Spring is springing in Buenos Aires! Love is in the air, people are out on the streets, the air is fresh, my windows are open and my hay fever is in full form! This past weekend was such a well-timed reminder of just how lovely spring really is here in BA.
It was also the perfect time to get outside, take long walks, do some window shopping and most of all see friends - old and new!
Thanks to Claire for inviting such a lovely crowd to her house! It was an amazing 15 people showed up for a great asado and wow - there were skewered veggies, desserts and and AND… Clairebear made simply the BEST chimichurri known to mankind that day! MMMMMMMmmmmmm!
Location: ArteBA: Galerias del Paseo / Angel Guido Art Project Description: Stephane Ducret will be exposing his work at ArteBa this year. This Swiss modern artist will be showing his work with two galleries: Galerias del Paseo (Manantiales/Punta del Este y Montevideo) and Angel Guido Art Project between May 29 and June 2.
He’s a must see for those who love modern art and recently a topic in Vogue Magazine for his trendy interior designs.
You can see this article as well as his work on his website: http://www.stephaneducret.net/
Location: Galeria Forma Description: Girardo Sirolli will be presenting his work at the Galeria Forma on Thames 1620 starting this Saturday evening. There will be a special inauguration with drinks at 19:00 on May 31st and the art will be shown until June 12. Start Date: 2008-05-31 Start Time: 19:00 End Date: 2008-06-12
I had completely written off last Sunday as a recovery day, having gotten in at 6:30 AM from a very entertaining Saturday night. Luckily, I have some good friends here that were not content with letting me lay on the couch all day in a position that would be considered much more embryonic than fetal. So when the phone rang at about 1:00PM, I was thinking about answering it with some choice words about parentage, followed by a scolding about how no one is awake at 1:00 PM on Sunday in Buenos Aires. Instead, I accepted the invite from Gina and Javier to what became one of the most special days I’ve spent here.
The small town of Matederos (roughly translated as”Killers”) is just on the very edge of the city of Buenos Aires. It has been, and continues to be a bustling meat market during the week. However, instead of hearing “Hey baby, wanna go back to my place and play army?” the “pick-up” lines run more along the lines of “how many kilos?” The reason being that this town is THE place to purchase choice Argentine cow by the 10’s, 100’s, maybe 1000’s, after which the live cattle are taken somewhere else to be slaughtered. Although it would probably be entertaining to come during the week and see how this all goes down (make a purchase, take it home, laugh when it can’t get downstairs), on Sundays the place turns into a locals-only fair.
The main square is surrounded by colonial style buildings, most likely used for the administration of the town’s main industry. It almost feels like the old trees surrounding the plaza store the memories of hundreds of years of this weekly event. Their reaching shadows seem as if they are almost embracing the multitude of dancers, singers, or those like me who are simply overwhelmed by the communal happiness and sense of belonging during those few hours. A middle-age woman sings of good times and bad, and of loves lost and found with the frankness and matter-of-factness that many her age, having seen it all in this country, seem to possess and are willing to share with those who want to listen. The fact that she draws the same emotion from her guitar only serves to induce a sudden welling of the eyes. It is times like these that I feel an intense closeness with this country and its people, which I am easily beginning to feel a part of.
There’s nothing that can break-up a nice emotional reverie like the pangs of hunger caused by a hangover. So, the three of us went off to find some sort of meat (duh). Instead of hitting up one of the many street vendors, we walked into a nearby restaurant, went straight back to the guy at the grill, at which point Javier negotiated the purchase of three pork sandwiches for about $2USD a piece. Coming from the States, “simplicity” is sometimes forgotten, and many would look at two pieces of bread with a healthly piece of grilled pork in between as something out of a Home-Ec class for special-ed students, but in my twenty-something years, I have never tasted pork quite like that. Nor will I ever forget sitting on a mound of grass in the adjacent park with my two closest Argentine friends, listening to really bad karaoke.
Afterwards, it was time to check out the gaucho games. It is my understanding that the gaucho is still a very big part of ranching in Argentina. Remembering that Argentina is roughly the size of India with a population of only 90 million, this leaves a lot of room for cattle to do what they do best….graze unconfined. So, it is still up to the gauchos to control these massive herds. Where the tango has mostly been overtaken by the tourist industry, the gaucho is still a enduring symbol of the true Argentine countryside…in other words, these gauchos-in-training below are not just hanging around for tourist photo-ops:
I don’t know exactly what the game is called, but the way it works is the gaucho and his horse propel themselves down the street towards a small golden ring hanging overhead from a string. Upon reaching full speed, the gaucho tries to “grab” the ring using a utensil roughly the size and shape of a ballpoint pen. This almost reminds me of a saying of my father’s; involving the eye of a needle, a hundred yards, and a bag of dried apricots.
The ring hangs from a trellis like structure the arches over the street.
A moment of sheer precision.
Success?
Gaucho games make me hungry (again). Time for crepes or panqueques with dulce de leche.
In the end, I left with a huge bottle of artesanal olive oil, and a greater (if that’s even possible) appreciation for Argentine life.
Filete or Fileteando are words used interchangeably to describe a porteño style of ornamentation on everyday objects. Towards the turn of the 20th century in Buenos Aires, there was a surge of immigrant workers to the young, cosmopolitan city nicknamed “The Paris of the South”. With new architectural and aesthetic styles filling the city - filete became a new aesthetic or ornamental style found on carts of local vegetable, milk and bread vendors.
Like the tango, filete was born out of the lower classes as part of the music, art, dance, and poetry that defined the new porteño identity. Some of the famous phrases, verses or titles of popular tangos of the day would be turned into filete and painted on the sides of carriages and trucks.
Some of the most famous filetadores (pioneers of the art) are Italians Salvatore Venturo, Vicente Brunetti and Cecilo Pascarella, however some of the most renown contributors include Alejandro Monteberri, Martiniano Arce, Leon Untroib, the Brunetti and Bernasconi brothers and Jorge Muscia - the latter still lives and works as a filetador in San Telmo.
Nowadays, you can still see filete on the occasional horse drawn carriage, antique cart along the street, in select tango salons, but this style of decoration can be seen most pervasively on every single one of the buses that storm the streets of Buenos Aires on a daily basis. Although they’re a little hard to photograph since they move so fast, it’s worth it to check out the detail that goes into decorating these imposing works of art.
The other day, I had the great opportunity to meet up with some friends at Sarkis Armenian Restaurant in Villa Crespo for lunch. I had been there before and even ordered take away once or twice in the last few years here. One of my friends asked me to suggest a restaurant for lunch which always seems to pose a great challenge to me and I get stuck. But fortunately, out it came, off of the top of my head - Sarkis.
The three major things I think about when going out to eat during lunchtime are food, price and ambiance -
in that order. So when I went with my friends, the service was great - they even overheard us speaking in English and offered their English language menu. We ordered our drinks and I began to order some tapas as none of us really wanted to eat heavy. We had the tabbouleh, babaganush (called pure de berenjena), hummus (called pure de garbanzo) and we ordered three arabic empanadas with lamb. To be honest, everything was - nice. Yeah. Nice. Everything that required Tahini sauce just had too much Tahini sauce so everything tasted a little too peanutty for me. My friends liked it though.
Tabbouleh is one of my favorite dishes and to be honest, I think I got spoiled in Chicago eating the best plate of tabbouleh in the world at my friend Mido’s house. I know that it’s just not fair that every bite of tabbouleh that I take gets compared to Mido’s tabbouleh - but it’s just the way it goes. So if Mido’s tabbouleh is a 10 - well, this one was a 6.5 - better than average, but lacking in that je ne sais quoi. Perhaps it was lemon and a bit more couscous.
But I’ve been there before and I’ll go there again. I have had excellent food there in the past so I may have walked in on “new chef training day” or just one of those moments when the food was not bad, but not the usual. One of their specialties is Keppe (raw or cooked ground meat wrapped in more meat) which goes great with their many vegetarian side dishes.
Although I’m sure to return, it probably won’t be for lunch, but rather during the busy evening hours.
Ratings:
Food: 6/10 - Normally it’s better. I hope they haven’t lowered their standards. Price: $$ - Around 20 pesos per person. Ambiance: - It’s got a very homey atmosphere and during lunchtime there were very few people. Ambiance is better with a crowd, during dinner hours.
Comments:As an extra super bonus, the service was good. The waiter was attentive and very good.
When: 24 April - 12 May 2008
Where: La Rural Exposition Center (Ave Santa Fe 4201 and Ave Sarmiento 2704 in Palermo, Buenos Aires)
Tomorrow La Rural Exposition Center will open its doors for one of Buenos Aires most celebrated events - the International Book Fair. This year, the program includes several conferences, book signings and presentations, workshops, round table discussions, poetry, lots of activities for children and even a reading marathon dedicated to humor in Argentine literature.
Amongst the various cultural activities is a series of cooking activities starting Friday, April 25. This event, “Ciclo de Cocina: “Placeres y Sabores” highlight authors and chefs of cookbooks every evening in the Julio Cortazar conference room with various demonstrations of cuisine. The popular “Sister Bernarda” - host of her own Argentine cooking show, will be doing demonstrations May 1-2. Other highlights on other days include demonstrations on cooking for celiacs and regional Argentine dishes.
Other cultural events include “City Night at the Book Fair” where doors are open until 2am on April 30th. Here, authors will be giving lectures, signing books and there will be some special activities, performances, raffles, games and entertainment going on throughout the night. Entrance is free that day after 21:00 (9pm).
The list of cultural events is varied throughout the duration of the exposition, so if you’re interested in finding out more information about the event please see the following links:
Filete or Fileteando are words used interchangeably to describe a porteño style of ornamentation on everyday objects. Towards the turn of the 20th century in Buenos Aires, there was a surge of immigrant workers to the young, cosmopolitan city nicknamed “The Paris of the South”. With new architectural and aesthetic styles filling the city - filete became a new aesthetic or ornamental style found on carts of local vegetable, milk and bread vendors.
select tango salons, but this style of decoration can be seen most pervasively on every single one of the buses that storm the streets of Buenos Aires on a daily basis. Although they’re a little hard to photograph since they move so fast, it’s worth it to check out the detail that goes into decorating these imposing works of art.
