I´m moving!!!

No, I´m not moving again, I´m moving from Blogger! Basically, I´m really bad when it comes to technical stuff and blogger was making it really hard for me to change my template.
So I´ve just relocated to Wordpress here which is more user-friendly and that´s exactly what I need. Bear with me for a while though because I just decided to make the switch today so my new banner has an accent problem and I still need to figure out how to put up that cool flickr flash thingy over there, among many other things.
But I do think this will be an improvement, and all posts have been easily imported, so it´s not going that bad so far.
So come on over and tell me what you think of the new place. See you there!!!

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.

Pip... unplugged

I´m back!!! Everything got fixed this morning... at 9 a.m., way too early for me since I had been out with friends till 2 a.m. and didn´t bother going to bed before 3 a.m., but this was definitely one of those cases when I don´t particularly mind sleeping less than usual.

If you had only seen me on Tuesday! I pretty much looked like a crackhead going cold turkey hahaha I do have an excuse though, I was already up to my neck with deadlines, and suddenly I had no means to upload and download stuff from the server. So what´s a girl to do? Go to one of the restaurants I have just outside of my apartment, thus solving two problems: what to have for lunch and how to upload stuff. What I wasn´t counting on was my computer not picking up their wi-fi signal correctly, but that´s another story.

A testament to how good the food is that I was able to enjoy the meal even though I was about to have a nervous breakdown hahaha AND, though it can be pricey at night, they have a very affordable lunch menu: starter, main course, drink and dessert for 20 pesos (less than 7 dollars).



I chose meat-mushroom empanadas for the starter, cheese-filled potato gnocchi with a gourgeous tomato sauce with arugula pesto... and I´m ashamed to say I chose to have coffee instead of dessert (which brought the price even lower to 18 pesos) because I knew my mind was not in a good place to allow me to fully enjoy the dessert.

Unfortunately, I don´t have any pictures of the whole deliciousness, but I do have their site (which has pictures under "fotos") and I promise to be a good blogger next time I go and take some pictures myself. I´d definitely recommend going there for lunch if you live here or come here for a visit.

In the meantime, I recommend you follow my footsteps and make arugula pesto (this recipe doesn´t use garlic though, pesto without garlic??? WTF!). I simply made mine with a bunch of arugula, 3 garlic cloves, 1 tablespoon of parmessan and olive oil. I have it safely tucked in my fridge and used it for lunch today to make a very simple, yet very tasty, tomato-egg salad.



Oh, and I got the cutest coffe mug the other day, to add to my already large, and VERY ecclectic, collection.







I´ll to be back soon with a more focused post... no actual promises, you know, but at least I´ll try not to unleash 100 things at the same time without actually elaborating on anything in particular! Until then, please bear with this rambling mind for a while.

behind the apron

Those of us who write about food often forget about ourselves in the process, that´s why Christiane/Fiber from 28 cooks created Behind the apron. Basically, she encourages food bloggers to share some pictures of themselves so that readers can see who is behind all that yummy food. It is quite a scary thought to post a big picture of myself for all to see, but then I realize how much closer I feel to the bloggers I have seen in pictures, I see that it is worth it, because, cliche as it might be, it is nice to put a face to a... blog.
In my case, I do have a tiny pic on my profile, but it doesn´t really say much. So I tried to gather some courage, and found it in my tiny golden puppies... an evil plan was born: I would post a picture with the puppies, that way, everyone would be too distracted to focus on me muahaha I know, I´m soooooo clever, I´m definitely proud of myself.
I´m new at blogging, so it´s not as if this is a big revelation after years of mystery, but it is quite weird for me anyway, hopefully all weirdos will be away from the computer today hahaha
Let´s hope this becomes a regular event so that more and more food bloggers "come out of the closet".
I promise that in my next post, I´ll finally talk about the famous World Peace Cookies :)

tagging and weirdness

Kate tagged me for this meme of 6 weird food things about myself. It was quite hard to come up with 6 things, maybe because I don´t see any of my weirdness because they seem perfectly normal to me. I mean, I´ve got weirdness to boot in general, but I don´t know if food is included. Still, I did manage to come up with some things. Hope you enjoy it.

