bróCarly y Carliflor

OATMEAL PICNICS

2009-11-05T05:58:00.000-08:00

I want to extend my Madison OATMEAL offer to Buenos Aires. If someone is not convinced on the deliciousicity, I am an oat missionary and will make oats for people who want to come over and learn or who want me to bring a tupperwear of it to a cafe for some tea and oats.

Blancarly@gmail.com and find a time to . . let oats into your life.

. . OATcarly and CarlOATMEAL.

2009-11-05T05:45:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I think I should change the name of this blog to reflect my favorite food: Oatmeal. Recently perusing the New York Times I found an article for Healthy foods for under $1.

Number ONE on the list is, you guessed it, oats: "High in fiber and good for cholesterol. A dollar buys you a week’s worth of breakfast or keeps you well-supplied in oatmeal cookies."

In Buenos Aires, Oatmeal is not difficult to find; the challenge for me was obtaining the old fashion style rolled oats (avena gruesa). Going to the dietetics stores in your neighborhood and asking for this product will help you figure out which stores consistently carry it.

I was fortunate enough to find Willy, a native Bolivian who has lived in Argentina for many years (he's a Tango teacher) and is the owner of a natural food store a block from my house on the corner of Juncal and Ecuador. For 5 pesos, I get a large bag of rolled oats that generally last me a week (but that is calculating that sometimes I consume it twice a day, and rarely does a day go by where it is not enjoyed).

Also, at his and other neighborhood stores, take advantage of getting other products you find on the NYT $1 list and my own personal cheapy favorites: peanuts, raisins, bran, yogurt and Tofu.

Custom Carli Cereals

2009-10-15T19:29:00.001-07:00

In Argentina people often say to me: "¡Vos solamente comés pasto! [You only eat the lawn!]

This is probably in part due to the fact that I have a shopkeeper named Willy who I go to once a week to buy my oats.

And now I have found a place to regularly buy my granola too: Granola Mix

They have premixes and breakfast options, but the definite appeal of the site is that I can design exactly the granola (bar or loose) I want.

I made one healthy mix --naming it CarliMix, to keep with the theme of egotistically inserting my name into all of my favorite foods--with a Muesli base and adding raisins, figs, cashews and pistachios. (19 pesos)

And one desserty mix--ChocoCarli--with a Choco-granola base, golden raisins, walnuts, marshmallows and chocolate chips. (22 pesos)

For 2-4 pesos more, you can get the granola delivered right to your door if you live in Barrio Norte, Belgrano, Microcentro, Nuñez, Palermo, Recoleta or Puerto Madero.

How to make your own. . . Vegetarian Menu

2009-09-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

It is rare in the U.S. to walk into a place and have there actually be NOTHING on the menu that a vegetarian can eat, even if sometimes it means combining side dishes to make a meal there is at least SOMETHING.

Today I walked into a small "pancho" restaurant--near my school across from the famous concert hall Luna Park--which is a place that sells hotdogs and some burgers, too, and there was literally nothing on the menu meant for non-carnivorous me. So, in my forward north-american, porteño-cringing way I decided to ask "hay algo vegetariano [do you have anything vegetarian]". The Buenos Aires native I was with reddened and put up his hand as if asking for forgiveness for my defiance against his country, as he waited for his two hotdogs he had just ordered.

The answer was first a laugh and then a no. I noticed on the menu that there was a small egg sandwich (if you are a vegetarian that doesn't eat eggs or cheese, this entry is not for you), that had jam, cheese and egg. I asked if they could simply not place the slice of ham on my sandwich in order to make it vegetarian. There was an awkward moment where all of the non-vegetarians looked around puzzled at each other wondering if I could be serious. As I often say, it is not that it is particularly hard to find vegetarian options if you know where to look and what to ask for, but it is certainly difficult to make someone understand that I don't eat things that were part of a living animal.

Amused, they prepared my egg and cheese sandwich adding lettuce and tomato. I garnished it with ketchup and crushed chips. They asked me for 4 pesos (a little more than one U.S. dollar), and I haggled them down to 3 pesos (less than one U.S. dollar) since I was not getting the piece of ham. My original plan was to go buy a salad for 30 pesos at a natural food deli a block away, but for under a buck, I couldn't resist.

