Sounds Good on Paper

Category: Argentina

  • Grocery shopping in Salta

    not exactly Whole foods

    Grocery shopping can easily be an all day activity for us.

    The store in the photo on the left is where we buy most of our veggies, water, and eggs.  A very woman in an apron always helps me with the Spanish words for the veggies.

    If she doesn’t have what we need we go across the street to the man with long sideburns. He also has eggs, some packaged goods, and veggies.  Sometimes for a change I go to the nice older couple. They have a bakery but also eggs,  veggies and two pet parrots.   No matter who I go to, the eggs are never refrigerated, always come wrapped in paper, and they all think it’s hysterical we’re using the eggs for breakfast.

    6 eggs wrapped in paper.

    Next stop is the butcher for meat, cheese and also sometimes eggs.

    And then for everything else there is the supermarket.  The supermarket is pretty much like any other supermarket in the US except for a few differences.

    Milk and yogurt come in cartons and boxes, but also bags.

    bag of milk
    bag of yogurt

    The yerba mate aisle is huge.  This entire aisle – all the way to the end-  is for yerba mate.

    how many kinds of yerba mate can there be?

    The most beautiful part of the grocery store is the shelf after shelf of dulce de leche.

    Yum!

    You can even get a one pound bag of dulce de leche.

    heaven

    Then there are the products that make us uncomfortable, like this brand of rice/pasta.

    does Diana Ross know about this?

    And then there are the products that make us laugh because we’re immature.

    this is a sponge.

    Can you ever have enough assy power?

    this ones a stretch, but we'll laugh at anything.
    Who wants a barfy?

    clothes for child zombies

    And then there is this mannequin. This is not in a supermarket, but I still think it’s funny and slightly frightening.

  • Eating an entire cow (not in one sitting) part 7 – cow heart

    We chose the restaurant Monumental for our next beef adventure.   We chose it for several reasons:  it’s near our apartment, has outdoor seating, looks like a castle.

    I had planned to eat mollejas (sweat breads also known as glands) but the waiter was completely freaked out that I was ordering only sweatbreads for dinner.  He didn’t think this was an appropriate dinner. I didn’t either, but assumed they’d be inedible and I’d be going out for dinner #2 at McDonalds afterward.

    He suggested corazon which is beef heart.   I was little apprehensive so we also ordered lots of wine, a “ensalada Americana,” a backup pork chop and I made sure Jeff was ordering a big enough steak that I could mooch off him if needed.

    The heart really wasn’t that bad.  It sort of tasted like a weird cut of steak. Now the salad, on the other hand, was totally weird. Lots of corn and white stuff which was either the worst cheese in the world, or a strange vegetable.

    My favorite part of dinner was observing the family next to us.  It was past 11:30pm and an entire family including a baby, toddler, and nanny were enjoying dinner.  At around 12:30am we had to go home, we were yawning, but the family was still on dessert.

  • Salta – going to the gym

    You would think going to the gym would be sort of the same everywhere you go. Sure, far off exotic lands don’t even have gyms, but you would think any place that has a gym that you can join as a tourist must be about the same.   But, there are some things at my gym that are different.

    The first thing is the name. I just don’t think a gym in the US would be called XX anything.

    The second thing that is different is that in the US, I don’t  kiss anyone at the gym.   Here, there is a lot of kissing.    First chance to kiss is when you enter. You go and check in at the front desk.  The woman behind the desk always greets me with a very welcoming “Hola Sherillllll.”     Some people lean over and kiss her, but I opt out.

    Then I sort of stall while I wait for Maximo to come over. Maximo is the “on duty” gym trainer.   He’s a really sweet, very ripped Argentinian that doesn’t speak any English.     He comes over, kisses me on the cheek, gives me a half hug then asks me how I am.  I always say fine. I then forget how to ask him how he is, so I just sort of nod. Then he asks if I’m “tranquila.”  I always say yes which is a lie.    I’m never ever calm because  I’m always trying to remember the Spanish words for things and who and when I should kiss.

    There’s only one elliptical trainer at the gym, and no one but me ever uses it.  It may be an antique. I feel like if I ever got my heart rate up to 150 on it the entire thing would collapse.

    Another thing that is different, there is a picture of Jesus in the corner.