Marce´s list of 6 weird food things about herself

1. I like to eat raw doughs or cake mixes, be it a brownie mix, a raw gnocci (my grandma can attest to that fact), chocolate-chip dough or whatever. Of course, this is purely for scientific reasons, I need to make sure it tastes good before cooking it (you do believe me, don´t you?). In fact, one of the things I miss the most of being in the US is not having cookie-dough ice cream to buy (I think the one I had was Breyers ice-cream, but I keep hearing about Ben & Jerry´s ice cream now, so I´m gonna try that new time I´m in the US, ohh the sacrifices one has to make in the pursuit of culinary enlightment!

2. I don´t like any sort of blue cheese. I mean, it´s rotten, people, and it tastes rotten! I know, I know, that automatically deprives me of being a proper gourmand, but oh well, that´s something I´ll have to live with, as long as you keep that stinking cheese away from me! haha

3. I´ve never been to Paris and have never been particularly enamoured of all things French. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my grandparents are Italian, my great grandma was Spanish and another great grandma I never got to meet was Dutch, so I´ve always been more on the Italian-Spanish side. All I kept hearing growing up was that French food was pretentious and came in tiny plates. I do know better know, though I still love Italian-Argentine food above everything else... it´s inevitable, it´s like my palate and my nose are particularly attached to my childhood.

4. Something I´m very ashamed of: I lost weight when I visited Italy!!! What the #*!, I know, but my relatives kept insisting I should be eating more and gave me their relentless "mangia, mangia" (eat, eat), that I just didn´t feel like eating so much. Plus, I walked like crazy touring the different cities and the food was pretty healthy, so I´m sure that helped. Still, I feel like I let my inheritance down... well, maybe next time I´ll eat like a true champion.

5. All this talk of inheritance and family made me realize one thing. Even though I have some Dutch descent, I´ve never had a Dutch meal before. If any of you have recommendations of Dutch dishes to try, bring them on!

6. I don´t generally like sweet-sour combinations, which closes my food spectrum quite a bit. I´m trying to slowly train my palate, but I don´t think I´m making any progress.

Now, on to the tagging part of the deal. Of course, there´s no obligation to play along, but I think this is a fun topic. I just chose 6 bloggers to keep the 6 theme going, but feel free to join in and then post the link to your entry in the comments sections.

So I tag:

Lori at Dessert comes first
Deb at Smitten kitchen
The gourmet peasant
Luisa at The Wednesday chef
Jenjen at Milk and cookies
Brylin at Jumbo empanadas

calling all lurkers

In case you haven´t heard, it´s de-lurking week, which gives me the perfect excuse to ask you to come out of the shadows and into the light.

I really wish we could have more of a conversation going on. I mean, the whole point for me to blog is to talk to other food-obsessed people, exchange recipes, learn more about your countries, your lives...

So it kind of kills me when I see that quite a few people are reading, but just a few comment.

I don´t know if it´s my own lack of experience writing that doesn´t invite people to comment, or your laziness, fear of not having enough cooking skills or whatever (I don´t know, human beings are quite weird lol), lack of English skills (sé que me lee mucha gente en Argentina, así que pueden dejar comentarios en español perfectamente), or what.

But whatever it is, I invite you to tell me something about yourself, your blog, your country, your love for food, give me suggestions for the blog, even recipe suggestions for me to try... I´m open to ideas.

That´s it. I think this formal closing line sums it up:

Looking forward to hearing from you ;)

Well fed network awards

I don´t have time to post the brownie recipe I´ve been meaning to post today (or the falafel-humus recipe I now recall I had mentioned). But I do want to tell you to check out the Well-fed network awards since I´m sure many of your favorites are nominated and the voting closes on Jan 9th.

