Motivating

Spring threatened to finally arrive this weekend, hitting us with incredible hot days and lots of sun, but it has already vanished again–today is grey and cool. Between trips to Boston on Friday and Tuesday, and Ben taking a business trip Monday and Tuesday, I feel like we’ve barely been home (or seen each other) in ages. As a result, I haven’t been cooking much, since evenings at home alone don’t inspire me to cook anything worth taking photos of. Last night I had a delicious but hardly impressive dinner of fried eggs, a toasted english muffin, and some salsa.

I am vowing to be better, though. This weekend Ben’s brother and a friend are visiting, so I’m gearing up to feed some extremely hungry 20-year-olds. A big pan of lasagna should work… We have a couple dinner parties in the next two weeks, as well And when it’s just me and Ben, I’d like to branch out a bit, get my hands on some nice spring vegetables, maybe cook with fish and chicken for a lighter change of pace.

Over the weekend while it was hot and sunny, Ben got a bee in his bonnet to plant flowers in the beds and window boxes in front of the house. It’s a pretty grim sight right now—heavy storms pulled hundreds of sticks and branches out of the ugly trees out front, and our grass is barely existent and full of tire tracks from various trucks pulling onto the lawn. Still, we went to Home Depot and stocked up on pansies and violas, and then I spent the afternoon sanding and painting over the ugly stencils on our porch table while Ben planted the flowers.

boxes

The violas are particularly charming:

viola

And though it’s hard to tell from this photo, the house does look a little happier now:

house

That evening our friends Ann, Chris, Brian and Liz came over to help us break in the porch and welcome spring with margaritas. Liz is from Milwaukee, and suggested a bratwurst barbecue, so she made caramelized onions and we grilled the sausages and ate them with a big salad and a succession of tasty, tasty frozen margaritas. The power of the margarita is such that I completely forgot to take any photos. Oops. We got the call from our broker asking if we wanted to grab the apartment midway through the first round, so the dinner was very celebratory!

Home sweet home

Well. We found an apartment this weekend; we have a signed, accepted offer, and if all goes according to plan (inspection pending, etc.) we will close in mid-June and move to Cambridge, MA that month. The apartment is enormous and in nearly mint condition; it’s an an apartment building from 1901 and the current owner updated the bathroom but has otherwise left it completely alone. The kitchen is the original: Ancient sink and stove, not one counter or cabinet, but you don’t really need cabinets because….drumroll….There is a PANTRY as well as a BUTLER’S PANTRY with glass cabinets and loads of storage:
butler1 butler2
pantry

We will have to do the kitchen, but I’m excited to get to do it my way, instead of buying a place that a developer has slapped a new kitchen into as quickly as possible. Many, many more photos will follow, I’m sure.

Stirfry by candlelight

Last Wednesday, two days after the big storms here in the Northeast, our power went out at about 5:20 in the afternoon. A few hours later it was clear we wouldn’t be getting it back until nearly midnight, so, accompanied by the unearthly racket of our neighbor’s obnoxious generator, I went ahead with the stir-fry I had planned for dinner!

It was still somewhat light out while I was chopping up the veggies and meat, and by the time it was really dark I was mostly mincing ginger and making sauces. Ben brought in a bunch of candles and took some hilarious photos of me looking confused while trying to read the recipe.

dark kitchen

I didn’t really follow a recipe in the end, since I had a random selection of vegetables and I wasn’t in the mood to velvet the pork. I took Barbara Tropp’s sauce and marinade recipes from a pork stir-fry and used whichever ingredients I had. The marinade had some sesame oil, soy sauce and garlic; the sauce included sugar, soy sauce, sherry vinegar (subbing in for cooking sherry and rice vinegar!), hoisin sauce, etc. For aromatics I just used garlic and ginger. Veggies: orange pepper (for Ben), a big head of bok choy, zucchini. The pork was from the tenderloins; I had trimmed the skinny and fat ends and frozen them for stir-fry.

ingred

I cut them up into ribbons and cooked them halfway in a little corn oil, then stir-fried the aromatics and vegetables, cooked them in the sauce, thickened the sauce with cornstarch, and at the end threw in the leafy parts of the bok choy and the pork to finish cooking.

