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This weekend, we decided to see if we could reproduce the American classic using ingredients obtained within walking distance of the house.

Eggs, flour, vanilla, white sugar, butter, and baking soda (I finally figured out where to find it in the store) were all pretty easy to find. The tricky parts were locating brown sugar and the chocolate chips (they can’t contain trace amounts of nuts due to Zelda’s allergies). It also turns out that the baking sheets we secured did not perform as expected.

First, the chocolate: as you can see in the picture below, Tom chopped up a chocolate bar to create his own little homemade chips. Très cute. Next, the brown sugar: I had two choices. The first was the lighter brown sugar, which was still dark compared to US sugars and also had a very strong gingerbread flavor. The second was very dark, really nearly black. It smelled and tasted more like the brown sugar we have back home. I ended up using a combination of both.

Lastly, the pans. Our “biscuit” baking sheet served reasonably well, but the cookies stuck a bit. (It didn’t help that we forgot to get a cooling rack, so we had to let them set on the pan longer than usual.) As an alternative option for baking, we thought we would try our pizza pan…which, unfortunately, turned out to be a disaster. As you can see in the picture below, the cookies congealed and the pan actually began to burn after about five minutes, emitting a foul smelling smoke in the oven. *sigh*

Anyhow, the verdict — not bad. A little gingersnappy tasting, but we could get used to that.

Our current strategy to implement Operation Chocochip is to play around a bit more with the brown sugar ratios, get a better metal spatula, and maybe find a less sticky pan. Is it a worthwhile goal to perfect chocolate chip cookies while living in Argentina using local ingredients? To be honest, I have no idea, but we’re going to keep trying anyway! (Eating the failures is half the fun!!)

After we all attended a birthday party for one of Zoe’s friends yesterday, it was, of course, difficult to get the children into bed. (Hardly a surprise after massive amounts of cake, cola, and carbs).

While trying to work on the computer, I hurled multiple entreaties via raised parental voice back toward their bedroom requesting that they begin brushing their teeth. Unfortunately, they successfully ignored me for quite some time, forcing me to get off my ass to investigate further. When I barged into their room, I found candy displayed on their beds, as shown above. (Zelda’s is on the top.)

Truly, I was at a loss as to why they would painstakingly arrange their candy in such a fashion. It turns out, they were going to engage in some sisterly candy trading, and felt it necessary to display their ill-gotten piñata goods in an organized and attractive manner. Hilarious. I had to reward their industriousness and predilection for proper merchandising — yes, I let them stay up a bit later to complete their dickering.

If you love salad, this is not the country for you.

When we gather together with Porteños for the express purpose of eating, we often make a very simple mock Caesar salad with romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese, and a dressing that consists of a garlic/salt paste, lemon zest and juice, Dijon mustard, and some olive oil. (In the US, we add croutons, but they’re hard to find here and I can’t be bothered to make them.)

The addition of salad to the meal is generally received with a low level of enthusiasm, at least initially, by the local set. Then, once my Argentine friends taste the green stuff, they invariably start raving…ooohs and aaahs abound. What is the recipe? What is in this salad? This salad is great!?!

Why does this simple concoction garner such attention? Because it actually has dressing on it, something that is nearly impossible to find here. Last night at an asado with friends, a wonderful older Argentinian-Italian man kept muttering to himself, mouth full of romaine, “cheese and lettuce, cheese and lettuce…I would never think to put those together and that they would taste so good! I can’t believe it…cheese and lettuce!”

What does pass for dressing in Argentina? I’m afraid it’s often a bottle of corn oil and a bottle of white or cider vinegar. If that’s not bad enough, the other dressing option is essentially a packet of mayonnaise. Good Lord, it can’t be a surprise that so few like to eat vegetables here!

Photo by Flickr user WordRidden used under a Creative Commons license.

I must be hungry, I’ve been posting about food a lot lately!

Last week, when Tom and I were looking for an easy meal to make out of a rotisserie chicken, we decided to attempt a chicken and dumplings type of dish using buttermilk biscuit dough.

What ensued was chaos.

We didn’t have buttermilk, so we had to obtain some lemons to sour our own milk. We had a hard time finding edible frozen peas. We had to substitute massive amounts of baking powder for baking soda, which affects the flavor. We only have a tiny food processor, so I had to cut the butter into the dough in batches. I made half of a batch in the food processor and combined it with the buttermilk only to find we were severely short on baking powder, so Tom and the girls had to dash out and buy more while the first half of the dough was soaking up the moist ingredients.

