The Busy Gourmand

Cloudy Day, Buenos Aires

As the title suggests the excitement of the first two days was replaced by a heavy rain all day.  Not that we were going to set the world on fire anyway.  The night before we did not finish dinner until about midnight; I guess our Argentine transformation is complete.  And after cocktails, tapas, and a late dinner we poured ourselves into a cab and slunk back to the apartment flopping into bed around 1 in the morning.

We did not get out of bed until about 12:30.  With half the day lost and a steady cold rain we hung out in the apartment.  Will paced back and forth wondering what we were going to do all day while I researched museums to see which one might be of interest on a rainy day.  Unfortunately most of the museums here close early on Saturday.  So with no museums in sight I suggested we head down to a local restaurant I had seen the night before for a long lunch.

I have been using guide books to pick restaurants.  This has led to about a 50% success rate.  So I thought a random choice would be a good pick and El Timon turned out to be the best meal of the trip.  This is clearly not a tourist restaurant.  The menu contains an array of local specialties that did not show up on any of my internet searches; including mutton, lamb, every type of beef on the grill including all the organs, spare ribs, fried local cheeses and a few other things I still do not understand due to my limited Spanish culinary vocabulary.

We were the only non-locals in the whole restaurant which was populated with families, workers on lunch break and some shoppers from the antiques market across the street.  I can tell you that the array of foods flying by our table was astonishing. And our waiter, Javier, got so tired of me asking him “que es eso?,” that he just stopped by our table every time a new dish left the kitchen and gave us a bit of show and tell. Bless you Javier.

We stuck with some safe picks, Will had short ribs marinated in chimmichuri and grilled to a perfect medium rare (try that with ribs!).  I had a chicken milanesa stuffed with a thin slice of ham and cheese topped with a nice red sauce.  Will had something called “papas fritas provencal” which was a perfectly executed wedge cut french fry finished with some garlic, parsley, and salt.  Delicious.  I had the more traditional french fries which were just as good.  For dessert we had what was described as a very traditional Porteno offering of “queso dulce,” which was a slab of queso fresco, very similar to mozzarella, and a similar size slab of a jellied concoction of some type of fruit and honey.  Oddly enough it worked as a very nice, not too sweet dessert pairing.  Kind of like having the cheese and dessert course all at once.

Our two hours at El Timon was well spent.  And at about $30 for two demi-bottles of wine, two entrees, and a nice dessert, this was definitely the best investment we made on the trip.  When we arrived back to the apartment Will headed up to bed for a nap and I spent the rest of the afternoon (it was already 3 PM) reading while the rain poured down outside.  So it was not a totally lost day after all.

Obelisk in Buenos Aires

We had a late start to the day, following our late Argentine evening.  While I was getting ready I heard Will listening to the television.  He had it tuned to “Canal Musica” or the Music Channel and he was listening to the latest pop music in Spanish.  Despite the fact that he had no clue what the songs were about he told me that he really liked the latin music.  I had no idea his transformation into a Porteno (what the residents of Buenos Aires are called) would happen so quickly.

We ventured into the “Subte” or subway (please do not tell my mother, you are never supposed to take the subway in a strange place), and took the train to Plaza de Mayo which is the central hub for the government of Argentina.  I will not bore you with all the details, but in summary we saw the Casa Rosada (the equivalent to our White House except theirs is pink), ventured down Avenida de Mayo (which is reminiscent of the Champs Elysee except narrower), took in the Congreso (the equivalent of our Capitol building), wandered down Avenida 9 de Julio (arguably the widest avenue in the world, good luck crossing with one change of the lights), took in the Obelisco (pictured above), wandered down Corrientes (theater district and shopping), veered off into Florida street with the Galerias Pacifico (Gucci, Prada, Hermes etc.) wandered over to the Plaza San Martin, and finally all the way over to Recoleta and the Cementerio de la Recoleta, the cemetery where Eva Peron is buried.  I just got tired from writing this.

The cemetery is one of those places you really need to see to believe.  It is oddly reminiscent of Pompeii except the people in the Recoleta Cemetery wanted to be buried there, and the people of Pompeii had no choice but to be buried there.  Picture narrow streets lined with mausoleums capped with all sorts of ornamentation, from baroque to sleek ultra modern.  The mausoleum for Eva Peron (oddly she kept her maiden name Eva Duarte when she was buried) is one of the simpler mausoleums done in sleek black marble and adorned with flowers left by people who still adore her.  One of the more comical aspects of the mausoleums is that family members often leave their last memorials in statements cast in bronze attached to the outside of the mausoleums.  One of the more interesting ones was left for a prize fighter from his “tias” or aunts who proudly proclaimed that they were glad he finally made something of himself.  I guess in death all things are possible.

The only other thing of import to tell is that I think we have very quickly gotten into the rhythm of the city.  We wandered around our neighborhood a bit more last evening.  We are in a district that features antique furniture and many shops for furniture restoration.  There is an enormous variety of little markets that cater to different culinary specialties.  There is something soothing about seeing a beautiful ham hanging in the windows of shops.  And I had my first argument with a cab driver in Spanish, because I knew better how to navigate our neighborhood than he did.  But no hard feelings he apologized and I gave him a tip anyway.  Feels like home already.

Palermo, Buenos Aires

We have made our way to Buenos Aires.  We have already been here for a day and experienced a walking tour through Recoleta and Palermo.  Although the weather was a bit hazy there was a lot to see along the way.  We will be returning to take pictures of the largest rose garden I have ever seen, which is part of the “Central Park” of Buenos Aires,  a series of large parks with incredible statuary, water features, and lots and lots of gardens.  We decided to save the Recoleta Cemetery and the grave of Eva Peron for a more sunny day.