Served with jasmine rice, it was quite good, and the leftovers were even better the next day.

stir fry

Mom’s Menu

Dinner party two last week was for one of Ben’s favorite professors, his wife, and our friends Brian and Liz. I’ve been on such a Suzanne Goin kick lately, but with Easter the day before I simply didn’t have time for a bunch of three day projects, so I consulted with Mom and decided to make a menu of her standbys.

To start I made a warm goat cheese salad, using a recipe from Epicurious. It uses panko instead of regular breadcrumbs, which makes the coating extra crispy. These needs to be made early in the day so they get a couple hours in the fridge; otherwise they will melt everywhere when you try to cook them. They get pretty fragile anyway, so handle them gently once they’ve been heated.

I cut up a big log of mild goat cheese and forced the pieces into nice rounds:

The rounds get dipped in egg whites, then the mixture of panko and herbs:
cheese
I made a variation on the salad dressing in the recipe (basically my usual vinaigrette, but I did microwave the oil and garlic as they suggested, which worked very well). A few minutes before we sat down to eat I cooked off the cheese, and while it was crisping up I dressed and served the salad and heated up some bread. The timing worked out really well, actually.
salads
Unfortunately I had forgotten that the professor doesn’t eat cheese; Brian was kind enough to eat the extra round. I’m not the biggest goat cheese fan but this is really nice. Mild, creamy, and the little crispy coating is great.

For the main course I roasted red potatoes, steamed beans (dressed with a bit of olive oil and lemon juice) and made my mom’s grilled pork tenderloin. We ate this ate a lot of dinner parties when I was growing up, and it remains a favorite. I had never cooked tenderloin, and was grossed out by the process of cleaning the meat (the silverskin or whatever it’s called…well, yuck), but the marinade is easy and properly grilled tenderloin, tender and flavorful, is a real crowd pleaser.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Rosemary, from Kate’s Mom

2 pork tenderloins
2 T Dijon mustard
2 T honey (Note from Mom: I do a little less ‘cause honey can make marinade burn)
1 T fresh rosemary needles, diced
S & P to taste – make marinade salty
2 T olive oil

• Clean t-loins and butterfly; pat dry & lay in glass dish
• Combine mustard, honey, rosemary, s & p, and oil in glass measuring cup until it emulsifies
• Slather marinade over both sides of meat & marinate for 1 hour and up to overnight
• Grill over hot coals until just cooked – still pink – do not over cook!
• Let rest 5 minutes before slicing thinly, on the diagonal.

Note from Kate: Mom advises trimming the fat and skinny ends off the tenderloins and saving those for stir fry. That leaves a nice even tube of meat (gross), much easier to grill perfectly than if the thin and thick parts are still attached. I made 3 tenderloins for 6 people and we ate every scrap. To butterfly the tenderloins, after you’ve trimmed and cleaned them lay them out flat and put one hand on top of the meat. Using a sharp chef’s knife carefully cut into the middle of the side, cutting the tenderloin open but not all the way through. When you’re done you should have turned your tube of meat into a nice flat rectangle. Did that make any sense?

The finished plate looks a bit meager, but that’s because it’s mine and 1) I wasn’t too hungry; 2) I had just dropped most of the remaining beans on the floor due to a tongs malfunction.
plated

Nothing about this dinner was complicated or time-consuming, but it was one of my favorites that I’ve made yet. I guess Mom really is onto something…(As if I didn’t know that already!)

For dessert I made yet another Beth Special, an apple crostata. If you aren’t familiar with them, crostatas are Italian fruit tarts. The dough is super easy and SUPER delicious—buttery, crispy and flaky—and you just pile the fruit in the middle, top it with a butter/sugar mixture, and pull the pastry up over the sides. It’s very rustic, less stressful than pie, and absolutely delicious. This is getting recipe-heavy, but you’ll thank me (and Mom) if you try this. It looks complicated but the directions are just detailed; the dough took 5 minutes to make:

Apple-Crisp Crostata – from Cucina Simpatica

Crostata Dough

.5 lb (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
2 Cups unbleached flour
.25 Cup superfine sugar
.5 teaspoon kosher salt
.25 Cup ice water