The moral of this story is that asking for the vegetarian option in a country that does not understand vegetarianism may not be as successful as simply investigating the menu and showing the restaurant how they could make something with meat ok for us herbivores (at least of the lacto-ovo variety, in this case).

Argentines, if you love McDonalds, you've got to try the latest product from the U.S.!

2009-08-29T11:31:00.001-07:00

An article in the NYT by Mark Bittman starts with this lead: "ADORED in the United States, ignored or mocked almost everywhere else, peanut butter is among the most flavorful and reliable single-ingredient processed foods."

And it's largely true. When I say that peanut butter is my favorite food (along with oatmeal, pumpkin, dark chocolate and grapes), I frequently get the following reactions living in Argentina:

1. Doesn't that make you fat?

-Carly the Vegetarian: Argentina is famous for dulce de leche, empanadas dripping with cheese, and facturas. Any of these products eaten in excess will undoubtedly make you fat; same with peanut butter.

2. We don't have peanut butter here in Argentina.

-CtV: It is not hard to get peanut butter here; most natural food stores and supermarkets in Chinatown have a homestyle version. Also, if you want an expensive import from North America, many large grocery stores will have a couple of jars just calling out to us capricious Americans. So, it's not that it isn't here.

3. That is so American.

-CtV: So is The Simpsons, but Argentines can't go ten minutes without making reference to them. So is McDonalds, but there is one on every corner in Buenos Aires, so that is not an argument for not embracing this North American delicacy.

4. One time, long ago in a moment I barely remember, I tried peanut butter and I didn't like it and I will never give it another chance.

-CtV: No. I don't believe you. Bring me some Cerealitas and I will spread some on it and you will like it.

I frequently argue for the versatility and utility of peanut butter, but this NYT article is an excellent reaffirmation that just adding a spoonful of it to almost anything (within reason) will undoubtedly make the dish better.

Bittman asserts, curries, oatmeal, noodles, hummus all benefit from this seldom-appreciated-internationally product.

Also, as my friend Will and I discovered last year at an International Potluck, peanut butter finger sandwiches are a unique way to represent our peanut butter-obsessed country.

There are some positive and negative aspects of globalization, but this non-proliferation of peanut butter treaty that the world seems to have against the U.S. is unfounded and not good for my personal international relations.

Everyone finds something in Argentina to fall in love with. . .

2009-06-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

Recently it has come to the public's attention that there are many things in Argentina to fall in love with.

I probably won't give a press conference crying about it, but I must admit that I myself am also not being faithful: I have recently begun a love affair with the Argentine soy milk AdeS. Much to my own chagrin, I find it much more satisfying than its North American counterpart, Silk Soymilk fortified with fiber.

AdeS stands for Alimento de Soja (Soy Alimentation in English). The majority of the products sold by AdeS are actually soy juices; if you ask at a grocery store in Buenos Aires for soy milk they will simply say that in Argentina it does not exist. However, if you ask for AdeS, you will be sent to the soda aisle where there is a small section with boxes of soy drinks.

I have yet to hear a single Argentine person tell me that they like AdeS soy milk; they know that it exists, but find it disgusting (although I welcome being told otherwise). A professor of mine who is also a vegetarian recoiled in disgust when I said I liked soy milk.

But at $5 pesos per liter, I think I have found a new source of protein to help me not slowly deteriorate while in the CarneLandia (Beef Land). It makes a mean bowl of bran with banana and raisins, but delicious to drink plain too. It is also fortified with Vitamin A, C, D, E, and B6 and boasts iron, magnesium, folic acid, vitamin B12 and calcium.

The one draw back is that it comes warm in a box, so throw it in the fridge right away, because it needs to be served "bien frío."

So for the purposes of this blog, my amorous situation with AdeS can modify today's headlines from Argentine newspaper Diario Popular: Scandal with Yanqui Vegetarian and Argentine Lover.

