The Quest for Culinary Serenity, the Battle and How I Prevailed

Posted by Dominick on Feb 21, 2011 in Tales From a Faraway Land | 0 comments

Victory belongs to the most persevering
    Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821)

It has been over 2 years of constant seeking to reach this moment. I have searched hundreds of little Chinos (Chinese run grocery stores), dozens of big box supermarkets (Coto, Disco, Jumbo,) and countless little fruit stands run by Bolivians, Peruvians, and Paraguayans…all in the name of procuring the perfect ingredients, to enable me to create the perfect home cooked meal here in Argentina.

And my friends…this day, i have succeeded.

Why Such a Challenge?

Its not that this is the greatest meal I have ever had. Neither is it that I feel that the local cuisine is somehow inferior or not good enough to satisfy much snobbish tastes…its simply that one particular meal that I enjoy greatly, that of rice & beans, with a melt the enamel off your teeth spicy salsa, guacamole, and fresh flour tortillas, has proved to be most difficult to reproduce here.

However, I will not allow myself to be defeated by my adoptive homeland, even as others have been in the past. So thus began my quest to somehow, recreate something that was totally foreign to this land, and be able to make it, on an economic level, and easily enough that it could be done on a regular basis at home. 

Guacamole – Green-Goo has Never Tasted so Good

In a culinary sense, I am in many ways in heaven in Buenos Aires. One of them is because of the ample supply of fresh, delicious Avocados (Or Palta as they are known here). I mostly consume them in raw form on top of just about anything I can think of: Pasta, Lentils, Sandwiches, Eggs, etc…This is a carry over from back home where I never find it necessary to transform this perfectly formed produce into something else.

However only recently did I decide it was worth the effort to concoct the entrancing green-goo known as Guacamole. The ingredient list is not that hard to come by here. Avacados are everywhere, cheap, fresh, and ready to go. Garlic, in a country where 70% of the population have Italian ancestry…ya again not a problem. And finally

Limes…ya about that.

Limes pose a slight challenge. They are not quite as commonly employed in everyday cooking here as they are the Los Estados. Therefore finding them, at times is a bit challenging. This is only made more difficult when locals sometimes refuse to admit that there is a difference between the two.

For example, when ordering a Corona, if you ask for a slice of lime in it, the staff will always, no matter how clear you make it that you want a lime, and not a lemon, you will still be brought a beautiful, sweating bottle of Corona…with a huge Lemon sticking out of it!

Another common problem is that there seems to be no consensus about what the exact name is for them in Spanish. Sometimes you need to use “Limon” or “Limon Verde” (Green) and just hope they bring you the green ones. Other times the go by “Caipirinha” which is the name of a popular drink in Brazil that is made with sugar, cachaça (alcohol made from sugar cane) ice and limes. I even one time was told that they are called  “Limas” by a small Bolivian woman at her little fruit stand.

But like I said, with a decent effort, you can find them without to much trouble.

*Apparently, Argentina is one of largest producers of limes in the world…Strange since limes here cost a good chunk of change…

Tortillas – Like Your Favorite Security-Blanket Food

Its hard to imagine “Latin” food in the United States without these beautiful little things.  But after you actually look at the different cuisines of Latin American, you discover real fast that these are very Mexican, and that’s it.

Back home I use these guys for just about everything that you do with bread (save for Peanut Butter & Jelly…that would be kind of gross). My favorite is making breakfast burritos with eggs, fresh Mozzarella, and homemade salsa.

My search for these lovely concoctions of flour and water proved initially to be a most daunting challenge. After falsely assuming that I could find them at the larger grocery stores, I finally discovered them for the first time in the wondrous, “exotic-food” Meca that is China-Town. This first batch was amazing because most remarkably they were homemade and packed by a local firm. Along with my service/shopping buddy for the day Gilda, we found them by complete accident. Because as is the custom of Argentine markets (and even more pronounced in China-Town) things are sorted and grouped together rather haphazardly throughout the store, we encountered the tortillas under the refrigerated case that held ready-made Sushi.

After loading up at the market (nothing like carrying 60 tortillas in your service bag while doing 6 hours of service under the hot Buenos Aires sun), I started to notice that the more common markets also had tortillas after all. Termed “Rapiditas” I have now found a few markets that carry them regularly.
(Dont even try though to find ones made from corn…That technology simply does not exist here…save for the one little Mexican lady who will make them for you fresh and deliver them to you through her website…)


Refried Beans – The Tastiest Black Mush on Earth

Now many of you know me as something of a cook. So you might surprised that of all of the things that are within my culinary arsenal, you might be surprised that one thing that has never been included therein, are refried beans.

Lets be honest, the name itself does not inspire the healthiest imagine in my mind. For that reason I have historically tried to avoid them. But after looking into i realized that despite being termed misleadingly in English Re-Fired beans, they are only fried once, and if you use a healthy oil (like olive) they are not so bad.

So to build this “element” I first needed to find me some black bean. Thats not to hard, the big Jumbo has them, as do the larger Cotos, and Discos, and of course China-Town. I even managed once to find a can of “Cheater” re-fried beans at the big Coto. However not only as they of inferior quality than the homemade ones, but they also carry a hefty-price tag of 18 pesos ($4.50 US) a can.

