New Year's Eve

I don't like New Year's Eve.

It's weird, because I love holidays, in general. I love colour themes and food themes and dressing up and presents and desserts, and New Year's Eve has all of these, if you apply yourself. I also love unbridled optimism, which is New Year's Eve all the way. Not to mention gratitude. And resolutions! I pride myself on these things!

But New Year's Eve? No thanks.

I admit I'm into the food themes. I can't argue with pork for luck and fatty wallets (not to mention that pork is delicious, in any form) and black-eyed peas, symbolizing coins for wealth. And colours, yes! But gold or silver for New Year's, maybe kind of? And black and white? It does have a certain cache, but it isn't universal like Halloween's black and orange, or Chrismas's red and green, and I just can't fully commit. Optimism is awesome, for real, but can't you make that resolution on November 15 just as well as you can on January 1?

Scrooge much? I know. Maybe it's the expectations; that you're secretly hoping that your party will turn into a Bacardi ad. Also that your arms should look fabulous in that shimmery tank top, even after all that Christmas morning bacon.

I'm way grateful for everything that happened in 2009. I've been unemployed - by choice! - for most of the year. I've made amazing new friends, and, mostly thanks to Facebook, reconnected with people I haven't seen in 10 years or more. I lived in Buenos Aires. I learned to speak Spanish, más o menos. I opened a restaurant. I tasted 40 new fruits! I trekked to Machu Picchu, had my passport stolen - and replaced! - in Bolivia, and spent the Winter Solstice in the southernmost city in the world. Gratitude, anyone? And yes, here I am in Buenos Aires on New Year's Eve, celebrating with a wonderful human being (with whom I plan to spend many a New Year's Eve!) and two sweet sweet kitties (who aren't Memphis, but are still lovely).

OK. Maybe gratitude trumps, because I have a lot for which be thankful, and after writing this post, maybe even a newfound affinity for December 31. Happy New Year, friends, and may your 2010 be that much better than your 2009. xoxo

It Takes A Village

Huge sugary thanks to Bri & Geoff, Leslie, John & Joe, and Anna, Pete, Nola & Nick, for the use of their kitchens (and stand mixers!). Thanks to Ann & Rob for transporting two tired travelers toting a disassembled cake and buckets of buttercream from NYC to Cape Cod. Thanks to Meredith & Philip for trusting their wedding cake to a crazy person. And thanks to Ken for his ongoing patience with my, um, ambitious commitments.

I'm going back to bed now. Possibly for three days.

Fruit of the Day: Carambola

Ay carambola! What is this fruit of which you speak?

Let's turn it on its side, cut off the end, and see if you recognize the star of today's FotD:

Just in time to be star-spangled, we have a review of the carambola, a.k.a. starfruit. I'm sure you'll agree that it's the prettiest fruit ever. Unfortunately it wasn't the most delicious fruit ever: Our particular specimen were very crunchy and tart and possibly slightly underripe, and didn't quite pass muster as breakfast snacks. But they're enthusiastic, and sometimes that's what counts the most.

Happy U.S.A. Day!
UFF Fruit Rating:

Happy Canada Day!

According to the interwebs, the only thing resembling a national fruit for Canada is rhubarb, which isn't exactly something I've come across here in the tropics, and besides, it's a vegetable. Today's fruit, then, is red and white and summery and exactly what everyone who's celebrating a national holiday this week will have packed away in their picnic baskets: the melancia.

I'm sure this Fruit of the Day needs no English translation, and probably not much of a description, either. I will say though that this is the reddest watermelon I've ever seen! And it was the kind of juicy where you have to wash your forearms after you finish eating a slice. Good stuff.

I've completely forgotten how much fruit costs in North America, but as a point of reference, this hefty chunk weighed in at just over 2 kg and cost just under $1, and will provide us with multiple delicious snacks.
UFF Fruit Rating:

To celebrate Canada Day, I decided to introduce the butter tart to Brazil (in square form, and with a liberal adaptation of Canadian Living's recipe). It's a non-native species, but given Brazilians' propensity for sweets, the butter tart has already found many natural predators here. In fact, there wasn't even a square left for breakfast this morning. Good thing we had all that watermelon.

Solstice

Not only is today my birthday, here in the Southern Hemisphere, it's the first day of winter. I have to say, I could get used to having a winter birthday if I get to celebrate in flip-flops on the beach. Today Ken introduced me to one of Brazil's celebrated culinary treats: Cheese on the beach. It's the best thing ever. People walk along the beach carrying a little charcoal grill and a tupperware container full of pieces of cheese on skewers. For around a dollar they'll sprinkle oregano on the cheese and grill it up over the hot coals (somehow, like the provoleta we love so much in Argentina, it doesn't melt into a gooey mess). Voilà: a delicious salty treat that you don't even have to worry about getting sandy.

Today's FotD is the coco verde, or green coconut. On our daily strolls through Barra we pass at least half a dozen fruit stands, and all sell coco verde for under $1 (usually closer to 50¢, which is what we paid). The vendors use a big machete (is there such a thing as a small machete?) to level the bottom of the coconut and neatly cut a hole in the top into which you stick a straw to drink the coconut water. It is mild and a little bit sweet and very refreshing, and makes the perfect drink with which to toast birthdays or solstices or the simple fact that you are drinking coconut water right out of a coconut.

UFF Fruit Rating:

Party Time! Excellent!

I used to gauge how "settled" I felt in a new city by how long it took me to find a reliable catsitter - not someone I was paying, but someone I considered enough of a friend to entrust with a set of keys and the feeding of my beloved furry orange beast. Since said beast is living the life in Canada these days, we had to figure out a new measure of successful integration here in Buenos Aires, so we decided to host a little fiesta for Ken's birthday (which is on Tuesday, should you want to send small-yet-expensive gifts). We've only been here for two months, so a not-insignificant portion of our guest list involved Spanish teachers.

Parties and other outings here in Bs.As. start late: Ken recently found an ad for a club that on Tuesday nights has free admission until - get ready! - 2:30 a.m. But let's face it, I'm old, and accustomed to going to sleep before the sun comes up. I still prefer to think of 4 a.m. as something that exists *in theory* and I don't feel any particular need to experience it for myself. We compromised with a 10 p.m. start time, which of course meant that at 10:05 I was convinced that nobody was going to show up. I needn't have worried: Ken is well-liked here in the Southern Hemisphere and by 11:30 we had an apartment full of people from Argentina, Mexico, Peru, the U.S. and Canada (holla!) eating empanadas as good as an Argentine grandma's and speaking Spanglish, my current favourite language.

Around 3 a.m., when there were just a handful of guests remaining, we convinced Ken to break out his guitar and play some of the Argentine folk and tango he's learned since we arrived. And I guess the traditional birthday rum cake (made with Cuban rum!) worked out just fine, because there wasn't even a slice left for breakfast this morning. I'll have to settle for an alfajor. Tough life, indeed.

Happy Inauguration Day!

Happy, indeed.

Love and Ice Cream

Two weeks ago I attended the wedding of my good friends Heather & Doug in Townshend, VT. This was my first trip to VT, though neither my first nor last tryst with the state's most notorious residents. God I love those guys.

Anyway, Heather & Doug asked me to take a few photos for them and I uploaded them to Flickr last night (with minimal processing; learning Lightroom is on my to-do list).

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