Just go to http://wellfed.net/ and check out the different categories.

While we are at it, be sure to check out some of the sites mentioned there, I´m sure you´ll find many new favorites.

Some of my own favorites are nominated, like:
http://smittenkitchen.com
http://habeasbrulee.com/
http://orangette.blogspot.com/
http://lucullian.blogspot.com/
http://jumboempanadas.blogspot.com/

I promise to be back soon with a proper post (work permitting), but in the meantime, I´ll leave you with some more puppy pics since many of you seem to be enjoying them :)


As you can see, Maia doesn´t enjoy the rain at all. And that´s her
favorite "refuge", below my brother´s desk, either that or below the car.





And last but not least... seriously, can they get any cuter?

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 :)

Xmas recap

Christmas is rapidly approaching and, as most people, I was caught pretty off-guard... though, as usual, I won´t be held responsible, it´s definitely the universe conspiring against me, not me for lack of planning, oh no, no, sir.
My mind is pretty caught up with work (since lately I am either working too much or not getting any work at all) and, of course, with the whole puppy-saga with Maia, which, luckily, seems better now. Sidenote, today I felt the puppy kicking and it was one of those Kodak moments... everything made absolute sense for a moment or two and it was just priceless :)
But going back to Christmas, I don´t what my whole role in the dinner and lunch will be, if I should be doing the dessert or what. I do have a personal variation of panettone planned, but I´ll tell you all about it once I make it... and that will be for what we call "mesa navideña" (Xmas table), which is full of turrones, garrapiñadas, chocolate-covered almonds and the like, and the typical "pan dulce" (panettone-like bread literally translated as "sweet bread"). But all that comes at midnight, after both dinner and dessert have been "brought to justice." It happens at midnight because that is the time to exchange presents and make a toast, and the time when all the fireworks start.
I just hope that each and everyone of us has a delightful Xmas (including the preparations, this is a time to enjoy! so just relax a little, everything´s going to turn out fine, even with a cookie or two less in the Xmas table ;)
Anyway, that´s the summary of my Xmas "preparations" or lack thereof. I´ll leave you with photos of tonight´s dinner at my parents´house. Drop me a line if you want any of the recipes and I´ll get my mom to share and then post them.

French onion soup


Swiss chard stalks lasagna (yu-mmy!)

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.

perfect meals

Today I was looking through some old family photos searching for little snapshots of times gone by. Sunday afternoons have always been a time of introspection and nostalgia (sometimes a bit of depression as well depending on the coming week, but that´s another story.) Either way, as I´ve always known, food was a common theme throughout the pictures: there was me smiling in front of my birthday cake, me eating dessert with a huge grin on my face, big family reunions around a steaming bowl of pasta...



Being of Italian and Spanish descent (a bit of Dutch too, but I wouldn´t know what the Dutch attitude towards food is), that is not very surprising. Food was always something with which you comunicated your love and made people rejoice. I will never be able to understand people who have an I-eat-just-because-I-have-to attitude towards food, what is that all about?
For me, food is about enjoyment, not just a cold science which achieves perfection through a simple equation. There are just so many variables: ingredients, combination, texture, temperature, context, company, mood... Anthony Bourdain got me thinking about perfect food experiences the other day. I´ll let him do the talking for a while because he can express it way better than me:

"... I knew already that the best meal in the world, the perfect meal, is very rarely the most sophisticated or expensive one. (...) Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one´s life. I mean, let´s face it: when you are eating simple barbecue under a palm tree, and you feel sand between your toes, samba music is playing softly in the background, waves are lapping at the shore a few yards off, a gentle breeze is cooling the sweat on the back of your neck at the hairline, and looking across the table (...) at the dreamy expression on your companion´s face, you realize that in half an hour you are probably going to be having sex on clean white hotel sheets, that grilled chicken suddenly tastes a whole of a lot better."
(...) "Think about the last time food transported you. You were a kid, had been feeling under the weather all week, and when you were finally getting your appetite back, after a long, wet walk from school in the rain, mom had a big steaming bowl of homemade minestrone waiting for you. Maybe it was just a bowl of Cambell´s cream of tomato with Oysterettes, and a grilled cheese sandwich. You know what I mean".

