A post for Liam Oliver Wooding

So I asked my dear friend what he wanted from Argentina as he was here a few years ago. 2009? He was very receptive to any gift but jokingly mentioned Dulce de Leche, something he knows I can't bring him.

With this in mind... A few evil pictured were taken. Mmmmm... So good!!! I ate it by the pool :)
(do you enjoy the old man in the pool pic background? More eye candy to make anyone jealous!!)

Cooking hilarity

Some people blog cute cakes and such, well I shall report instead on my culinary monster of the day.

You know the best stories occur when Savannah cooks alone. When i was on the CES budget baking course, an old lady was able to quickly able to take my metal plate out of the microwave, at home Stef was able to tell me (a little late) that you don't wash lettuce in hot water. lol, dont be under the impression i was young when i did these things either because I wasn't. When Savannah cooks alone the phrase "Fools tread where angels fear" (or something like that) is extremely relevant.

Anyway I was hungry and tired of the only things I can make (pasta and sandwiches, they are doing weird things to my regularity actually) so I thought "I'll scramble an egg, how hard can that be?". Haha, reminds me of another 'cooking alone experience' involving one sausage, boiling a pot of water and the imminent arrival of the fire department.

Anyway, so i turned on the gas for a wee bit and about to break an egg when I realized, we still have those egg yokes from the pavlova, I'll make an omelet. Still simple enough for me. So I get my eggs, brutally beat with a fork and remember I should add milk. I do so but WTH? Pink milk through my omlete??? Why is the milk pink, no kids live here?!?? So turns out it was strawberry yogurt... Mmmm yum. (gross)

So I attempt to remove as much as possible with a napkin but decide yogurt is pretty much milk anyway so I'd leave it... Hahaha. I add (too much) milk, cut up sausages and add cheese and dump in hot pan. Get a wooden spoon and move the monstrosity around ;)

Yeah... I thought I'd separate into two little ugly WTH blobs, rather than one despicable WTF blob for photo :)

So, remembering cooking advise from teenage boys (we are at a similar cooking level) if it's really bad, just smother it in mayonnaise. Mayonnaise can save anything. So i did and then made it into a (insert your own adjective) sandwich. Then I ate it. I remember thinking "you know, I really have cooked worse" ;)


Hmm it happened again the other day too. Susana was really quite sick so she asked me to boil a vegetable for her. I did so with pride... However it was severely undercooked and, err the wrong vegetable... Understandable if we were speaking Spanish but we weren't and her English is perfect...

Anyway tried again putting this vegetable with the correct one, over cooking the first and both had many ugly stab marks from me testing their hardness. Then boiled an egg, Susan added oil and salt to the veggies and it was ok. :) but what should have taken 20 minutes, took around an hour.

Some more pictures of Mendoza

Click on the pictures to make them bigger, these were not taken with the Itouch

Feliz Navidad!!!

Although it was my fourth Christmas away from home, it was the first without my family.

Here in Argentina and many parts of the Latin American world, Christmas is celebrated on the evening of the 24th of December.

Pav number 2

Certainly better than last times awful mess. This time proper baking paper was used, not tinfoil (urg, don't ever use that) and the oven got to temperature. I beat the eggs till they did not fall out of an unsider-down bowl and didn't open the oven till the time had past and the oven had cooled.

Susi liked my Pav and it wasn't too bad. It looked perfect up until about 10 mins to finnished cooking time. It was gorgeous, white and had risen. However the bottom browned, the top sunk an then it developed lumps. I still have much to learn.

Money here - The Argentine Peso

It seems that any money is good money. Sometimes the notes here can be awkwardly old/grubby/tattered but this is irrelevant, even the dirtiest money has value. Occasionally I get given a dirty 2 Pesos note and I try to put it in my wallet without touching it... ew. However, this certainly gives the currency some genuineness and makes recieving change from a vendor always interesting.

2 Pesos notes. Going down in a continuium of tidiness

Higher amounts

As I have also been to Chile, I can compare the currencies' prettiness. Well, if you like tidy money, you will prefer the Chilean option. I think a few years ago they must have updated their currency because within my slick, new Chilean money, one or two older and differently designed notes where slipped in. I assume they are also still viable.

10,000 Chilean pesos is 24.7 dollars NZ. As for the coins, the Argentinian ones are quite pretty and some have gold centres, covered by silver rims like the South African Rand. I like these.

It's hot in Topeka

You have to be a close friend to get that joke but here in Argentina the fact remains the same: it's damn hot. Now I'm not complaining, no sir, in fact I love the heat. However it does require a lot more sun protection for my white skin. The other day was 36°, the hottest I've experienced in a long time.

Me in the pool with my hat on. It's probably 6:30 pm in this photo

My usual sun gear is a large dress with jacket. However with all the walking we've been doing I've had to rely more on sunscreen (which I have now run out of unfortunatly but fear not I have a substitute). Yep, I've been arriving at the house of Ceci and Emilly with mountains of clothes on, coming inside and pretty much just wearing my underwear (it's ok, nobody died from seeing this)

At night time it is sometimes hard to sleep as well. I usually wear my Cocosur T-shirt from the AIESEC conference in Chile and although we do not have air con, I sleep well almost every night.

Haha, check out "It's hot in Topeka" HERE