the "joys" of "motherhood"

yep, the quotation marks were truly necessary. You see, I´ve been missing in action because of work, but mostly because of the new member of my household.



Yep, lovely, isn´t she? I introduce to you officially: Phoebe, readers; readers, Phoebe.

Well, although she is dreamy indeed, she is also particularly energetic these days... which means she likes to chew on wires, jump and bite me while I´m watching tv in the couch like the true couch potato I am.

Don´t get me wrong, I love her to bits and I knew puppies could be troublesome. I mean, we did raise Maia and she turned out great. But the main problem must be in the "we". This time, it´s all on ME... she depends on me for food, entertainment, everything. And she doesn´t seem to sleep as much as she should, which means I don´t get to relax as much as I should, which means my patience is not at its highest level at the moment. And it´ll be two more months before the vaccines kick in and I can take her to the park and let her blow off some steam and play with other dogs. In the meantime, I´m stuck at home trying to come up with a way to create a safe environment to leave her in when I have to leave the house for a few hours.

Ok, that´s enough... all I meant to tell you is that I haven´t forgotten about you... it´s just been a rough week for me and I´m adjusting to that before I jump back in the kitchen. I do have a few recipes I made last week that I have to tell you about. I´ll probably write about them in the weekend.

And I´m sorry for going off-topic like that. It´s just that this week is all about this



instead of food.

out of service

Just letting you know why I´ve been missing in action: my modem decided to die on me and I have to wait till Thursday for my beloved ISP to come and give me a new one... so I have to abuse one of my friends´good nature and crash at her place with my laptop to meet all my deadlines at work (given that I work freelance at home).

I promise to be back in a few days with more dishes and pictures.

In the meantime, I leave you with some eye candy... of the puppie variety.











And my favorite one:

Weekend in the country

Well, not technically in the country, more like in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. But sometimes it does feel like being in the country, I mean, my parents are growing their own tomatoes now, my dad has been making wine for the last couple of years, they have their own herb section in the garden (that´s not as impressive though, because even I have a pot of herbs in my own tiny home). But the tomatoes have truly enamored me. They are so tiny and flawed. YES, flawed is good when it comes to vegetables, it means they are home-grown, pesticide-free and full of flavor, not blown up like most things we find at grocery stores.

Here they are in all their red glory...





Another impressive aspect of spending the weekend at my parents is the food. Basically I get to stuff my face with remarkable meals without having to cook. I sometimes cook, but I can eat as well, if not better, as if I was making the cooking without having to lift a finger.

My dad has always loved to cook, which was pretty unusual back in the day, and still is in Argentina, that retains much of its sexist "glory". I mean, most men take care of the "asados" (something similar to a barbecue), but that happens once a month or so. All the other meals in that month are the sole responsability of women... and many women don´t like to cook, so people tend to eat less-than-extraodinary meals.

But going back to my dad, he has always cooked a few times a week (for dinner, of course, because he comes home for lunch for an hour, so the meal has to be ready by the time he arrives so he can have a 40-minute siesta). The meals he chooses usually have to do with seafood-fish, pasta or red meat, and they are never ever on the bland side of the flavor spectrum... sometimes they are even too flavorful or spicy. For instance, he has this love affair with sage which can get pretty overwhelming or pepper, he looooooves pepper, so much so that he collects them fresh whenever he sees a pepper tree. But he usually finds the right balance and makes terrific meals (though this is a secret between us, I don´t want him to get even less modest hahaha).



Last night, he went French on us and made sirloin stuffed with parmessan and prosciuto (ok, the stuffing is more Italian than French) with a mushrooms and cream sauce (this part is very French, ha!). (A clarification on the meat cut, our meat cuts are different than those of the US and Europe, but apparently our "lomo" is your "sirloin" or "fillet steak", basically, what you need is a very tender piece of meat without any bones). A combination like that cannot go wrong, and certainly didn´t this time around. The meat melted in your mouth and every bite of mushroom-cream infused goodness was fantastic. As a side, he made grilled vegetables-zuchinni, eggplants and green peppers- which lent a fresher touch to the meal and complemented the richness of the meal perfectly.





I´ll ask him all the details later to give you the recipe.