I do know what he means. For me, a perfect meal is usually of the simple variety -though it does need good ingredients and careful preparation- and, for some reason, it generally has to be shared with someone I care about (or someone I´d like to care about in the future, if you know what I mean lol). That is not to say I don´t enjoy the meals I prepare for myself, in fact, I usually love them (there is something inherently enjoyable in preparing a meal respecting just your own taste and cravings), but oftentimes I feel like something´s missing if I don´t have someone around to enjoy that meal with.
Come to think of it, maybe that´s why I started this blog to begin with... kind of as a way to share some meals and experiences with other freaks, ahem, I mean, foodies, like myself.

bootylicious

WARNING: I´m seriously pissed off, so I´m about to vent with you, my lovely, yet silent audience.
I went shopping for some clothes today. I was all excited. I had a 20% discount in most shops in my neighbourhood, so I wanted to do some real damage, get cool clothes and feel all pretty. Well, it didn´t happen. See, I live in a country where all women are supposed to have a model shape, and if they don´t, well, that´s just too bad for them.
And yes, we do have a lower obesity rate than most countries, but you don´t even have to be obese to have a problem finding nice things to wear. I mean, I´m like 20 pounds over my ideal weight and my choice of clothes is quite limited to what I can find that I like and suits me decently.
I was sooooooooooo happy when I was in the US, I had thousands of choices, and if something didn´t fit me, I could just get a larger size. In fact, I usually got "small" stuff, sometimes "medium", never "large". Next time I´m there, I´m gonna go with a half-empty suitcase and have a blast creating a wardrobe as I please, not according to some anorexic idea of beauty.
See why I can´t indulge in my beloved cookies and cakes very often? If I did, I´d have to walk around in my birthday suit!!!! hahahaa

Ok, I feel better for now, rant over. Sorry about that, I just had to get it off my chest.

bundles of joy

Yesterday was a great day, and it had nothing to do with the fact that it was Friday, or that I didn´t have a tight deadline at work, so I could afford to procrastinate. In fact, it had started out pretty badly since I went to bed at 2am and had trouble sleeping, fully aware that I was going to have to wake up at 8.30 in the morning.

Thing is, I had to got to the vet to find out if my Golden retriever, Maia, was pregnant. To make a long story short, I moved out of my parents´ house a few months ago, leaving my beloved Maia there with them. I really had no choice, even though I adore her, she´s the family dog, not my own, and plus she´s used to having an endless backyard to play in, a big house to roam, and so on. Anyway, it´s not as if I moved out to another city or anything, though I did move to the other side of the city, with a 75-minute bus ride in between. But I do see Maia every week... and the family, of course lol but this is an entry about her.

Anyway, Maia had had a very passionate love story with another Golden named Jamaica about a month ago. By very passionate I mean 3 sexual escapades in less than 24 hours. Yes, I know, poor Jamaica, he was struggling, but Maia was relentless, she went into total ninfo-mode and kept harrassing the poor dog lol

We had yet to figure out whether this lovely love affair had produced little bundles of joy. So yesterday we had scheduled an ecography (yes, they do those to dogs as well.) And indeed, the family is going to get bigger :) Not as big as we had expected since apparently she´s only having 4-6 puppies, which is quite little for a big breed. It´s quite impossible to explain how great that is for me. I mean, puppies playing, puppies running in the backyard all clumsily, can life get any cuter than that? AND, I´m gonna take one of them to come and live with me, which is going to be quite a challenge and a big change in my routine, but I just know I´m gonna love the whole thing.

Anyway, I present you one of the tiny little things (I mean, they really are tiny at this point, only 2.35 cm each.)




And this is the future mother: