BLOCHO'S TACOS

My best friend/neighbor has a dog named Nellie.  Over the past few months I've attended Nellie's birthday party, walked through the Farmer's Market with her on Saturday mornings, spent countless hours snuggling on the couch with her, and even invited her to sleepover when her mom was away. This is Nellie! This morning, I saw Nellie across the street and when she noticed me her entire body reacted.  Tail wagging ferociously, she tried to bound into the street without care for the cars zipping by just to great me.  When she finally made it over, we spent about 2 minutes saying hello.  Watching the progression from walking, seeing me, anticipating our reunion, and experiencing it was a lesson in the beauty of raw and unbridled emotional expression.  Dogs just do what they want. I started feeling a bit like Nellie later in the day.  My heart was pounding and my body temperature was rising.  As a thin layer of sweat coated my hands an enormous s...

When my sister first visited and then lived in Buenos Aires in 2010 she spoke (and blogged) about yerba mate .  This tea-style drink was an Argentine staple, and actually fairly common throughout South America.  I had heard of "mate" from my visits to Argo Tea  when I enjoyed the Roasted Mate or Mate Latte.  The flavor, I recalled, was slightly bitter, but very robust and "chewy" and Argo did a great job of making this drink accessible to the masses. When I walked out of Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires in August 2010, my sister greeted me with an enormous hug and thrust a wooden cup/chalice with a metal spoon/straw in my face.  This was mate. Well, actually the cup was the mate and the green stuff inside was the yerba .  The metal straw was a bombilla and I was not allowed to touch it.  The tea was delicious and when I handed the "empty" (water-less) mate back to my sister and said "Gracias, Julia" she quickly noted that saying "Grac...

You know when you're slightly hungry but really not sure what you want to eat and would love a little variety plate to nibble on? Enter La Picada . I'm relying a lot on Google and Wikipedia to help me explain these new dishes to the masses (by masses I mean my handful of readers.  Thank you, readers), so according to Wikipedia a picada is a Colombian dish with various meats that are usually fried  and accompanied by yucca and plantain and maybe potato. I know a picada to be essentially a meat and cheese platter in Argentina with olives and maybe some other antipasti type accouterments that are not fried.  The name picada  comes from the verb picar  which means to sting, to bite, to nibble on . During my week in Buenos Aires, I dined on many picadas and always loved how satisfying it was to have many different options in front of me. My favorite picada was at El Nono Amigo   Almacén .  This small neighborhood restaurant has ample outdoor...

When in Argentina, eat meat. It seems that on every block there is at least one parilla  (Argentina steakhouse/grill) emanating the incredible smells of steak, chorizo, and melted cheese.  Tourist-trap steakhouses exist as do fancy Peter Luger status steakhouses.  Up until this trip I had only been to local parillas and was more than content with my $15 (or less) all you can eat meat extravaganza. As part of my UJA Mission to BA, we got a special treat and had lunch at Cabaña Las Lilas in Puerto Madero.  On TripAdvisor  there are 2,502 reviews and 83% of reviewers recommend this steakhouse that boasts of using their own meat from a farm in rural Argentina.  I was prepared to be blown away by this luxury steakhouse.  And, in the end, it was fine.  My favorite parts of the meal were the appetizers and the  chipá (post coming soon!)...and the Malbec.   Provoleta  - Grilled Provolone Cheese with Roasted Veggies (photo...

My sister lives in Buenos Aires. She has  fully adapted to the  porteño  lifestyle. I went to visit her (my 3rd time in Argentina) and I realized why she moved from New York. BUENOS AIRES IS SPECTACULAR. The weather.   I was there during the Argentine summer and despite a day of humidity and some morning sprinkles, it was in the high 70s for the whole week. My first time in Argentina was during their winter and it was chilly, but not unbearable like today's blustery 27 degree NY winter. The food.   Meat. Bread (yes, even gluten-free! Get ready for a future post on  chipá ).  Cheese.  Also, hearts of palm, avocado, fish.  Not to mention my two favorite beverages: Fernet and Campari! The people.   The sense of friendship and community in Buenos Aires is overwhelming.  When you meet someone new (even if it's in the local  dietética  - health food store) you give them a cheek-to-cheek kiss.  When y...