After scouring the store’s three different sections that contained baking ingredients, the Offermann shopping team finally found the polvo de hornear and raced home. We didn’t have cake flour. We didn’t have a rolling pin, so I used the rectangular olive oil bottle to roll out the biscuit dough (pictured above). As mentioned previously, we had no measuring implements — we just eyeballed everything! We made a huge mess.

Unfortunately, our “easy” meal proved to be anything but; however, we did end up with a lovely looking chicken and dumplings that actually tasted good to boot!

(And, we felt righteous after cooking because we made our own chicken stock out of the rotisserie carcass.)

It was fruit and vegetable Friday yesterday, as you can see pictured here. (What is not shown in this mother lode of produce is the full-size paper bag of potatoes and the garbage bag filled with lettuce that now resides in our fridge.) Where did it all come from? Strangely enough, we’re not really sure.

Karen and Pablo are the parents of one of Zoe’s classmates. They cook three meals a day for their three kids (they set a high bar), and therefore go through a ton of food. Someone suggested to them that they were spending way too much money at the local verdulería, and recommended they try a place that I believe is called Mercado Central that is located somewhere on the way to the airport. It’s all very vague… .

Anyhow, Karen and Pablo attend the market on Fridays (which seems to be the best day to go) a couple of times a month and literally load their car to the gills with meat, produce, eggs…pretty much everything you can imagine from the category of “real food,” also known as the stuff you buy around the perimeter of a grocery store. We, on the other hand, just get a phone call saying, “come get some produce” and over to their house we race!

Happily, we can report that not only is the produce pretty tasty, but the prices are insanely cheap because they buy in such bulk. (Their kitchen often looks as if they plan to open their own fruit and vegetable stand.)

Total price for our haul (don’t forget the items not pictured above): $73 pesos, which is about $20 US. Thank you Karen and Pablo!

This is actually a review of the restaurant Olsen, a Scandinavian joint located in Palermo Soho in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Our massive purchase of American carbs this last weekend further fueled a desire for more comfort food, so we went to the Western-style brunch at Olsen (this was our second trip) on Sunday.

It goes without saying that the environs are fabulous — a wonderful courtyard (smoking seating) and tall tall ceilings that enclose a chic, spare space filled with light. (Note, even in the cold, they had nice outdoor heaters for their nicotine-addicted clientele.)

Onto the food. Tom and I both had eggs. My scrambled eggs were super runny, so if you don’t like them that way, be sure to tell the waitstaff. The omelet, on the other hand, was quite dry and very bland. We also both had the homemade yogurt that is served with cereales. They aren’t kidding…it wasn’t really a granola on the top, but rather a bad corn flake. Under that layer, was a sickly-sweet fruit-based syrup. By the time we tunneled through the top two layers, we had no idea what the homemade yogurt tasted like since it had become defiled by the super sweet and the blandly crunchy!

The girls ordered the waffles, which were a bit cakey, but were produced with a pleasantly sweetened batter. A flaw though — these corrugated carbs do not come with butter, jam, or syrup, so if you want something with which to garnish your gridded grains, you will need to ask. Their fruit salad was nice as well, the produce all tasted good and was appropriately ripe. Which brings me to the deep fried potatoes — those were universally popular at the table. 4, or I guess that’s 8, thumbs up.

Croissants, good. Orange juice, good. Cafe con leche, good. Hot chocolate, okay. (We didn’t realize that the latter was made with a powder which really needed to be vigorously stirred — the girls and I ended up with copious amounts of gloppy chocolate goop at the bottom of our cups.)

In short, the experience and ambience are great, but we felt the execution on the food fell short.

Tonight we made a very embarrassing trip to the Carrefour, where we filled our basket with lovely processed American carbohydrates. We were completely sheepish at the checkout aisle as we unloaded our imported crap food for weekend indulgence: Pepperidge Farm cookies (Milano, Nantucket, and Brussels), Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, and some Nestle choco puff cereal…I know, it’s horrible. And don’t even get me started about how much it all costs, because, well, it’s imported!

We have more goodies on the way from the US as well — some wonderful fabulous friends in BA (thank you Tim and Lori) just returned from a stateside jaunt and brought us back peanut butter, soy butter (for Zelda, who has nut allergies), and hair dye for me (f*#king aging)!

Viva la import products!

