Grape Heaven

Has it been two years or two weeks? I feel utterly enveloped in a new reality and feel no impulse to dwell on any particular aspect of my recent past in the United States, which seems so far away, a life belonging to someone else. I have a new set of parents, relatives, a roommate/sister with as much enthusiasm to help me acclimate socially, culturally, culinarily, and linguistically as I could have ever fantasized, and a host of intriguing activities and classes to choose from. There isn’t a moment when I am not absorbing a completely novel experience or envisioning a future exciting activity in this vibrant urban environment pulsing with energy, art and sociopolitical complexity.

Now, regarding the title of this post, I will start with the fruit, and a few other relatively superficial but notable aspects of daily life here in Buenos Aires. My host parents purchase an inconceivable amount of fruit every few days: oranges, apples, lemons, grapes, mini-plums, bananas, plantains, the works. Our fridge is packed with ten to twenty servings of each! For a household of four! Oh, and the sweetest pears I’ve had in my life. After dinner each night, which we typically eat between 8:30-10pm, everyone goes to town with fruit. Milanesa is a favorite dinner staple of my beloved host mother, Marta, a delightful being who was brimming with visceral love and attention from the moment I met her. Everyone in the house kisses on the cheek for every encounter and farewell. My host dad, Osias, has the most useful unsolicited advice in the world at the drop of a hat. We chat for hours about train lines, Argentine politics, our favorite helado flavors, and Yiddish expressions. I am in good hands in this twelfth-floor apartment.

As for the outside world, here are some observations: I walk out on (any) street, go three paces and find a hole-in-the-wall frutería, whispering the sweet alluring calls to purchase another 10 pesos-worth (for a privileged North American traveler such as myself, a mere $.85 on the Blue–a.k.a. illegal but legit–Market for dollar-to-peso exchange) of robust cherries to munch on while I embark on a pilgrimage down an ever teeming Avenida Corrientes to the Subte (subway). I’ll walk three more paces to find a panadería offering elaborate chocolate meringue cakes, cookies, and medialunas (mini-croissants); a few steps more we have a heladería promoting 2 for 1 take-out kilos of serious-business gelato, the kind that has its own magnetic force within each carefully sculpted scoop on your cone. Next, there will inevitably be a bookstore ranging in size from a hole in the wall to that of a grand converted opera house, then an empanada emporium tantalizing passers by with $8 peso baked, buttery, meat and cheese pockets, and of course, the ineluctable Argentine café serving cafes con leche in the utmost civilized fashion (not to be ordered in hopes of either a to-go cup without an oh, you’re a tourist smirk, or a large caffeine-ridden vat of rich bodied dark roast with a splash of milk—nuh uh, Argentines have no conception of caffeine-addicted American portions of café. They stick to espresso and varying quantities of steamed milk in small cups for a kick and a lengthy conversation. Oh, and don’t even think of asking for iced coffee. It exists in the culinary vocabulary of very few porteños except for the inhabitants and visitors of the chic and bougie Palermo Soho, who might as well be strutting down almost any gentrified outdoor shopping and drinking mall in any major cosmopolitan city in their floor-length floral and ray-bans). The final establishments in a classic cycle of commerce on a BA boulevard may either be a unpolitically correctly termed “Chino” (Chinese-owned grocery store often selling already dirt-cheap and delicious wine at rock-bottom prices, among other groceries), a kiosco (Think candy. Think more candy than you ever want to see in one place. Think cigarettes. Boom.), or a shoe store begging unassuming pedestrians to invest in yet another pair of three-inch platform sandals in its end-of-summer liquidación. Reach the crosswalk, run for your life in case a cab driver is feeling particularly insolent at that moment, and begin the same dance with temptation to consume everything in sight anew on the next block. So goes the repetitive average stroll along any major street in Buenos Aires.

I ask myself how porteños pride themselves on their pasteles (cakes), medialunas, asados (barbecued meats of all shapes and sizes), empanadas, incredibly cheesy pizza and red wine and manage to pack themselves like sardines into the non-air conditioned subtes at rush hour looking casually elegant, slim, and lacking any noticeable health conditions that might affect their smooth complexions. Okay, I’m generalizing about a minute portion of the immensely sprawling city I view on my limited commute to and from the city center, but it’s still amazing. There are dieteticas every five blocks or so, where you can buy dried fruit in expensive bulk and vegetarian sandwiches (havens for a tofu and legume-craving co-oper from a small liberal arts college in the midwest such as myself), but they certainly cater to the minority.

Alright, enough about food. I spend enough time reading pickupthefork.com, an addictive blog about the culinary landscape in Buenos Aires. A change in topic, perhaps?

Actually, it is time for bed. My ambitious plans to capture every aspect of the last two weeks in a single concise, non-rambling and eloquent blog post have been shot to smithereens I’m afraid….but there is always next time. Stay tuned for tales of tango lessons, salsa dancing until four in the morning (considered a wimpy bed-time for true blooded porteños who prefer to take the first colectivos [buses] home after a long night at a boliche [dance club] come dawn), attempting to navigate four university systems’ worth of courses (I won’t bore you with too many details, but let’s just say Argentines do class registration a liiiiitle bit differently- *cough* -tardily), discovering the glory of maté, exchanging jokes and stories with my adorable host parents, my first experience climbing silks in a circus class in Spanish, and navigating the city streets on a bicycle for the first time…..at night (whoops? No injuries, I promise). The next post might be in Spanish. I have to embrace the immersion real soon, or else my professors in my literary theory and urban planning courses will surely grant a failing grade to this gringa fumbling through essays and seminars with her Spanglish. Wish me luck!

Besos a mis lectores. Besos a la ciudad. Ciao, ¡hasta pronto!

Biking along Av. Libertador at dusk