We managed to eat a homemade pizza of sun dried tomatoes, nicoise olives and mozzarella, sprinkled with basil.  Surprisingly good since it came from the local grocery store.  We found a nice hole-in-the-wall bar in our neighborhood of Palermo Hollywood (apparently a lot of celebrities live here) by the name of Omm.  All the cocktails are made from fresh ingredients.  Since it was “Hollywood” I ordered a cocktail called “Glam,” a concoction of vodka, fresh lime juice, fresh peaches, and a peach liqueur whipped in a blender.  I am not usually a blender drink sort of person but when in “Hollywood”…It was delicious.  And so was the greyhound with freshly squeezed grapefruit.

For dinner we tried to hold out until the usual hour of 10PM, but fatigue and cocktails made us only hold out until 9:30.  We had out first night of beef from the parrilla, or wood-fried grill.  Bife de chorizo, or rump steak, seems to be their national dish, so we had to have that.  Along with a nice Argentinian cabernet, for which we splurged and spent $20.  For the steaks we spent about $9.  Hard to pass that up.

We are having technical difficulties so I will have to share our pictures with you a bit later.  Will is out having a breakfast of coffee and toast on the balcony of our penthouse apartment looking out over the “Hollywood” of Argentina.  The place already feels like home.  One good reason to give thanks for floating currencies.

Ciao for now.

Birmingham, Alabama

I travel extensively throughout the United States for work. The traveling part is pure drudgery with all the new rules, regulations, and extra charges. You can sometimes make up for the drudgery by finding places to eat that offer you food that you can only get in certain parts of the country. Most of them are not fine dining establishments. I have eaten at a bowling alley in Fort Wayne, Indiana (great burgers) a truck stop in Oklahoma (great fried chicken), and a gas station on the way to Austin, Texas (great bratwurst). You just never know when you will find something that really perks up the taste buds.

This past weekend I was working in Birmingham, Alabama. The city was a very pleasant surprise. It is clean, compact, and easy to walk around. The natives are all very friendly and willing to turn you in the right direction. I find that charm is inversely proportional to sophistication. The city is definitely charming but I get a sense that they hide their sophistication well so as not to be too pretentious.

I did find one of those little dining gems while there. John’s City Diner was a very nice surprise. Located in the middle of downtown it is a very unpretentious local hang out that had the menu of a sophisticated restaurant infused with those southern trifles like choosing from a list of side dishes and of course homemade cornbread. You can get a nice Malbec for $6 per glass or spend $110 on a vintage cabernet. You can enjoy your wine with meatloaf or perhaps a crispy duck would suit you better. If you find yourself in Birmingham it would be worth wandering down to see John’s City Diner.

Store Window Genoa

It is amazing to me how two very similar people can approach a vacation from two very different perspectives.  This was no more evident than when our cruise ship deviated from its course and landed us with an unexpected port of call in Genoa, Italy.  This meant that there were no preplanned shore excursions to go on.  We were left to essentially wander the city of Genoa without any planning at all.

Without plans of course we all revert to character.  As we wandered the old walled city of Genoa I was focused on where we could eat lunch, looking at every menu and chalkboard display of food on the way.  I tried to figure out which little cafe (or cava as they are called there) would offer us the most authentic meal.

Will, of course, had his map.  He focused on which churches to visit, whether you could still climb on the old wall of the city and most importantly whether there was time to take his picture in front of the, now crumbling, birthplace of Christopher Columbus.

Fortunately there was time to do all of it.  And by deviating our path from the tourist map we were able to negotiate the narrow warrens of the old city in areas where the locals felt assured  no tourists would find them. In the middle of a very narrow street we had the most satisfying lunch of the trip;  penne arrabbiata for me, lasagna al pesto for Will, a bottle of mineral water (frizzate, with gas) and two glasses of house red wine.  In a place I could probably never find again, for a moment, we felt like we were a couple of Genovese.

The people at Il Cava Turaccioli were kind enough to share the outlines of their recipes with me.  The very spicy Penne Arrabbiata that they make was worth the whole trip to Genoa.  My take on the recipe can be found here.

You can also find my post about Genoa as a travel destination here.

Antipasti

We are back from the fastest paced trip to Europe I have ever been on since I did a one day, Manchester to London pub crawl with my boss back in 1989.  My ability to bounce back has been diminished by age.  But I am back and much the better person for having taken the trip.  I was able to see lots of great sights and settle some festering culinary doubts about our interpretation of how food and wine in Europe is prepared and consumed.  The details will flow out in future blogs.  Especially after I try all my new information about what Italians really think goes into their recipes.  The simplicity will probably astound you.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the improvement in cruise ship offerings.  We took our tour aboard the Celebrity Century, the smallest ship in the Celebrity fleet at only 1,829 occupants.  The state rooms were spacious (for a ship) and clean.  There were enough restaurants, bars, and on-board activities to keep you busy even if you did not want to leave the ship.  And the food was actually quite good.  With one memorable evening when the food was better than many upper end restaurants in New York and other cities.  More about that later as well.

I have decided to add a travel section to the blog to give you some insights into the cities and food I come across.  I travel for a living.  But I will begin with Europe, slowly, and I will begin to add some more from the US and Caribbean later on.

I am taking another day off.  So no recipes today.  But with Thanksgiving just around the corner I will give you my one and only recipe for that day.  Every other recipe has been done to death.  We will follow up with some recipes and observations from the trip.  So ciao for now.  New recipes begin tomorrow.