There are four types of stores around which our world revolves: the kiosko, the Chino, the supermercado, and the verdulería. In general, when moving to Buenos Aires, I would recommend living within one or two blocks of at least two of these four types of stores to make your life easier. Where we are now in Las Cañitas (my new favorite neighborhood), we are within two blocks of all of these essential retail concerns as well as a smattering of fabulous butchers, delis, spice stores, natural food stores…we adore it here!

The Kiosko. These are very small convenience stores that are important when you have a toilet paper emergency late at night (living with three females has made Tom very aware of this phenomenon) or if you want to re-up the minutes on your pay-as-you-go phone. We also use these establishments for emergency moneda acquisition, but you have to be canny and hard-as-nails to get actual coins out of these proprietors!

The Chino. There is a large contingent of small grocery store owners that are of Chinese descent, therefore the name for these types of stores has become, Chino. It is always amusing to freak out the owners of these markets with some Mandarin conversation at check-out, especially with two little blond-haired Chinese speakers in tow! We frequent the Chino for quick staple runs — milk, yogurt, water, rice, etc. There is generally a small produce section in the store as well, but it is usually of lower quality.

The Supermercado. The Carrefour, the Disco, and the Coto are the three most ubiquitous grocery store chains. The mega versions of these purveyors carry electronics and household items, the more modest locations are just grocery stores. If you like to feel and select your own produce, this is where you would buy it, although quality varies dramatically from store to store and day to day.

It has taken Tom awhile to master the Spanish vocabulary required for checkout at the supermercado. First he has to select between efectivo or tarjeta (cash or credit), then he has to decide if he wants home delivery. Next, they ask if he wants his purchase charged in one payment or multiple payments. Lastly, they request a documento, which is supposed to be a DNI card or a passport. Tom usually just gives them his U.S. driver’s license, which often results in a visit from a manager, who has approved its use in every case but one.

The Verdulería are produce markets that dot the city’s streets. In general, I have a hard time buying produce from these vendors because I’m not thrilled about buying food that has been sitting out in the street all day, getting covered in the chemical-laden black exhaust which spews from the buses, but it often can’t be avoided as supermarket produce is often horrible. I find that it’s also a good idea to try to get a sense of when your local Verdulería receives shipments because unless you catch it off the truck, items like lettuce sit outside and wilt in the heat within about 30 minutes of delivery.

It has been my experience (and yes, I know it is not everyone’s experience) that these operators will pass off crappy product if you appear to be a transient tourist, so don’t be shy. Ask to see all of the produce they are bagging and feel free to reject their selections. Because they pick and you don’t, relationship building with your local vegetable merchant is a good idea if you are going to be living in the city for any length of time.

Some cool bloggers in Argentina post about the emotional highs and lows encountered while coming to the aid of a friend; me, I blog about banana bread…enough said.

This last weekend, we dipped our toe back into baking by taking a stab at our always forgiving banana bread recipe (actually obtained from my sainted mother). We thought, “we can do this…I mean, it’s not like baking is a science that requires exact measuring, right?” So, while Zoe was cavorting in Pilar with friends, Zelda, Tom and I went to work, refusing to let the the facts stop us: we had no dry measuring cups, no measuring spoons, baking powder instead of baking soda, and no wheat flour! With a wee bit of research on the Web about conversions accompanied by some dubious “eyeballing” as we added ingredients, we had ourselves some batter.

Actually, it was rather liberating baking with only a cursory concern about measurements. And, I’m happy to report that the results were fabulous, if a little blonder than we are used to due to the lack of wheat flour.

The banana bread was our BuqueBus snack food during our trip to Colonia, Uruguay this week to renew our visas.

There are many things that make one feel “so American” when one is living in Buenos Aires, such as, inadvertently slamming taxi doors, failing to execute the hello or goodbye cheek buss, failing to effusively greet or depart from acquaintances, using tu instead of vos, shopping at the Jumbo… .

Then there is the grand daddy of them all: showing up at a restaurant ten minutes before it opens, lurking outside, peering in the window like a starved big cat pacing its cage. Or my next favorite, going to a restaurant at between 5:00 pm and 6:30 pm (during tea time) and asking them if the kitchen is open enough to actually cook something. That was our modus operandi tonight.

This evening’s meal involved us going to our local corner cafe and pleading our case for some hamburgers, even though the rest of the citizenry was taking their tea time meal: coffee with a cookie or a tostado. To top it off, we were playing pickup sticks in the middle of the table, which really had the waitress rolling her eyes.

To recap: hungry family with young children begging for food at 6:30 pm and playing pickup sticks while they waited — it doesn’t get much more ‘Merican than that!!