The vast majority of their equipment is found, donated, or homemade. They built their transmitters, for example, themselves.
Needless to say I was very pleased with this little adventure.
Later in the week I helped the BAL folks post the antenna for the node at Once Libre. Pictures of that space will follow. I also learned that those running the place are essentially squatting. The collective occupies the third-floor of a city-owned property that had been vacant for some time prior to the Once Libre takeover. At any moment, though, this sweet subcultural meeting place could be found and destroyed by the municipality. Here’s to hoping that the notoriously slow bureaucracy in this city continues in its typical manner, ignoring, avoiding, or just not bothering with such spaces.
Both of these days of field work were closed by the standard afternoon maté ritual. I learned a few things. One: you can say ‘thank you’ when the maté cup is handed to you, but if you say it when you finish sipping and hand it back to whoever is refilling the hot water, you won’t get any more. Second: you have to make sure each person in the circle gets their maté in order. If you cut in line (colarse is the verb for this unholy act, and porteños really believe in lining up for things), you’re committing a grave offense.
Why, you ask, have I paired all these little field experiments in a single post? Well, if you’ll permit the radical in me to be a little cheesy, I’ll tell you. All of it–the pirate radio station, Once Libre’s squat space, the node-building and computer-recycling, even the maté–is about linking-in to the community around you and equitably sharing whatever it is you have. I know the cynics among you are rolling your eyes. Heck, I’m even rolling mine. I have lost a considerable amount of faith in the human race in recent epochs of my life. But still, it’s nice to know some people haven’t. Some people really do use their time, their skills, their general goodwill, to help whom they can. So, for a second, I’m just gonna settle in and like the idea. Maybe even believe in it.
The great thing about the true radical is that she doesn’t separate herself from others to be a leader or a solitary genius or a star. She just throws together whatever it is she has and offers that thing, or herself, or her maté, to her family, her friends, her lovers, her neighbors. And, best of all, she offers what she has to complete strangers. Even to tall, American strangers with funny accents.
Of Fernet
Posted: April 6, 2011 Filed under: Food 2 Comments
Fernet is a digestif, bitter in flavor and dark in color. To me it tastes a little bit like wood with a very slight hint of black licorice. The stuff has a medicinal quality to it (and indeed it was once proscribed as a remedy for cholera). If you mix this liquor with Coca-cola and put it over ice, you get what amounts to the national drink of Argentina. One friend of mine recently told me that he didn’t believe in God but he believed in Fernet. He proceeded to pull from his wallet a small token bearing the visage of one of the founders of the most popular brand, pictured above, Fernet-Branca.
If you walk into the liquor stores of Buenos Aires you’ll find tons of this particular spirit. Fernet has its own aisle at my local CarreFore grocery store. While I don’t buy bottles for myself I will, on occasion at a party or bar, enjoy my own ‘Fernet Coca.”
I sometimes wonder if national alcoholic beverages say something about the culture of a place. Pisco Sours in Chile or Peru, Cuba Libres in Cuba, Aguardiente in Colombia or Ecuador, beer in the U.S. or Germany. If they do, I suppose Fernet-Coca could indicate a number of things about Argentina–the vast immigrant culture (Fernet was first an Italian beverage), the very long late nights of the social (Fernet is a drink best consumed post-dinner, a digestif after all), maybe even their willingness to appropriate and play with the customs and cultures of any who cross into the country (an Argentine-manufactured Italian liquor mixed with an American soft-drink). If I were feeling bold, I might suggest too that ‘bittersweet’ is a particularly good way to describe both the drink and the general phenomenological status of the porteño.
If nothing else the Fernet-Coca is one more idiosyncrasy of Argentina. It lets you know where you are when you’re here. And so, lift your glasses readers, filled with the drink of your own fine homelands. May I say ‘Salud!’ to a little cross-cultural imbibing.
Of wine and olive oil
Posted: March 14, 2011 Filed under: Food Leave a comment
I love wine. I really, really love wine. I blame my father who thought it a reasonable idea to give me little sips of the good bottles as soon as I could hold a glass. Among my very small crowd of mostly beer-drinking friends here there is one young woman who went as far as to call me la reiña del vino. I’ll take the title merrily, particularly considering my recent trip to Mendoza.