Special thanks to José Maria "Tucu" Costa for giving me my first box of AdeS. . and for the endless flow of yerba maté.

Flavor? I had forgotten what it was. . .

2009-05-14T16:06:00.000-07:00

Last night one of my dearest old friends reappeared in my life: Flavor. It is a general consensus with the expats that I have met in Buenos Aires that traditional Argentine cuisine does not exactly excite the palette. The Argentine beef aside, finding anything with a strong taste is a definite challenge.

Perusing the reviews of the Indian restaurant and pub in Palermo called Bangalore & Co. I was shocked by some of the luke-warm sentiment surrounding the restaurant. In fact, after sharing this colorful and satisfying meal with a friend of Indian decent from Malaysia-- who taught me how to shovel various flavorful puré dishes into my mouth using pita bread and my thumb (but not teaching me how to not look like kind of a doofus while attempting it)--I was as enchanted by the atmosphere as with the food.

Maybe I am speaking out of flavor deprivation, but upon ordering the vegetarian sampler platter for two, my uncontrollable lust for turmeric dishes and any member of the squash family was at last satiated upon tasting the pumpkin curry. Included in the platter was a spinach/cheese mixture and a some potato balls in a tasty sauce. Pita bread and rice accompanies the dishes to assist in the subsequent shoveling into the mouth.

This is not a strictly vegetarian restaurant (in fact, the waitress brought us bread and chicken to start with and looked confused when I asked if it was meat, explaining my vegetarian 'conundrum'), but the options are ample enough and good enough that if you have forgotten what flavor is, this is an ideal option.

**Ojo: Make a reservation by calling 4779-2621, because we went on a Wednesday night and it was pretty crowded. They don't serve dinner until 9p.m. (which in porteño actually means about 9:15 or 9:30, depending on their mood). It is located on Humboldt 1416 (esq. Niceto Vega).

List of Vegetarian Restaurants in Buenos Aires according to the Unión Vegetariana

2009-04-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

I will throughout the year be going to the various restaurants to test out their vegetarian cuisine:

My hope is to form a group of expats and natives alike who want to get together and share this healthy, yet delicious food together. If you are in Buenos Aires and you want to come with me PLEASE e-mail (vegetarianism not necessary, merely a zest for trying new food): blancarly@gmail.com

Almagro:

La Reina Kunti-3461 Humahuaca

Los Sabios-Corrientes 3733

Sendero Vegetal-4417 Av. Diaz Velez

Belgrano:

Soy Arroz- Arribeños 2221 (Chinatown)

Centro (Downtown):

Bodhi-Chile 1763

Granix-165 Florida 1st floor (1*Piso)

Fenix-Avenida Belgrano 3331

La Huerta del Sol-LaValle 895 1st floor (1*Piso)

Lotos-Córdoba 1577

Colegiales:

Verde Llama-Jorge Newbery 3623

Palermo:

Bio-Humboldt 2199

Krishna Veggie Lunch-Malabia 1833

Senutre-3090 República Árabe Siria

String-Borges 2284

Paternal:

Govinda-2054 Andonaegui

San Telmo:

Abuela Pan-Bolívar 707

Villa Crespo:

Alma Zen-Malabia 484

Villa Devoto:

Gopal-Sanabria 2633

This list was taken from the Unión Vegetariana website, but I intend to find more.

Golden Curry Oatmeal

2009-04-25T18:09:00.000-07:00

Like tofu, rice and plain yogurt, I am convinced that oatmeal is one of those foods that is like a blank canvas. And contrary to the notion that oatmeal can only be eaten sweet, this traditional breakfast can easily be turned into a savory dinner. And for vegetarians in Buenos Aires, especially those trying to eat for cheap, oatmeal is an excellent and filling option.

Although my morning oats always include a banana, salt and cinnamon, curry, a common Indian spice with a tumeric base can easily be a substitute. The book Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni includes a chapter discussing the yellow root:

"Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck."

Curry--or at least the tumeric base--is said to have health benefits as well. So, with some raisens and almonds, my Golden Curry Oatmeal makes for a very nutritious meal.

