By Brittany Darwell
Got milk, need granola?
Granola Mix, a customizable granola company, aims to solve that.
After a year at a Buenos Aires consulting firm, former Chicagoan Marina Lidow decided it was time for something more fun. Marina missed the cereal options she had in the U.S., so she learned to make her own. Thinking she could fill the void for others, Marina started Granola Mix with her boyfriend Adrian Carpintero. (She likes a healthy breakfast. He likes his with chocolate and candies.)
Granola Mix caters to either preference. Although they offer some pre-mixes, you’re missing out if you don’t create your own on their snazzy website. Start with your base: plain muesli, honey nut granola, chocolate, reduced fat or granola bars. Then you have 19 dried fruit choices, 7 types of nuts, 7 kinds of seeds and 12 “fun” options, from chocolate chips to Sour Patch Kids.
My selection was honey-almond granola with dried apricots, dried cherries, crystallized ginger and flax seeds. It came in a paper carton with printed nutrition information and my name handwritten. The honey almond base was not too sweet, which was the right balance to the fruit and candied ginger. The granola was nice with milk or mixed in yogurt. It’s tasty enough to eat straight out of the container, but a bit messy since there aren’t many big clusters.
I liked my healthy mix, but if you need a sugar fix, make your own at GranolaMix.com.ar. Also check out their breakfast-in-bed gift baskets.
*Brittany Darwell spent three months in Buenos Aires after graduating from the Missouri School of Journalism this year. She writes about food at HeCooksSheCooks.net.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales will give a talk in Buenos Aires this Friday at 10 a.m.
The lecture, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, will deal with “Wikipedia, Wikia and the future of free culture.”
The talk will have simultaneous translation. For more information, click here. To register, call: 5252-0260
Where: Sheraton Libertador Hotel, Avenida Leandro N. Alem 1191
When: Friday, 10 a.m.
Some of the Many Spices Used in Cooking Indian Food
By Fiorella Donayre
Five minutes into the class, Juhi Manwani’s kitchen fills with an intense and delicious aroma of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, garlic, cumin and coriander as she cooks and explains with detail how to prepare peas pilau (spicy rice with peas), paneer (cottage cheese), saag murg (chicken spinach curry) and homemade yogurt. The small group of foreign students follows closely, sipping sweet lassi and enthusiastically inquiring about the best places to find ingredients and spices. They also help, kneading aloo tikkis (savory potato croquettes) that they will later deep fry and serve with a tasty coriander chutney; they flip mung pancakes in a pan. The class wraps up with a tasting of the food they’ve learned how to make.
Juhi began cooking in 1995, after she moved to Buenos Aires and missed the food of her homeland. She started teaching Indian cooking classes in 1999 and founded a catering service the following year. (more…)
Dear friends,
The Argentine Post is a blog about culture, economics, entertainment, food and politics, among other things. It rarely has been a personal blog about me or any other contributor. However, recent events have affected me personally in a way that affects this blog and my contribution to it.
My great friend, beloved and otherwise-healthy mother was recently diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, a dreadful disease which does everything it can to suck the life out of you. I am with family and taking care of my mother at a hospital in the U.S., where we are hoping, praying and fighting for remission.
During this time, I will not be able to respond to many emails or post about matters profound or mundane. To the extent possible, friends, fellow journalists and other contributors will do this for me. If you have emailed me and not gotten a response, my sincere apologies. At some point, I will try to catch up with the hundreds of emails that have gone unread.
Life is short, very short. As my mother has always reminded me through her actions: Forgive genuinely, give generously and love unconditionally.
Kind wishes and a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.
Taos
By Brian Byrnes.
There have been many, many stories told about Argentina’s horrific 1976-1983 “Dirty War,” when the military ruled the country with an iron fist, squashing any dissident voices. At least 10,000, and perhaps as many as 30,000 people, “disappeared” during this dark era. I have done several reports over the years on a variety of topics related to the “Dirty War,” from amnesty laws being overturned in 2003, to the public opening of a former detention center in 2004, to the (still) missing witness from a trial in 2006. As more and more former military leaders appear in court on human rights abuses, and more and more victims are identified, the issue continues to be a very important one for many Argentines. When I learned about the work of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF, in Spanish) and their tremendous success in identifying and reuniting family members with the remains of their loved ones through the use of science, I immediately wanted to do a story about them. (more…)
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By Brittany Darwell
Despite the ubiquity of the phrase, “puertas cerradas” (“closed doors”) doesn’t fit what Dan Perlman does. Perlman and his partner welcome at least 20 people, most often strangers, into their home each weekend for dinner. Another 12 or so visit for cooking classes during the week.