    In between helping people, Maximo drinks yerba mate from a gourd.  If I am doing something really incorrectly he helps me with my form, usually in a series of complicated pantomimes and grunts and nods from me.

    The first time I worked out I thought Maximo had the best job ever.  All the women at the gym come in and kiss and hug him. All the men shake his hand, ever single of of them.

    By the end of my first workout I realized the down side to Maximo’s job. He also has to kiss every woman goodbye at the end, or shake every man’s sweaty hand.

    I try to wipe my face off as much as possible at the end of each workout, but I can tell you there have been times when the poor guy has had to cheek kiss me while I was dripping sweat.

    If I’m unusually sweaty, I wait until I see him busy helping someone, I run to the middle of the gym shout, “Ciao” then bolt out before anyone can kiss me.  I’m sure it’s considered completely rude, but that is the good thing about being a foreigner. No one expects you to do it completely right every time.

     

     

     

  • Eating an Entire cow (not in one sitting) part 6

    Our guidebooks talk about all kinds of scams that can happen in Argentina.  Cab drivers give out counterfeit bills, thieves wait at ATM machines,  pick pockets throw mustard on your shoe.  So far none of these things have come even close to happening.

    The only scam so far, has been the old “this matambre steak is cow shoulder,” trick.

    The restaurant looks innocent enough, but since they don’t have a menu,  the waitress just told us what they were serving that day — matambre. When we asked what part of the cow that was, she said pointed to her shoulder.

    Several things could have happened:

    1. it really was shoulder, but she just called it matambre
    2. it was flank steak which she thought came from the shoulder of a cow.
    3. she had a sore shoulder and was massaging it while taking our order.
    4. she was trying to trick me.

    Now that I think about it, I’m not sure cows even have shoulders.      Later when I googled matambre I got this.

    Matambre is a beef dish from Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Of an Italian style, it is a rolled flank steak filled with vegetables, eggs and herbs that is then boiled or oven-roasted. (from Wikipedia).

    So obviously, she tricked me into eating flank steak.  The confusing thing is, there was no roll, vegetables, eggs or herbs. It was just a slab of meat. And, the other weird thing is it was super light, almost white.   After much time on the internet comparing my photo to other photos of matambre, I’m pretty sure it was flank steak. You can’t really mind eating a flank steak twice.

    doesn't this look more like a shoulder than a flank?

    Although, I’ve had a lot of flank steak both on this trip and in Seattle and it’s never looked like this.  But, it was super good, so no matter what it is, I see lots of matambre in my future.

    Notice how I had to edit out me saying “this is cow shoulder.”

  • Brew at Home Coffee crisis

    When my Spanish teacher asked me what we did this past weekend I answered,   “Nosotros buscamos cafe en los supermarcados.”  Surely she misunderstood. We didn’t search for supermarket coffee ALL weekend, did we?

    Well….um…yeah….kind of.

    Jeff and I love to make coffee at home. We like going out for coffee too, but we need that first cup at home to wake up enough to go out to get more.   When we moved into this apartment in Salta the first thing we did was buy a coffee maker. The second thing we did was buy the 100% Arabica coffee beans.

    When we went back to the store 3 days later for more, the store was out — of all Arabica beans.   Now hardcore travelers would just switch to robusto or instant. Hardcore travelers wouldn’t even be drinking coffee, they’d be drinking yerba mate out of gourds.  But, we’re not hardcore.

    Part of traveling is adapting. We’ve adapted to a different language, customs, weather, foods, and scenery.   But for some reason, we just can’t do it with the coffee.   We need good beans that we can brew at home.

    We actually did try several emergency options.  We found an ancient jar of instant in the cabinet.

    We tried robusto beans.

    And then we pretty much freaked out. We were dead set on finding those beans. It put us on a 2 day, 4 mile, 5 supermarcado  brew at home odyssey to all the supermarcdos in Salta.

    stop #1

    Finally, at the last of the big supermarkets, we found them –  Arabica beans without sugar or cardamon added.   Was it worth it? (I’m taking a sip of coffee as I type) Yes.

    We can go without peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies, Pop Chips, The Daily Show, Washington wine, cottage cheese, Kinetix bars, margaritas, Chinese food, all our family, all our friends, my income and the entire English lanugage, but 100% Arabica beans to brew at home? No way.