Ingredients:

1 cup water

1/2 cup dry old-fashioned oatmeal

5-10 almonds (chopped)

1-2 tbsp raisins

pinch of salt

teaspoon of sweet curry

honey to drizzle on top

Boil water in a small saucepan

Add dry oats

Stir occasionally and decrease the heat

Add salt and curry

Add raisins and almonds

Keep stirring until the mix becomes thick

Remove heat and stir

Put the golden oat mix in a bowl

Drizzle honey on the top

This should only take 5-10 minutes to make.

To avoid the inevitable boredom of a soy milanesa, which is often suggested to me as one of my Buenos Aires vegetarian options, Golden Curry Oatmeal is cheap, healthy and doesn't taste like a shoebox.

BIO in Palermo

2009-04-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Eating healthy is certainly a luxury. The first page of the Buenos Aires organic and vegetarian restaurant Bio menu explains the benefits of eating foods sans toxins and chemicals, perhaps trying to justify the prices that follow, which for Argentina, are a little steep. Granola North Americans who are used to shelling out for organic produce at co-ops or farmers’ markets may be delighted by these prices, but when I can get a plate of mashed pumpkin for 8 pesos (US$2), I am less pleased to spend 35 pesos (US$9) on curry vegetables.

But for a Saturday afternoon splurge, Bio provides the protein that vegetarians may be missing during the week. The 5 peso (US$1.35) cubierto [table charge] includes thick wheat bread with a pumpkin dipping sauce and a shot of pear juice. Appetizers go for as little as 4 pesos (US$1.08) for the empanada of the day to as much as 28 pesos (US$7.57) for an elaborate starter salad. There are as many salad options for entrees as warm prepared dishes, with the favored grain being quinoa.

My main complaint about Argentine cuisine, besides that it revolves primary around thick slabs of meat, is that it is quite sosa [plain], and this can be extended to some of the food at Bio. My dining partner, who ordered pasta, kept complaining that it was too dry and needed more sauce or flavor. I was warned before ordering my curry dish that it was muy picante [very spicy], but after my brief pepper-garlic sauce phase earlier this year, my meal didn’t even phase my palette. So perhaps I cannot fault the restaurant for this complaint so much as the Argentine culinary tradition in general.

The atmosphere leaves nothing to be desired. On the corner of Humboldt (2199) and Guatemala, the small space in the neighborhood of Palermo is well utilized with a lime green motif on the exterior of the building extending inside to the placemats and seat cushions. The color is reminiscent of the green movement and accurately suggests that the food going into your body is as good for your health as it is for the environment. There are as many foreigners present as porteños [people from Buenos Aires], and this fact is reflected in the menu translated into English.

Although the portions seem small at first glance, like sushi it is deceptively filling. I made my home walking through the Plaza Serrano to see all the chic designers’ crafts and clothes and promptly returned home to take a long siesta, very satisfied that I ha just eaten “nada más ni nada menos que alimenos [no more or no less than simply nourishment].”

Vegetarians in Buenos Aires Should Unite

2009-04-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

While perusing and google-ing about the internet, I read a fact that I had previously expected but never had in front of me in black and white: Argentines eat more meat per capita daily than anywhere else in the world. So for vegetarians, this simply means that there is less accomodation for our way of life.

Just days ago, I returned to this meat-eating capital of the world. I intend to settle here for at least a year and I want to propose starting a network of vegetarians in Buenos Aires. I will post here tips for vegetarian survival, restaurant reviews, as well as events for vegetarians. Please email me with your interest: blancarly@gmail.com.

Row row row your. . bOATmeal

2009-01-15T21:26:00.000-08:00

Despite hours and hours I have poured over graduate school applications, it has recently become my dream to open an oatmeal cafe. It would be like a coffee shop but my specialty is oatmeal; people hang out and fill up on a food that my dad has describe as 'sticking to your ribs'. As my future customers use the wifi to delete their clogged inboxes, the oatmeal's heart friendly qualities mirrors this action, letting blood flow freely. But like any great establishment, I need a name that is borderline-NPR-too-clever-for-our-own-good, yet descriptive, yet welcoming.

