Even though Karlyn and I both have not had much experience in the kitchen (well me for that matter), we will be returning to the US with a whole repertoire of traditional Italian cooking. Today, we went to our second cooking class and learned how to make pasta from scratch. I was amazed at how easy it was- not just one pasta dish, but three, with sauces included. They also were anything other than the ordinary dishes you can find at every other Italian restaurant in town. They were works of art and that’s why I think half the struggle of cooking goes into presentation. I’ve always considered myself a terrible cook, but in truth maybe I just lack the practice? Karlyn and I have sworn to try out our new dishes on our upcoming visitors and (hopefully) wow them with our adept presentation of Italian cooking in Buenos Aires. See descriptions below to get a good idea of the masterpieces we created today.
After stuffing our bodies full with a full course of hearty pasta, we continued our quest to find the best vintage stores in Buenos Aires. Usually the Internet is a very valuable source for this type of information, but it has been entirely unsuccessful here. I’m a sucker for great vintage stores, but more than not I end up finding them the day before I head off for a new city. So this time we are trying to start early and be able to take the visitors when they arrive.
As we tried to fight off the rain clouds since we forgot our rain jackets, we searched our first destination: Juan Perez. It was a messy collection of hilarious assortments. It was the perfect spot for crazy Halloween costumes, but seeing as how Halloween isn’t widely celebrated here we need something that’s a little more obvious that our “costume” is not our daily guise. Karlyn came across two adorable jackets both with skeptical top-notch designers. None of us felt our designer investigation skills were up to the level necessary to outweigh the hefty (even in pesos) price. Besides that, we left with a few mouthfuls full of dust and completely uncertain as to our upcoming Halloween costume.
Afterwards, Karlyn and I stumbled across an American bookstore to our surprise. We have had some difficulty finding anything other than American classics (which we have both read most of), crime thrillers, and the overstocked bestsellers. As two avid readers, we spent a half an hour trailing the various bookshelves filled with only books in our native tongue. I am on the hunt for a Pablo Neruda book of poems in English. I am currently attempting to translate the book of 100 Love Sonnets. However, it’s been a little difficult to interpret the overall message in my broke down translations and I’ve been running into each bookstore I come across desperately hunting for an English version. Karlyn is the lucky recipient of my daily-convoluted translations and I can’t say that she has taken too much from these poetry recitals. The book remains to be unfound, but we did stock up on some interesting new reads and Karlyn was able to purchase her first book to help her with Spanish! She has conquered a few essentials, such as basta, which will hopefully prove handy in our food servings (but rather unlikely).
With our new collection in hand, we ventured to our last spot: La Quinta Avendida. This location was a gallery filled with small stores with a blend of random items. We lacked the energy to rummage through the jam packed collections and vowed to return another day. I still have yet to find my go to vintage store and if anyone has any advice, please do share, so the search can come to a halt.
Other than that, we had the pleasure of having an asado with an entirely French and Argentinean group. It was hilarious to hear the variations of French, Spanish and English all pulled into one. Most people in attendance only spoke French or Spanish, so as far as Karlyn was concerned she was out of luck. She tactfully managed (or feigned she did) to understand the conversations. Most of the people there, were working for companies in Argentina and it was fascinating to hear about their experiences cross-cultural work experiences. Many of the people had worked in multiple countries, so they gave us amusing renditions about how it was to work in each country. In the background of this hodge podge group, we had a boy trying to dj on soundboards, people randomly taking candid shots with a massive Polaroid camera, and others trying to tell us about their work in fashion. It was quite an artsy clan and we felt inspired, but disappointed in our own lack of obvious creativity. We may have also met the last piece to the puzzle of our future plans- we shall see. However, check out this site to see one of the girl’s latest collections: http://www.facebook.com/pages/MONA-AMOUR-chemises-de-nuit/47949491622?ref=mf.
We’re off for the night. Please feel free to post any comments you might have. We do LOVE hearing from you. BESOS
Today’s Masterpieces:
1) Pici alle Briciole - Pici with Breadcrumbs - Siena
Pici, or pinci, is “poor people’s pasta”, is a thick, irregular, hand rolled strand pasta, usually served with a simple sauce or seasoning. Today we cooked this particular pasta with a simple garlic, red-pepper, olive oil, and bread crumbs sautéed sauce.
2) Baked Anglotti
Anglotti are made from two thin, square pieces of pasta that are sandwiched together around a filling. Egg-based pasta dough works best for this form of pasta. Today we filled the anglotti with a provolone cheese and then baked them inside the oven until they were glden brown. For the sauce we made something a little spicy and modern: a central American style salsa of pureed tomato, green pepper, green onion, garlic, jalapeno peppers, cilantro, lime juice, and salt.
3) Langanelli con I Ceci - Irregular whole wheat Pasta - Non-traditional recipe
For the whole wheat pasta, we cut these into I Celi shapes which resemble a trapezoid type shape. For the sauce, we sautéed chickpeas, onion and celery together with olive oil, and added the pasta directly into the pan.
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