I’m literally groaning with pleasure as I eat my purple cabbage-apple-anchovy salad with a grated, dry, aged cheese of some sort (it has a black rind) that I got at the cheese shop down the street. While exploring and pigging out at the incredible, bountiful parillas (restaurants with astonishing, huge, open-fire hearths with grates upon which are piled an astonishing spread of meats and innards) is more than half the fun of visiting Buenos Aires, after three honkin’ huge steaks in a week, I begin to feel a little peculiar. Likewise, the miga sandwiches, which are white-bread, ham-and-cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off, typical for breakfast or snack time (the early evening merienda, or tea time), or the glistening facturas (pastries) or the ubiquitous medialunas (Argentine glazed croissants), or the cases full of layer cakes and fruit-topped mini-cheesecakes, while all fine and good for a time, begin to wear me out.
That’s when I need to visit the corner vegetable stand, select from an incredibly vibrant assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables (much better than anything at home), and make my own lunch at my own flat. I stocked up on provisions when I first arrived and still had an apple and a tight, round cabbage and made my first ambrosiac salad the other day with thin-sliced cabbage, sliced apple, grated cheese, capers, and a dressing of lime juice, garlic, olive oil, salt and white pepper (which happened to be in my flat). It was amazing. The crunch, the contrast of flavors, the healthful feeling it gave me. It made me feel vibrant, alive, wholesome, restored.
Today, hankering for the same, I thin-sliced the rest of the cabbage and tossed it with the last one-third of the apple (sliced), some capers, some caper juice to take the place of lime which I no longer have, a minced anchovy, three sliced green olives, the same black-rind grated cheese, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Oh, I forgot to say, in both cases, I massaged the cabbage with my hands for a time in the acid (the lime juice, the caper juice), which I think makes a big difference in the deliciousness of this salad. It makes the bites softer and integrates the cabbage better with the other ingredients. It’s quite an exciting salad, actually, and I’m enjoying this one at least as much as I did the first version. I’m not missing the lime—the caper juice works equally well—and I love the addition of the anchovy. Ah, Heaven.
I’d take a picture for you, but I didn’t even know I would write this when I set out and have now eaten half the bowl, and it wouldn’t make a great photo, I’m afraid.
I’m in a great mood today in part (or perhaps in total) because I attended an amazing milonga last night, and it was thrilling in so many ways and respects. First, I got invited by my new friend C. so I didn’t have to go alone. That boosted my confidence. I really like her, and it makes me feel good that she seems to like me too. She’s the woman I met at C.F.’s party a week ago Friday. (C.F. is another American living here at least half the year who bought a gorgeous, ancient flat across the street from the Palacio Barolo. The view from his balcony is just astounding. You feel like you’re occupying another time, space, strata. One much more romantic.)
C., my new friend, is younger than me by maybe ten years. She’s fun, smart, daring, and interesting. She’s independent, with an artist’s soul. She began chatting with me at the party, and then she kind of stayed by my side, and we talked a good while. I found the nerve to ask for her contact information, and she’s become a friend. She has an amazing history and story, having lived in Congo for ten years working for an NGO and now six years under her belt in Buenos Aires. She’s been an ex-pat for more than 15 years and has no intention of returning to the U.S. I forget if it was her or another American who recently said to me, “The U.S. scares me.” Indeed.
Anyway, I met C. last night at the Manzana de las Luces, an astonishing, huge complex built in the early 1600s in the Monserrat barrio in Centro. She suggested we take the tour at 5 and join the milonga that is held there at 7, so I had my tango shoes with me, and I was dressed for the milonga in a short, stretchy black skirt and a white, linen, sleeveless button-down blouse.
It was hot, so hot. Buenos Aires has been suffering a heat wave the past few days. It was 100 degrees F the other day, with high humidity. People were silent, just hunkering down against the onslaught of heat. Taxi drivers who normally chat me up, asking where I’m from and inevitably showing me the American Embassy, which we always pass on the way from Palermo to Centro, were sullen, their car air conditioners chugging away, barely able to dispel the heat in the front seat, let alone any in the back. I couldn’t open the windows because the air conditioning was technically “on,” so I just sat helplessly making a puddle of sweat on the seat during multiple cab rides these last few days.
Anyway, the heat had not broken yet last night at 5 p.m., and our tour guide at Manzana de las Luces said in Spanish that the tour of the catacombs would be omitted due to the heat blast. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand much of what he said, but I caught portions, and learned that the complex, which included a church, an academy, a museum, a library, an orphanage, and some houses for rent, had at one time been slated for demolition and then, halfway through, saved for posterity, which is why it’s missing two stories and the original stucco that covered the exterior (!).