So far, my most punny friend, Jared has come up with two brilliant ideas to get anyone else willing to participate started:

row row row your boatmeal

Poor Ridge. . . the end to your GRUELing journey

I guiltily looked up "oat" in an online rhyming dictionary and came up with

blOAT (Steff is advising against this one)

quOATable

Billy OAT gruff

dream-bOAT

Steff, my soulmate, deserves credit for:

Oatally Oatmeal

Riding the OATtails of glory

So, the challenge is to come up with an even more clever, even more delicious name. Think about the words: oat, meal, fiber, quaker, porridge, etc.

And although I am off to graduate school hopefully in April, hopefully my practical skills will help me accrue the capital so that I can open this fiberful quiant (or quaker) pipe dream.

Brazil nuts of Bra-fill nuts?

2008-10-09T18:07:00.000-07:00

To keep my brain functioning, I try to make sure I get enough fat. Therefore, mixed nuts are an important source of my adipose tissue-building nutrition. But there is a complaint about these Walgreens brand deluxe lightly salted mixed nuts that I have been tolerantly harboring regarding the practice in which they fill the tin cans: Brazil Nuts.

No one likes brazil nuts. You would never see a can of straight brazil nuts, because only a taste- budless fool with an affinity for small baby gerbils would buy them. Cashews, on the other hand, are understandably loved by many, but in my quest for variety, I buy cashews with almonds, filberts and pecans before remembering in horror that about a fourth of the container holds the brazil nuts filler.

They are at least three times as big as their delicious counterparts, and once removed and discarded significantly deplete how much I previously believed I had purchased. According to the reliable Wikipedia, these giant nuts have other purposes such using their oil to lubricate clocks or make artists' paint, so why then can't they stick to what they are good at and stop plaguing my snack time?

Walgreens appears to have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, but I obviously am not.

Beans, beans, the musical fruit, the more you eat, the longer you will live to be able to play a musical instrument.

2008-09-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

Let's be honest, beans get a bad rap. We all sang the jingle relating our fiberful legumes with the subsequent flatulence which has since made me correlate my affection for beans with something to be embarrassed about. Traveling and understanding other cultures that embrace the bean has made me finally feel ready to affirm my love for them.

First, we must understand the bean. This pod-like food is considered a legume. In its family it has the alfalfa, peas, lentils and peanuts. In American gastronomy beans often play second fiddle to their protein counterpart, meat, but they are really a perfectly delicious alternative for their high-cholesterol substitute. In fact, America would be a lot healthier if instead of eating a hamburger with a side of baked beans they ate baked beans (Amy's organic, of course) with a side of a mini-hamburger. This, however, would be contested by North Americans and Argentines alike.

In Spain, my inversion suggestion is realized in the form of Madrid's delectable "cocido," which is a garbanzo bean-based stew, often with little bits of meat. In the U.S., we have split-pea soup, but it is often considered scornfully and ridiculed next to the classic favorite, starch and fat soup a.k.a. chicken noodle.

In Middle Eastern cuisine garbanzo beans are used for myriad dishes such as hummus and falafel. As I mentioned in a previous post, on Scalabrini Ortiz in the Palermo neighborhood, on the corner of the street El Salvador, it is possible to get an excellent example of these dishes.

Buenos Aires does harbor a secret love for beans in the form of faina, a dough-like food made out of garbanzos and often eaten with pizza, quite literally with, as in stacked on top of the slice. Just like vegetables, some people simply need them to not look like a healthful food in order to consume them happily.

Mexico, however, I would probably give the most credit for their use of legumes. A friend from Monterrey, Mexico made me Pedro's breakfast specialty (without any meat), and even that included beans. In their national dishes, they proudly use a plethora of black and pinto beans, and if the Republicans win the election, this food alone might lure me over the border.

Throughout my travels, I find this discomfort for beans a disconcerting part of American food culture, and a challenge for all vegetarians here. And although I will always be a gal from the U.S.A., today I will yet again defy my culture and affirm my bean love.