In the meantime, I´m off to enjoy these fluffy things:





This is them giving their first steps haha



And then off to my grandma´s to enjoy a 100%-authentic Italian meal... which will look something like this:



I know, I know, my life is hard.

Happy new year!!!

No New Year resolutions here, just joy and good food. I mean, how can it be anything else when you start off the year with brownies, ice-cream and dulce de leche, surrounded by family and the cutest Golden Retriever puppies ever?
I can be ambitious, but that sounds like a perfect scenario to me.
This year was a pretty special year for me. Moving out of my house was a huge step which took a lot of courage and made me spend a lot of time examining myself, my goals, and my dreams... which ultimately led to a greater self-knowledge and a better appreciation of myself as a person, of the people I love and of the many blessing I sometimes take for granted.
It was so worth it. I had spent too much time in my comfort zone, and though change can be ladden with fear, when you get through it you realize what you´ve been missing.
I guess I do have a New Year´s resolution: I´m gonna try to challenge myself every step of the way, find new areas to explore and rejoice in the things I´ve already achieved. mmmmm I guess I am pretty ambitious after all hahahaha well, I did say "try".
But, seriously speaking, this blog comes as a part of that time of change, that opening-up period I´m going through, and also as a part of my love of all things food.
For me, food is a bit of an art, a means of expressing a cultural and personal identity. Of course it is about sensations and enjoyment, but for me it´s also about exchanging ideas and getting to know other cultures... I´m a translator after all, that´s what I do.
So my hope for this blog is to grow and blossom. And I´m also hoping to get to know you all a little more... so don´t be shy and talk back, that´s the whole point of this... I promise I won´t bite ;)

I wish you all a year full of

Surpise gifts (you get the present wrapped in a purple ribbon ;)


Nourishment



Innocence


And love

rebirth

There are things that are just right... some come easy, some take a loooot of effort and patience. Puppie delivery 101 at the our household was of the latter variety.
In the last 3 days, I have slept a total of 12 hours and worried for about mmm 72 hahaha
As we had thought, we spent Christmas eve in the middle of Maia´s labor... which finished today at 10 a.m after a total 22 hours since the first symptoms started... my poor girl.
The good news is that after all the troubles, Maia gave birth to two beautiful female puppies. YES, 2 AND female. Just perfect given the possibilities. They are all chubby... I guess they got to eat like 8 puppies all by themselves, those are my girls!!! hahahaha
I don´t have any pictures to share with you yet because it has just been 10 hours and Maia is still feeling quite protective of the little babies, so I´m guessing she wouldn´t be too keen on the idea of picture taking lol
But as soon as I have some, I´m gonna "torture" you all with all their mighty cuteness. I mean, I love all things food... but puppies are above and beyond anything :)
And I know I still owe you all the details of the panettone experience, but that will wait a few days till I sleep all I have been missing and get some work done.

UPDATE: here are the first pics of the new babies :)

Bad day

Sorry, but I´m having a craptacular day, so I can´t sit down to write about food today. I have two recipes to discuss (apple cake and falafel), but they´ll have to wait a few days. No one seems to be reading this stuff anyway.

The thing is I woke up early today after sleeping for just 5 hours to take my dog Maia to the vet to get x-rays and see how the puppies were doing. Remember I told you there were at least 4 puppies in the ultrasound? Well, they don´t know what happened but now there is just 1 puppy, or 2 at most if for some reason the other puppy was placed exactly opossite, thus blocking the view. Yes, your eyes didn´t deceive you, just one freaking puppy! Now, how that is possible is pretty much beyond my imagination (the vet says she probably had a natural miscarriage and the body just reabsorbed the tissue, because there wasn´t any bleeding or anything.)

What I do know is that this is devastating news for me at this point. I mean, I am thoroughly aware that this is not the end of the world. But now I am left hoping that everything turns out fine with that one puppy and for Maia to be fine. And I´m 50-50 on my chances of taking a puppy home with me because I can´t have a male dog. So maybe we went through all this trouble for nothing.

Besides, I had this image in my head of playful puppies running in my parents´ backyard all clumsily, it was all going to be so much fun. But oh well, I have to get used to the idea and pray for the puppy to be healthy... and female.

Again, sorry for being such a downer, I´m just not in the mood for anything else at the moment and I wanted to update you.