At 7, C. and I made our way to the section where the milonga is held, a clay-tiled inner courtyard and two fabulous 17th century rooms with gorgeous parquet wood floors and dramatically carved dark wood paneling, with soaring windows, thick walls, and a whitewashed adobe ceiling.
We put on our shoes, the music began, I was asked to dance, and we were off.
I stayed in the wood-paneled room. C. made off for the patio, and for the next three hours, I danced non-stop. I didn’t sit out a single tanda, and the dances were so exciting and wonderful. Several older gentlemen took me out on the floor, and several young studs as well. I think at least two of them were tango professionals. One (the one that invited me for two tandas [sets of three to five songs] confirmed he is a professional. That was Juan Carlos, and he wore a pink-and-white-striped button-down shirt. Our first dance was incredible. His lead was crystal-clear to me, and he had me doing moves I didn’t even know I could do. He made me feel utterly beautiful, sexy, and capable.
When he returned for a second tanda with me a while later, I was beyond flattered. That set was even crazier. We were covering real ground. It felt like we had the entire floor to ourselves. He deftly and perfectly managed me—my body, my energy. My work was to listen to the music and concentrate on his signals. We were going so fast that if I had fractured my attention for even a moment, we could have had an accident, or at least, it would have forced him to do an emergency maneuver to avoid said accident.
The other night at a milonga called Gricel, an older Argentine man who invited me for two tandas said in Spanish that he could tell I danced with my eyes closed, and that he liked that because it felt like the focus was completely on him, and he was responsible for the couple—us, the fused unit that we become on the dance floor. That was interesting to me because I’ve heard from some teachers that I need to learn to have my eyes open to help my leader avoid accidents (another couple crashing into us). This man also said, “Is your teacher Argentine?” When I said yes, he is (my main teacher in the Bay Area), he said, “I can tell.” I found that hugely flattering.
I definitely needed to keep my eyes closed with Juan Carlos. If I’d opened them, I would have become frightened and embarrassed, and also over-stimulated. I could not believe what he was getting us to do. He even ended each song in a dramatic tango pose. I felt like a character on a postcard.
Mind you, I mentioned the heat, right? At this milonga, there was no air conditioning and there were no fans. The gigantic windows and shutters were flung open, and the heat of the street poured in like a furnace. We (us dancers) were sweating all over the place, all over each other. Rivulets were running down my face and into my burning eyes. Mens’ shirts were soaked. It was hilarious. We sweated so much that we became cleansed in a weird way. Not sure if that makes sense. Like, whatever built-up toxins we each carried were washed away. It was like a three-hour sauna. My hair was plastered to my head, all the make-up on my right eye (because that is the side that touches my partner’s face) was gone. I’m sure there were rivulets of black mascara running down my face. We were wet, wet, wet. And it didn’t matter.
At one point, I heard a voice in English say, “I know you.” I knew him too. His name is B., and I know him from the San Francisco Bay Area tango scene. He grabbed me by both shoulders and cried, “Isn’t this amazing? Isn’t this incredible? I love this! I love this place!” He meant Buenos Aires.
He was over the moon. I was intrigued, amused, and touched. And I thought, he’s absolutely right. This IS amazing, incredible, fantastic, the bomb.
He marveled, “My shirt is soaked! I wore the wrong thing! I have to go home and change!” He said it with so much happiness.
I said I didn’t see the point, everyone was soaked, but he said it was the wrong material, and it wouldn’t dry, etc. It was obviously annoying him. Before he left, he said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get some tango clothes in those sweat-wicking materials?” I said, “Yeah, maybe REI should start a tango line.” We laughed over that, and then he said, “Hmm… not a bad idea, actually.”
I promised last time to tell you about Roque my teacher and my taxi dancer and C.F.’s party with the live orchestra. I haven’t even mentioned yet the live orchestra that played last night at the Manzana de las Luces milonga. I haven’t told about the yearning violin, or the spontaneous eruption of folk dancing in the courtyard (the Chacarera), or, or, or… there are so many things.
Do I want to come back to Buenos Aires as soon as possible?
Today, I’m saying yes. Just when I’m a little less than four days away from returning to the Bay Area, I’m beginning to make friends, learn about the coolest events, know the best milongas, develop trust with my tango teacher R., learn the ropes. My friend B. last night said, “I love it here. It’s alive!”
Indeed. It is that. It is alive. So, yeah, I’m mystified by why the parillas can’t seem to serve a decent salad, or why white, pasty foodstuffs dominate the cafes when every corner is bursting with exciting produce, but I can live with coming home from dancing now and then to make a massaged cabbage salad with a little of this and a little of that. Today, the trade-off seems absolutely acceptable.
Magical!
Everything you write lights me up!