The region is beautiful. It sits at the foot of the Andes and it’s warm and dry. It is best known for Malbecs. I visited several bodegas, or wineries, that make exceptional malbecs (though some of the best stuff we drank was made from other varietals, even whites–a sauvignon blanc from a big industrial winemaker called Lopez comes to mind).*
The city (Mendoza is the name of both the city and the region) is equally wonderful. There is an enormous park, which we only began to explore. What’s best, if you have a little dough to spend, is the food. I hate to say it (sorry, porteños) but they out-foodie Buenos Aires by leaps and bounds. Every dinner I ate was fantastic–as good as the best meals I’ve had in Los Angeles. My top restaurant pick is 1884. I had a mushroom risotto that was ridiculously delicious. The place is gorgeous as well, and in a bodega in the city itself (as apposed to Maipu or Lujan de Cuyo where most of the vineyards one travels to Mendoza to visit are situated). If you are ever in Mendoza, make reservations, pay for the taxi, let the sommelier pick something for you and be stunned at the glory of your dining experience. Also: the whole shebang–bottle of wine, appetizer, two platos principales, a desert and a cafe cortado–was less than 100 U.S. buckaroos. My god. I may need to move to Mendoza.
You’ll be happy to know (especially so if you are my liver) that in addition to wine, Mendoza produces some amazing olive oil. My olive oil standards, mind you, are particularly lofty. I’m constantly chasing the epicurean high that was the olive oil from a little farm in Lesbos, Greece. While the stuff I found in Mendoza doesn’t quite match the artistry of the oil I had the pleasure of drinking (yes: for a week all I sipped the stuff, dipped bread in it, poured it over everything I ate) on that fair island, I’d still probably be willing to try directly injecting it into my veins.
It also made me rethink the whole ‘getting a PhD’ thing. Why not just drop everything, move to the tranquil outskirts of Mendoza and learn to press olives? I might be a little tipsy at work after the three-glass lunches, but if I was pressing olives instead of writing esoteric marxist materialist critiques on contemporary urban practice, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Also: they still take siesta in Mendoza. From one to four or five o’clock each afternoon businesses close and people actually nap! For now, let’s just say that it’s a very strong Plan B, maybe strong enough to displace the functional unemployability that will very likely come with my Plan A.**
Needless to say I’ve come back bearing a few extra pounds and a pickled liver (plus three bottles of wine and two of olive oil). Good thing the vacation is over and I’m returning, today, to high-paced (does it count as aerobic?) city life.
______________________________________________________________________
*Here are a list of the bodegas we visited, in no particular order: Trapiche, Lopez, Carinae, Finca Flichman, Palo Alto.
**My friend Angie also has a good saying for this. I’ll give it to you in Spanish once she can confirm for me that I have the phrasing right, but it’s more or less something like “you’re better prepared than the chicken and we can’t even eat you.”
Of salsa picante y gustos picantes
Posted: March 1, 2011 Filed under: Food, Wandering in the city 1 CommentSo the folks here in Buenos Aires don’t seem to be big fans of spice. It’s a lamentable fact for a lover of all things picante like myself. Luckily, this weekend at the Ferria de San Telmo I found a fantastic, homemade hot sauce. So delicious. The salsa is made and bottled by two (American) kids who are also the members of a folk/country band. And these fabulous and industrious young founders of Ya Ya Bean’s La Boca Roja put together a little video of their customers from this Sunday’s market. My 100% awesome mother (who is visiting from Albuquerque) and I make a brief appearance. Watch, and be amazed at the glory that are the passersby at the weekly market.
Of ice cream and how language eats
Posted: February 24, 2011 Filed under: Food, Language and text 2 Comments
In an effort to prevent a bounty of comments in which my dearest readers (that’s you, by the way) complain that all I discuss anymore is food, I’d like to insist that you take note of the portion of this post’s title which comes post-coordinating conjunction. I talk about language too. Its the only thing I love more than I love food.