So like many things that I now know how to prepare, my quest to make this “element” began with me really quickly asking someone how to make them. “Ya do this, do that, blah blah, blah…and you will have your refired beans” a friend told me. Being the occasionally cocksure, audacious person that I am, I went ahead with the aforementioned directions in my head as sufficient for making this dish.

My first attempt succeeded in leaving me with a mush of white crunchy paste, and black bean skins completely separated in a bowl. Not exactly the outcome I had expected.

After some more coaching from “Mamma Grizel” (Thanks for that by the way) I decided to try my hand at it again. And this time after a few key strategic changes, I managed to achieve that which I was seeking.

That first batch was the best black mush I have ever had…

Salsa Picante – In Search of Burning Bliss

Most of the difficulty involves acquiring chili peppers with sufficient hotness to excite my severely desensitized spice/pain receptors in my mouth.  

“Im sure they must have something spicy here…” When that statement was first uttered during the first visit to Argentina by a naive Dominick, little did he know how it would take 2 years of hard work to find sought after spice.

In the End…Culinary Bliss of the Finest Order

How a BsAs Pickpocket Made my Day

Posted by Dominick on Feb 15, 2011 in Old Blog Posts | 2 comments

Usually when bad things happen to you, and you go through the normal progression of emotions. In the case of something stealing something from you, I usually notice that I follow a pretty standard pattern. Shock, disbelief, anger, etc… However the other day I noticed that in addition to experiencing the normal emotional trip that comes along with someone stealing a piece of your property, I in fact found myself feeling something completely different.

I had taken the Teschs and Janelle (Batavia Congregation) out for lunch at one of my favorite Pizza places (Kentucky Pizza in case your wondering). Afterward, we all got on the subway together to head back to our respective dwellings.

Now normally I try to not stick out too much as a foreigner for safety/not wanting to get jacked reasons. However being with some quite “Gringo-y looking people” from back home (sorry Mike) and being quite excited by their presence, I was not my normal on-guard self.

As we walked onto the subway, I noticed some people trying to make fun of us in their poor English (Dont make fun of me speaking English if you cant yourself) as I turned around to say something to them, I noticed that someone had hit my back pocket (where my wallet was). Immediately I reached back to make sure it was still there. After confirming that it was, I began to check rest of the “Holy Trinity of personal effects”: Phone, Wallet, Keys. When I got to my phone however, I noticed that my phone was gone!

As I tried to figure out what was going on, I saw right in front of me this suspicious looking “Chabon” that with a nervous look on his face was putting something into his messenger bag. At that moment the train started moving and I had about 90 seconds to decide what to do before we got to the next stop. As I started contemplating how I was going to explain in my poor Spanish to the Police after I punched this guy and took my phone back why I did so, it suddenly hit me…I was actually happy this guy had liberated my phone from me.

Pleased to be Liberated From my Phone

The phone i had been using here was my old phone from a few years ago. I had kept it because I liked the idea of having a junkie phone to use while in Argentina on my first trips here. Recently before I left the States, I broke down and jumped on the bandwagon and got an iPhone.

After being here for a while i started to remember why I hated this phone…because it worked downright terribly.  This dumb thing would randomly turn off in the middle of a call, fail to receive or send texts, along with a host of other annoying activities.

I would have switched over to the iPhone sooner, but Apple despite having completly won over my favor with its stellar technological engineering, is still an evil empire that resolves to restrict every intended use of its devises…including what carrier you use their phones on.

But as always…there is an army of dedicated, lifeless nerds out there that work night and day to help people like me, who need to “jailbreak” their phones, and “unlock” them for use on other carriers. The process is however quite complicated, and required a great deal of research to figure out exactly

how to complete the process.

Where I Realize That I am Rambling on About Something Stupid….

Anyways I am feeling like I am getting off point here a bit (lay off me its my first post in nearly 2 months). Basically what the thieving little hooligan did, is force me to go home, and figure out what went wrong with my initial efforts to get my iPhone working.

And to my great pleasure, it worked perfectly! I figured out what was wrong with my phone, and within 2 hours I had a new number, and was using my phone. Now I walk around the city, with my trendy iPhone in hand, and feel like i truly fit in with the rest of the skinny jeans wearing, scarf tying, Zara style embracing “Chetos” where I live. (well maybe with out

So in the end what does that incident teach me? That sometimes instead of letting a terrible event sap all of your joy, sometimes its possible for you to find a positive even among the bad…

P.S. One of the greatest uses for an iPhone, is finding ways to waste time…here I present the greatest of my work…ever completed in the subway.

Random Pictures From BA Life…

Posted by Dominick on Feb 2, 2011 in Old Blog Posts | 0 comments

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Getting caught in the rain has never been so fun. I was going for the Heavy Hitter look here. I swapped the Cigar for a churro…which I think it better.

Our Pioneers (save for the 2 who went to the bathroom during the photoshoot) after our annual Pioneer Meeting. Since then we have gained another 4 pioneers.