Peanut Butter Vs. Dulce de Leche

2008-08-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

Every culture has a vat or jar of a nutrient rich spread to put on their crackers or their bread. The U.S. has peanut butter. Europe has Nutella. Argentina has Dulce de Leche (or caramel). And Australia has its inedible vegemite. These items are so exclusive to their countries of origin that they are scarcely available anywhere else. I am consistently warned before going to a foreign country that if I can't live without peanut butter, I should take it with me and although I hardly ever take the advice because I want to eat like a person from the country I am living in, it is not unfounded.

I want to make it clear that although I am going to argue that peanut butter is far superior than dulce de leche, that the items are in no way metaphors for the countries themselves or any attempt at a masked nationalist argument. I am simply pitting the two foods against each other, and coming to the conclusion the P.B., nutritionally at least-- because I cannot argue personal tastes-- is a better way to butter up your toast for breakfast.

Examining the ingredients in each of the products, D.d.L. includes milk, sugar, glucose and flavoring such as vanilla, where as P.B. has peanuts, salt and sugar (depending on the brand). Calorically, D.d.L. per 2 tbsp has 124 calories whereas the same amount of P.B. has 200.

But calories certainly are not all that matters. If one eats a piece of bread with D.d.L. on it, their blood sugar is going to skyrocket and then by 10a.m., they are going to crash and be incredibly hungry, whereas P.B., which is more dense with fat and protein, is going to leave the person feeling fuller for longer. The protein and the fat are worth the extra calories, because they are going to build muscle mass (as long as the person is active), whereas D.d.L. only affords an excess of carbs which in convert to fat the second they are not used.

P.B., however, does have an incredibly large amount of fat. It would be delusional to think that the fat won't turn into fat on your body, or even the excess protein won't if you don't workout. 17g in 2 tablespoons is 26% of a daily intake, but by buying the right brands (any homestyle or trans fat free) the fat is a necessary component for your brain to function. I am not going to say that P.B. makes you SMARTER per se, but it couldn't hurt, right?

In terms of their versatility with desserts, D.d.L. is ubiquitous in Argentina. Anything can be found with it, but P.B. keeps up in the U.S. from cookies, puppy chow or Reese's peanut butter cups.

In returning from Buenos Aires, I have been looking for reasons why I am happy to be home. Peanut butter has definitely welcomed me. . .but we'll just see how happy I am to see it once I've gained 10 pounds.

Does not eating meat make me adorable?

2008-08-09T05:35:00.000-07:00

My final meal in Argentina was eaten at one of my favorite restaurants, Perutti, located on the corner of Avenida Santa Fe and Riobamba. One thing that almost all Argentine restaurants have is a "cubierto" or a table charge, usually about 5 pesos that often includes the bread they will put on the table for you and the placemat and silverware. However, at Perutti, the cubierto includes a very eclectic basket of breads and assorted sticks and little slices of a onion pizza without sauce, which is better than what you get at other places, but you make up for it with the prices at Perutti which are pretty high.

So, as I've mentioned, my favorite dish in Buenos Aires was mashed pumpkin, so when Jose Luis told me he was lazy and that I should therefore choose where we went to eat lunch, I said I wanted to get one last fix.

When it comes with the massive amounts of bread, Perutti is the perfect place to go because I can easily get filled up on what is actually just considered a side dish. However, I find that when I order it the mix of my accent, my conviction that it is the only thing I want and he fact that it is considered kind of strange makes the waiter look at me with a sort of affection. (Nada más, señorita? Seguro?) Also, I appreciated Jose Luis' chuckle as I excitedly ordered a plate of orange mush. One would not think that the presentation on this pile of halloween could be beautiful, but its color is deep and its shaped into ripples. I like to wait a minute before I interrupt its flow. Just like with the chinese food, everyone wins. I am seen as a kind of crazy American girl who orders something not quite considered a meal, yet considered adorable, AND I get to eat what I want.

En serio?. . .

2008-08-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

If I would have discovered on my first day what I discovered today, I would have been a much happier, fuller and richer intern.

A falafel sandwich here only costs $1.64.