• This recipe works best with very cold butter. Cut the butter into .5” cubes; return to fridge for at least 10 minutes.
• Place flour, sugar, and salt in food processor (steel blade). Pulse a few times to combine.
• Add butter and toss quickly with your fingers to coat each cube with flour so the butter breaks apart and combines more evenly with the flour.
• Pulse 15 times; butter should be no smaller than small peas.
• With the motor running, add the ice water all at once through the feed tube. Process only 10 seconds, stopping motor before the dough becomes a solid mass.
• I divide the dough into separate small Ziploc bags and form into flat round discs, about 11 oz. each.
• Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days. Freeze for up to1 month. Thaw in fridge overnight.

Crostata Filling

11 oz. dough (.5 batch above)
.25 Cup unbleached flour
.25 Cup superfine sugar
.5 stick (4 T) cold unsalted butter
1.5 lbs (about 3 large) baking apples

• Roll dough into 11” circle, transfer to a rimmed baking sheet and return to fridge.
• Combine flour, sugar in a bowl. Blend in butter until mixture crumbles and holds together in irregular clumps.
• Peel, core, and slice apples into thin slices. Cover dough with apple slices, leaving a 1.5” border.
• Cover apples with the butter mixture and raise the dough border to enclose the sides of the tart, letting it drape gently over the fruit. Press down on the dough at the baking sheet, securing the sides and bottom. Gently pinch soft pleats that form from the draping.
• Brush dough edge with egg white and sprinkle with coarse sugar. (Note from Kate: I forgot to do this and it was fine.)
• Bake the tart at 350 for about 20 minutes, until the crust is golden and the apples are soft. Check the tart after 12 minutes; if the topping is browning too quickly, place a sheet of foil loosely over the top of the tart for the rest of the baking time.
• Cool the tart for about 10 minutes and serve warm.

Here’s the tart, right out of the oven:
crostata
And plated with some ice cream:
crostata plate

The best part? I have the other half of the dough in the freezer, ready for another time!

Traditional Ham for Easter

Last week we had three dinner parties, and MAN, was I tired by the end. The first was a super-traditional ham dinner for a few friends on Easter. We even ate in the late afternoon; it was very retro—so much so that I was even inspired to wear one of my 50s dresses, complete with rick-rack trim. I wasn’t clear on how many people were coming, so I ended up with MUCH too big of a ham; it was more than 9 pounds and in the end we had four meat eaters! I now have a freezer full of ham. (There are worse fates, I guess.) To go with it I made my mom’s broccoli puree, which is the one item we nearly always eat on holidays, and which I’d never made before, and Julia Child’s Scalloped Potato recipe from the cookbook that goes with her early television shows. I baked Parker House rolls and cupcakes, too.

We were in Boston on Saturday and got home (with groceries) around 10, and we were going to church in the morning so I knew I had to do some prep that night. I made the broccoli purée and put it in the fridge, all ready to go. It took a while to clean all the broccoli, then I cooked it and it took a longer while to puree because I didn’t follow the instructions. I had too much to do all at once in the cuisinart, so I was trying to purée some, remove it, purée the rest, then continue with the recipe. Hmm, it turns out you really need to add the crème fraîche for the recipe to work. The cuisinart can’t get the broccoli smooth enough unless you add it before puréeing—it needs the wetter texture to get the job done. Oh well, lesson learned, but I wish I hadn’t learned it at 11 o’clock at night, while madly spooning hot broccoli in and out of the cuisinart. I think Ben was a little scared. This is a fabulous (and EASY if you follow the directions) recipe, though, and a really nice fancy side dish.

Note holes from repeated pokes with a thermometer to see if it was hot yet:
puree

My mom apparently got the recipe from the Silver Palate cookbook, but I will always think of it as Mom’s Broccoli Puree:

Broccoli Purée with Crème Fraîche – Silver Palate


Note from Kate’s mom: I often adapt this recipe to the amount of broccoli I have on hand and adjust other ingredients accordingly; i.e.; I often reduce the amount of crème fraiche.