Now then, carrying on: Argentines love ice cream. Really, really love it. While it’s been the summer season during my stay, I’m told that even when colder weather descends upon the city the Porteño persists in his commitment to helados. I’ll confirm this claim for you when I can, but there is evidence to suggest its accuracy. How else could the local economy sustain such an outlandish number of ice cream shops?
Yesterday, after an afternoon of running about the city (my guess is I clocked around five miles of pavement pounding), I decided to stop by the shop a few blocks from my apartment for a cone. Let me clarify that, like most Argentine cuisine, the ice cream of Buenos Aires is greatly influenced by the Italian tradition. It’s gelato, really. I chose menta granizado (yep, mint chocolate-chip) and it was absolutely divine. This is my second jaunt into the sweet world of helados here.* The first was a few weeks ago, (bigger cone, half raspberry, half lemon) also gloriously delicious.
Now if one were going to discuss the fact of having enjoyed or planning to enjoy an ice cream cone in the local language of Buenos Aires, one would have to be aware of the following: In Spanish there are three basic verbs for ingesting: comer (normally translated as ‘to eat’), beber (to drink), and tomar (to take or to take in). In Argentina beber is used infrequently. When a waiter wants to know what you’d like to drink he asks, “Querés algo de tomar?” though ‘drinks’ are ‘bebidas‘. Drinking (as in alcohol) is tomando. But there are some important subtleties of usage that require our attention. One does not use the verb comer when the object of the verb is ice cream or breakfast, but rather tomar. That means you don’t ‘eat’ an ice cream cone and you don’t ‘eat’ breakfast.
The import of this usage was explained to me by a Spanish teacher as follows: Breakfast isn’t something you eat in Argentina because it’s usually just tea, coffee or maté and maybe a few medialunas. And you don’t eat ice cream, you lick it or take little bites with your very small spoon.
This may appear to some as a relatively small distinction, between eating and tomando, but I don’t think it is. The language is indicative of a pretty big cultural divide. It isn’t that Argentines don’t eat. (Boy do they ever: huge slabs of meat and thick, extra-cheesy pizzas are the standards for dinner, it seems.) It’s that they think differently about some meals and about some foods than do, well, Americans, for example. And when you think differently about certain meals or certain foods, you behave differently. You socialize differently. You organize your days differently. I dare hypothesize that by using tomar when ‘breakfast’ is its object, Porteños have more or less prevented the development of a brunch culture. In my mind this is a terrible loss for them, considering brunch is the best thing to happen to the weekend, ever. I would venture to claim, too, that by using the verb when ice cream is its object, they’ve opened up a fantastic cultural space in which ice cream can be taken in at any time and in any weather. This, in my mind, is a major gain for them. Now perhaps you think I’m going to far, dear readers. And maybe I am. But I know this: I’m pretty sure I’ll be tomando un helado again, y muy pronto.
_________________________________________________________________________
*Most Americans I’ve spoken to in the city are shocked by how little ice cream I’ve eaten. One friend of mine spent his first exploratory months in the city going from one Freddo (the most ubiquitous ice cream chain in B.A.) to another. But the truth is I’m just really more of a savory character than a sweets girl.
P.S. I realize the titular image is of little real relevance to the post, but I liked it. And (this is so obvious to those of you who know me as to make the following statement superfluous) I look just like that when I eat ice cream.
P.P.S. The second sentence of the post-script above may or may not be true.
Play of the day
Posted: February 21, 2011 Filed under: Food, Plays of the days 1 CommentHands down play of the day: My lovely Colombian friend Angie batted her eyes and begged the waiter at El Fracés, (you guessed it) a French restaurant in Palermo, to serve us a plate of house-made pâté even though it is a delicacy only offered to the the dinner crowd and we were enjoying a late (5:30 p.m.) lunch. They served it with delicious wheat and walnut bread, a side of marmalade and a handful of arugula. I nearly died a little death from the pleasure of consuming it.
Itinerant Me 