In the neighborhood where my boss lives, I walk weekly by the same Arab deli, peering shyly through the glass and then not going in. Today, I had resolved to go in and eat a falafel. When he asked me for 5 pesos, I thought my Spanish was going. (cinco. . en serio?)

Feeling pretty full and rich after the sandwich, I decided to treat myself to Baklava (Baclawa in Spanish). 82 cents later, I'm both satisfied and angry at myself for not going in before.

Disco GREEN card.

2008-07-31T19:57:00.000-07:00

When you realize you are going to be living in a new strange place for a long time, or what seems like a long time, you look for ways to make your life to seem as normal as possible. So when I got to Buenos Aires, I signed up for a gym, went to go see Indiana Jones, and got a DiscoPlus card.

So of course, especially as a vegetarian, sometimes I just want to buy Zucaritas (Frosted Flakes) and some boxed milk (leche asquerosa) that expires far later than should make you comfortable, and eat it in my room to avoid the constant meat abyss outside. So finding a grocery store near your house is a must. Probably the three most popular in Buenos Aires are Carrefour, I would say maybe your Sentry Foods; Disco, more like your Kopps; and Día, which is definitely on the Pick'n'Save side.

On my keychain in Madison, I have my Kopps card, which when they swipe it usually allows me to save about $4.12, which seems muy poco in the U.S., but is 12.36 pesos here. So when they asked me at my corner grocery store if I had a DiscoPlus card, I knew that I immediately wanted one to bring a sense of normalcy to my life. Sort of like my Disco GREEN card. If I flashed it, all Argentine people would immediately know that I was not a tourist, I was a spanish-speaking, law-abiding, grocery-buying foreigner.

Now, why wouldn't I assume that it wasn't my Argentine Kopps card? Finally after it had been swiped about 5 times, and I hadn't saved 61.80 pesos, I asked the cashier what ahm exactly did this card do? (para que sirve?) She laughed at me and then pointed to a wall which looked like a grocery shelf with a lot of out of place items such as games, electronics, wineglasses with large numbers underneath like 1780 puntos for a razor or 410 puntos for a barbie doll. Apparently I was accumulating points to win these fantabulous prizes. I have about 160 puntos and I leave in about a week, with tomorrow being probably the last time I will go grocery shopping and I am quite concerned. So many groceries and so little payoff, merely a full stomach. But, alas, I was empty without my prizes!

My choices right now are a 1-inch lego man that looks like a warrior or two Rayovac AA batteries. Maybe I'll just hold onto my points and instead go for my dream prize, CRUCIGRAMA (spanish scrabble), for 680 puntos. Only about 500 more to go; that's a lot of months of not starving.

toFU** THAT! I'm not going in a VEGETARIAN restaurant!

2008-07-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

I missed Tofu. I say it in the past tense because up until a couple of hours ago I had gone over two months without it. There is often a stigma attached to going to a vegetarian restaurant and I need to thus look for ways to disguise that the place we will eat will have a lot of options for me and not make the other person feel like their choices are being limited by my pickiness (no seas tan esquisita!).

Having plans to eat dinner (cenar) with my boyfriend (porteño mío), Dani, tonight, and sick of him saying that there will be a lot of different pasta dishes to choose from, each slathered in olive oil and suctioned together by melted cheese (pero, amor mio, hay raviolis, canelones, tallarines o capeletis!), I decided that we were going to Chinatown. This is actually just a 3-block section of the Belgrano neighborhood, which we walked as Dani grimaced at the notion that the food would simply not fill him up, saying that Chinese people are not 6'3'' and don't weigh 190 lbs (No me llena, se queja). Sometimes people have the same reaction to vegetarian restaurants as they do to ethnic restaurants; it's too weird, too different, too. . not what they're used to. After some eye-batting and caresses he reluctantly followed me into a Chinese restaurant and proceeded to tell the waiter all of his prejudices about their food. I simply told the waiter that I wanted Tofu. Shocked, he explained to me what Tofu was, and I patiently let him tell me it was a type of cheese, before saying that I was a vegetarian and eat it all the time in my soy-abundant Madison. Dani, dismayed, said he wanted something swiney and the waiter kind of decided for himself what he was bringing us (no sé que pedí).