4 big stalks broccoli (3 lbs), trimmed and chopped, including stems
1 Cup crème fraîche
4 T sour cream
2/3 Cup freshly grated parmesan
1?2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1?2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste
2 T sweet butter

1. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil; salt.
2. Chop broccoli, leaving several flowerets whole to decorate top of dish. Drop broccoli into boiling water.
3. Cook just until tender, about 8 minutes, but test earlier.
4. Transfer broccoli, reserving flowerets, to a food processor. Add crème fraîche and puree thoroughly.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
6. Scrape puree into a large bowl. Stir in sour cream, parmesan, nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste. Mix well.
7. Mound in ovenproof serving dish, dot with butter and bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes or until puree is steaming hot.
8. Garnish with reserved flowerets and serve immediately.

Note from Kate: Since I made this ahead it was very cold when it went into the oven, instead of being lukewarm from the cooked broccoli. As a result it took forever to get hot; good to keep in mind for next time.

The scalloped potatoes were much simpler than I expected, though you definitely want to use a mandolin to slice them super-thin. It would have taken forever to do with a knife, and I doubt I could have gotten them thin enough. I ignored Julia’s instructions to use a flameproof gratin pan, since I have no such thing. Instead I heated the milk (whole milk with a crushed garlic clove or two, plus salt and pepper) on the stove and poured it over a few layers at a time of the potatoes. I am paranoid about undercooking this sort of thing, having eaten some very crunchy scalloped potatoes in my day, so I peeled back the top layer and pulled out a sample from inside once or twice to check that everything was cooked enough. The finished dish was subtly garlicky and very refined. It held together well and I didn’t miss cheese or cream.

potat

The ham was from Vermont and was pre-cooked, so I just had to heat it in the oven. It was good but not great… It sure looked impressive though! Here’s the whole spread:

ham

The Parker House rolls were a fiasco. I gambled that the bulk yeast I have is instant, and….it’s not. The rolls were very small. Heh. I also made my first ever batch of cupcakes, yellow cake with confectioner’s sugar frosting, and though they spread out on top of the pan, once I trimmed the errant tops to size and frosted them (sloppily) they looked ok. They tasted quite good, too!

cupcakes

I told Ben while I was hacking the crispy overhanging edges off the cupcakes that I feel like I have two cooking/entertaining fairy godmothers, one on each shoulder. In one ear Martha was telling me to bake another batch; in the other Julia was saying to just add more frosting and cover the cut edges. Obviously I listened to Julia.

Playing catch up

A few recent meals before I continue with the Argentina travelogue…

Yet another absorption pasta

First of all, I don’t usually post my absorption pastas at this point–it has become a favorite midweek meal, usually involving broccoli and sausage, but a recent one was so easy and tasty that I thought I’d toss it in the ring. I sautéed a couple chopped up slices of pancetta until nice and crispy, put them aside, sautéed a sliced up summer squash for a few minutes, set *that* aside, then cooked the pasta and added the squash and most of the pancetta back in towards the end. I chopped up some really firm feta and sprinkled it on top, then finished with the rest of the pancetta, for crunch. 20 minutes, completely delicious, and rather pretty, too! (This is my contribution to the Everything Yellow design trend currently sweeping the internet.)

pasta

Cured pork chops, Goin style

My brother brought his new girlfriend over for dinner a couple weeks ago, and I made a real dinner for them instead of presenting poor Tom with whatever I happened to be cooking that night. I made the cured pork chops from Sunday Suppers at Lucques, starting the day before by making the brine (juniper and allspice berries, fennel seed, fresh fennel, onion, carrot, dried pepper, thyme…) and soaking the chops for 24 hours.

brine

chops in brine

That left the chops really fat and juicy with brine–I wish I had weighed them before and after; next time I’ll do that to see how much they suck in. See how shiny and plump they are?

chops

To start the meal we had another Goin suggestion, roasted asparagus with prosciutto and mustard crème fraîche. I should have grilled the asparagus (as she suggests), but we were low on propane so I used the oven. It could have used the extra shot of flavor from the grill.

aspar

I boiled a million marble-sized new potatoes and buttered them, and sautéed spinach as a bed for the chops. Ben grilled the chops to perfection—he has gotten so good on the grill! The meat was juicy and flavorful; I will definitely do this again. Compared to Goin’s other recipes, the brine is really simple.

chop dinner

I made rhubarb compote (again, from Goin) for dessert, to serve with ice cream. Sigh… The rhubarb at the Coop was uninspiring; I should have scrapped it. But I forged ahead, making a caramel with a vanilla bean, then cooking the rhubarb in it, etc. It turned out ok but not great, since the flavor of the rhubarb was not great to start with. Pretty, though:

compote

I adore rhubarb and was looking forward to eating a lot of it this year; I don’t know why I haven’t been able to get any. Dessert plans for a dinner tonight were shot down, too—a rhubarb crisp had to give way to brownies due to a supply problem!

Simple sausage dinner
Mmmm, I really am a sucker for the simplest food. I finally made the roasted shredded brussels sprouts that we’d eaten at our friend Greta’s house months ago. I crushed some garlic and let it sit in olive oil while I ran the cleaned sprouts through the cuisinart (using the shredding blade), then when it was almost time to eat I tossed the sprouts in the oil, spread them out on a baking sheet, and baked them at around 400 degrees until they got crispy. You have to power through the moment when you think you’ve killed them and want to pull them out: Before getting crispy they wilt a bit, which is scary.

I made an emergency box of couscous, and Ben grilled sausages. All together it was a great combo of flavors and textures, and a very satisfying weeknight dinner.

sausage dinner

Argentina Travelogue: Mendoza, part one

(Sorry about the lapse in posting!)

The highlight of our trip was a three-day excursion to Mendoza, the Malbec-producing wine region at the base of the Andes, about 1000 km from Buenos Aires. We stayed at the absolutely fantastic Casa Glebinias, which is a private estate that has recently been converted into an inn. The family has scoured salvage yards to find antique doors and windows, then had their architect design the guest houses around the vintage pieces. The result: New, clean rooms with great modern bathrooms, but a very organic feel, as if they’d been built 100 years ago and well-updated. The grounds are filled with 700 trees and bushes, many of them imported from France by the owners. There were amazing fruit trees and bushes—apples, pears, figs, walnuts, grapes, olives, citrus, etc.—all in full harvest-time splendor.

pear
grapes
walnuts

The first day we arrived in the morning, and after settling in we walked about twenty minutes into the little town of Chacras de Coria to find some lunch. It was siesta time (and siesta time is a serious endeavor in Mendoza), so not much was open. We did find a sort of lunch bar and a bakery, and picked up sweet rolls, empanadas (see previous post) and what Ben thought was going to be a regular hamburger.

Oh, it was so much more.

We trekked back to the room, opened up the paper wrapping, and were confronted with this:

burger

ENORMOUS. Ok, here’s more context: It is bigger than Ben’s head:

ben burger

It was a thin layer of hamburger with cheese, russian dressing, tomatoes, lettuce, ham and fried egg. After a minute or two of hysterical laughter, we dug in—Ben did a good job of it and then I finished it off. Best Burger Ever; the fried egg is a brilliant addition that we later discovered was standard. Oh man.

We had a so-so meal at a cool restaurant that night, and then spent the next day touring wineries, accompanied by our amazing driver Gustavo. We ate lunch at the famous Familia Zuccardi winery, where there is a very nice restaurant that serves an enormous all you can eat and drink lunch.

The kitchens:
zucc kit
The grills:
grills

I’ve already shown the empanadas that start off the meal; they were followed by a bunch of traditional salads—regular lettuce with vinaigrette, lightly dressed tomatoes, and a pan of roasted vegetables. (The typical Asado (barbecue) accompaniments also include a beet salad with hard boiled eggs and some sort of roasted potato dish.)

First off the grill are the sausages, morcilla (a blood sausage that I wasn’t crazy about despite being a big boudin noir fan) and choriza (nothing at all like Spanish chorizo):
sausage

Then comes the steak:
steak

Then beef ribs:
ribs

And finally chicken, though I wasn’t able to eat any!
chicken

For dessert there was a creamy gelatin sort of thing, not quite a cheesecake but very tasty:
dessert

And throughout we drank a LOT of wine—all from the Roble collection at the estate, which is a mid-level (actually turned out to be $6 US per bottle; we brought home 6) and extremely delicious line. We were particularly fond of the Tempranillo and Malbec.
glasses

To be continued….

Argentina Travelogue: Empanadas

I knew going into this trip that I would be quite focused on empanadas. I have an obsessive love of bread/pastry pockets, dumplings, stuffed buns, etc., stemming perhaps from the turnovers my mom used to make with leftover pie crust and her raspberry jam.

I sampled quite a few empanadas over the course of the trip, everywhere from a grungy corner lunchroom in Buenos Aires (where my answer of “hot” to the question “cold or hot?” produced a microwaved-but-still-tasty pocket filled with beef and hardboiled egg) to our bedroom at a fancy estancia in Le Pampa (where a staff member knocked on the door with a large white enamel pot full of freshly fried empanadas). I had ground and chopped beef (chopped is better) with and without green olives and hardboiled egg (I like both). I sampled cheese with ham, without ham, with onions and onions without cheese, baked and fried. The very best were the handcut beef, fried, from El Mirasol in Puerto Madero. I didn’t dislike any of them, but these meat ones weren’t top of the list:

empanada

They’re from a small restaurant in Chacra de Corria, outside Mendoza (in wine country, 1000 km west of Buenos Aires). These were takeout, and Ben’s hamburger from the same place will get its own post later. The crescents are meat, the rounds are ham and cheese. A tip re. empanadas: Some are wet, some are dry. This is a known quantity. The cheese and ham type tend to be wetter, and sometimes squirt, so your first bite must be very carefully taken.

bites

Here are the famous empanadas from Familia Zuccardi, where we had a lunch that will also get written about. From the left, these are filled with onions, cheese, and meat. The center (cheese) one is notably drier-looking and flatter. You can also tell different fillings apart by the different folds.

zuccardi emp

At Le Bamba, the estancia in the grasslands where there is regular empanada delivery (note the deliciously fried crust):

bamba emp

And my last empanada, though not my favorite: straight onions in a baked shell, at a café near the capital building on our last day in Buenos Aires.

onion emp

I’d like to find a good recipe for the chopped meat type, like the ones at El Mirasol. I like the olive and egg, but I think I’ll leave out the egg for Ben’s sake. Fried was definitely my favorite, as well, but baked will have to do for home production.

Argentina Travelogue: Buenos Aires

Well, here’s part one of our trip… I posted a ton of photos (divided in food and non-food) at a shutterfly site for easy viewing, and I’ll just include a few in these posts.

italian consul

A little bit about the itinerary of this trip:

We left on March 12, arrived at about 2 a.m. on Tuesday, March 13 in Buenos Aires. We stayed there the 13th and 14th, and on the 15th we flew to Mendoza (wine country) for three nights. We returned and spent two more nights in BA, then one night in the Pampa (grasslands), and one more night in BA before flying to NY at 4 a.m. on 3/23. I’m going to go ahead and clump all the Buenos Aires stuff together, since we were in and out of the city so many times.

The visit

I loved the city. I love most cities, honestly, but Buenos Aires was really great, especially since we spent most of our time in the very cool but not-touristy Palermo Viejo and Soho neighborhoods. We sent much of our time wandering through the great boutiques in the area, though we did branch out and visit the Recoleta Cemetery one day, and on our last day we made a hurried trip to San Telmo (St. Elmo, according to Ben) for some last-minute gifts. (This fabulous store provided us with many great presents, all made in Argentina and none of them schlocky souvenirs!)

We weren’t in town over a weekend, so I didn’t get to go to the famous street fairs to search for antique goodies. But we did visit the Mercado de Pulgas, a permanent flea market open 6 days a week in the outer reaches of Palermo Hollywood. I loved this enormous bird cage (at least 5 feet tall):

birdcage

and we saw tons of furniture that we would have loved to ship back, but we resisted since we have no idea what our apartment in Boston will be like. I picked up a handful of little things instead–a broken pocket watch from 1914, some old wooden dice, etc. Also a cabinet latch and a brass handle for my brother, who asked for antique hardware.

flea market stuff

In BA we stayed in two B & Bs and one hotel, in a total of 4 rooms. My favorite was La Otra Orilla, which is in a stunning early 20th century mansion that looks like nothing from the outside but opens to reveal a huge entry hall that goes straight back to the courtyard.

otra

Our room was one of two with a private bath, so it was at the back in a new addition. It was small but charming, and I’m sort of obsessed with the iron bed frames they joined together to make a headboard. I love the slightly art deco curves (they remind me of that metal and glass awning in the first photo!).

bed otra

The Food

We had universally good food in BA. We were just walking into random places, but every meal was very good. There is a lot of Italian food—we ate a couple pizzas and quite a bit of pasta, and Ben had risotto two or three times. And, of course, the steak. The beef was as good as I’d heard, and we ate a lot of it. We loyally washed it down with Malbec, which I’m fairly sure would flow from our veins if anyone pricked us right now.

Very typical dinner (under $10):

beef

A restaurant called Lele de Troya caught our eyes one day thanks to a lovely vine-shaded outdoor area on the sidewalk, and later in the trip we returned and ate dinner there (but inside). They have painted and decorated each room in one saturated color. The bar and lounge are deep red, and the small dining rooms are yellow (with the open kitchen), green or blue. We chose blue, and ate a winderful meal surrounded by one shade of deep turquoise.

blue

It was a fancier meal than most of what we ate. We shared an appetizer of Paina (chickpea flatbread) with goat cheese and over roasted tomatoes to start (blurry because of the dark room, I’m sorry):

paina

It’s delicious–soft inside and crispy and toasty along the edges. I ate something similar in Italy, and I’m dying to recreate it. Ben had risotto for his main course, and I had “Lomo Crostante,” a steak topped with mushroom and spinach puree and wrapped extravagantly in phyllo:

package

This sums up our favorite experiences eating in BA—outdoors on a peaceful roof deck, with a bottle of Malbec and a cold bottle of water to prep us for dinner!

roof

That restaurant had a truly hilariously translated menu; I think they had run it through a bad online translator. There were several great examples, including “muffled chicken,” “embezzled asparagus,” and “…accompanied with grilled fungi added saffron to Popes stuffed with brownnose of vegetables.” I hate it when that happens; the poor Pope. My steak with mustard sauce came with stacked potatoes, and was very tender and tasty, but I’ll spare you the horrible blurred photo. I had coconut flan for dessert there—the only time I veered away from straight caramel flan, which is ubiquitous and delicious. Custards rate only a step below pastry treats and fried dough in my pantheon of adored sweets.

File under Pretty but Odd. At lunch one day I ordered crepes stuffed with ricotta, and chose a sauce randomly, since I didn’t really know what any of them were. It turned out to be a tomato-based sauce that may have had red pepper in it, but what I can’t figure out why it was SO tangy; almost sour. Quite strange, though a very pretty presentation:

crepes

Our last two nights in BA, sadly, are undocumented. We were joining an administrator from Ben’s school (who is a good friend) for some admissions events that were taking place in town. We met her at a fancy hotel for a reception the first night, then went out with a girl she’d met on the plane, a friend of that girl, and a guy who’d been at the reception. We went to El Mirasol in the Puerto Madero neighborhood, and had a fabulous meal of empanadas, interesting salads (ours had endive, radicchio, mâche or a similar green, tomatoes and cheese with a great dressing), a wide variety of steaks, from the fried Milanese to grilled brochettes (kebobs) with onions and bacon to a standard but REALLY good lomo. We drank two bottles of Malbec and one of Sauvignon Blanc, and I think we ordered dessert but I know it never came or we never ate it.

The next night there was a special dinner at La Bourgogne in the Alvear Palace Hotel. La Bourgogne in the Alvear Palace Hotel. After quite a lot of delicious champagne with even more delicious cheese straws, we had a mousse of red pepper and tomato, salmon wrapped around cucumber threads, veal chops, and a strawberry dessert. I’m sad that I didn’t get to take any photos, since the food looked really lovely. It was good, but not stunning, to eat—it’s said to be one of the best restaurants in Buenos Aires but I’d had better food at decidedly less upscale places in the city.

Finally, one of my favorite meals is always breakfast, and I liked the Argentine approach, which was the same at every B&B and café we ate at: small croissants called Medialunas, served with butter and jam or dulce de leche, along with fresh juice and coffee. Very simple, and a perfect start to the day.

breakfast

freelance writer