“Underground restaurant” doesn’t work either. Perlman’s Casa SaltShaker is listed in several city guides and has been mentioned in the New York Times and The Guardian. Entirely legal, with certification posted in the kitchen, “speakeasy” is also far from appropriate.
That’s why Perlman calls his in-home restaurant “a salon for food and conversation.” No pretense of mystery or exclusivity. Perlman wants people to know just what a SaltShaker evening entails: a communal table and five courses with wine pairings by a professional chef/sommelier.
“We get people who’ve read about us or got the number from a friend, and they have no clue what they’re getting into,” Perlman said. (See his comprehensive FAQ page.) (more…)
Al Jazeera does it again, this time taking a look at Argentina’s oddest new law.
The law could force hundreds of people to give DNA samples in a bid to find out who their real parents were and if they were kidnapped during the Dirty War.
The law raises profound ethical questions and shows how, three decades later, Argentina is still trying to deal with its past.
Want to win a pair of free tickets to see The Killers in concert this Friday?
It’s easy. Just send an email to tix@argentinepost.com with “thekillers” in the subject line.
We’ll randomly pick the winning email and send you instructions on how to pick up the tickets Friday morning. Be sure to include your full name and reply email address.
You’ll have to be able to pick up the tickets in person near the corner of Santa Fe and Callao in downtown Buenos Aires. The pick-up time will be between 12-4pm Friday.
This is not a trick. No names or contact info will be collected or shared. Just free tickets. Value 490 pesos! Yours for free, just as a way of saying thank you for reading The Argentine Post.
The master heavy metal band Metallica has confirmed it will play at River Plate stadium on Jan. 21, 2010. You can get tickets online starting Dec. 10 here.
Thanks to BB for the heads up.
The following post first appeared in the As Belgrano Byrnes blog and is re-printed here courtesy of my friend and colleague Brian Byrnes.
By Brian Byrnes
I was in a car on the Panamericana Highway in Buenos Aires last week with two men I had just met, both of whom I was interviewing for a story I was working on for Newsweek. One of them, Nicolas, asked me where I grew up, and when I told him Baltimore, he veered the conversation (as many often do) to “The Wire.” We both agreed that it was one of the best television series ever made. The other guy, Sebastian, had never seen the show, so I started breathlessly telling him how the writing, acting and photography were unmatched, and how it portrayed the modern urban American experience so vividly, and how it gave viewers laser-sharp insight into the inner workings of inner-city drug cartels.
About 45 seconds into my fawning discourse, I recognized the sheer absurdity of the situation: the man I was glorifying the American drug culture to was the son of the world’s most famous drug dealer, Pablo Escobar.
Yes, I was talking drugs with Juan Pablo Escobar, who now goes by the name, Sebastian Marroquin. Thankfully, I stopped myself just short of offering to lend him my DVD copies of Season 1-5. Now, that would have been weird. I don’t think Marroquin would find “The Wire” particularly entertaining. At least I hopenot, especially since the reason I was in the car with him, and director Nicolas Entel, was the new documentary film they just released called “Sins of My Father,” essentially a 90-minute apology from Marroquin to the Colombian people for the many gross, violent and bloody acts committed by his father when he was the richest, most powerful and ruthless drug kingpin on the planet.
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Ever wanted to know when a new move will make it to local screens?
Fret no more. The Internet Movie Data Base has a “coming soon” release calendar that details when films will become an “estreno” at Argentine theaters. Click here to check the sked.
Kudos to “syngirl,” whoever she is, for posting this gem on the BA Expats community web site.
You can see her original post, with more details, here.
According to the sked, it looks like The Blind Side, which is supposedly the 2009 “feel good movie of the year,” will hit local theaters Dec. 17, almost a month after its U.S. open.
“A Serious Man,” the new Coen Brothers film, opens Dec. 3. So does the science fiction blockbuster 2012.
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