Pero, qué rico! Oh yea, you like it? Two giant plates of food came. Mine, tofu and veggies in a savory sauce and Dani's, pork and veggies in a sweeter, peanuty sauce. He was full and I was happy to not be eating a pile of unrefined carbs. In amazement, Dani profusely thanks our waiter, saying that he is definitely going to come back. So, the lesson: Try to disguise restaurants with a lot of vegetarian choices, like Chinese(Belgrano) or Arab (Avenida Scalabrini Ortíz, tipo Villa Crespo y Palermo) and everyone is happy. Meat eaters and tofu eaters sharing harmonious meals. Now that's zen.

. . soy vegetariana. . .

2008-07-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

It is much more difficult to be a vegetarian in Latin America than in Madison, Wisconsin, the granola capital of the world. Not getting enough protein is not the worst part, it's often that people simply don't understand the concept:

Vegetarianism is the practice of a diet that excludes all meat, including poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacea, and slaughter by-products.^[1]^[2]^[3] The reasons for choosing vegetarianism may be related to morality, religion, culture, ethics, aesthetics, environment, society, economy, politics, taste, or health.

Not all vegetarians are alike. In fact, according to a vegan, I am a cow-abusing monster for the yogurt or the SER™ Dulce de Leche pudding that I enjoy daily. I, personally, do not eat any flesh or fish, and don't buy eggs, but will eat things with them, and I certainly savor a good harvarti dill cheese when my parents buy my groceries.

I had a conversation with an Argentine woman who I lived with surrounding this subject and she proclaimed herself a vegetarian after confessing that I was, only to take it back when she realized that it meant she couldn't eat chicken or ham. I told my Ecuadorian abuelita daily that I didn't eat meat, to no avail, she would put a rice, bean and minced meat mezcla in front of me, much dismayed when I would stare blankly at the bowl. She would then hand me the salt. The first step to surviving not eating meat in Argentina is to learn how to say all the different kinds of meat. (No como pollo, ni carne, ni pescado, ni nada que antes era parte de un animal).

Luckily in Argentina, I am surviving. Sometimes I have to be creative even when I am succumbing to lethargy from excess carbohydrates(empanadas, medialunas, pan) or fat(milanesa de soja, queso). My most frequently ordered "meal" is pure de calabaza (mashed pumpkin), which can be found almost anywhere. Zapallo (to my porteño boyfriend's horror, the word in english is butternut squash, "¿por qué tan largo?" se queja), is as abundant as the mora(blackberry) in Quito. But, it isn't anything like the tofu-soy milk-spelt noodle-world I have so blissfully enjoyed since becoming a vegetarian in 2004 in my liberal bubble.

Being a health conscious vegetarian kind of makes you seem like a snob. But when I say that I won't eat the Skippy™ Peanut Butter on the imported shelf at the Disco supermarket because it is partially hydrogenated and therefore not worthy of my digestion, it is not an affront on anyone who likes it(like my dad). Same with meat, just because I am going to enjoy my Morningstar™ black bean burger or falafel when I get home doesn't mean that I have a problem with someone eating a juicy, greasy cheeseburger or a freshly sliced gyro.

It certainly is not impossible to find a good organic or vegetarian restaurant, but just like when they put the menus in English for gringo tourists, sometimes I wish they would put the menu in vegetarian for me.

Traveling Vegetarianism

2008-07-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

North American vegetarians are really spoiled. Being one of them, when I go to any another country, vegetarianism is simply not as accepted, not as common or not as understood as it is in the Midwest. Thus, other countries don't necessarily have the variety or accessibility non-meat eaters have come to enjoy in the United States and especially if there is a language barrier, it can be tough to get a satisfying meal. I am living in Buenos Aires, Argentina and have lived in or traveled to both Europe and Asia and other South American countries as a vegetarian. The experiences have been. . .Interesting. Fun. Frustrating. Delicious. Disgusting...but Noteworthy.