Score!

In which I look back at the last two decades in Buenos Aires.

July 2nd is twenty years to the day since that grey drizzly day that I arrived to spend three months in and around Buenos Aires. Apparently, I forgot to go back. It seems an appropriate moment to reflect on the key moments of this sojourn, no? I’m going to break this up into a couple of non-sequential posts.

2005

This one’s pretty obvious - meeting Henry on my first visit to and later decision to move to Buenos Aires. We’re still together twenty years on. That was the beginning of February. And I must admit, despite the fact that we’d on and off kept in touch for four months, I was a bit surprised when he showed up at the door to my temporary apartment the day I arrived.

2006

Started off with a bang, on a trip back to New York at the beginning of the year to wrap up some legal stuff related to having moved, and, at the same time, after seven and a half years of study, take (and pass) the exam for my first dan blackbelt in Kenpo. And at the beginning of May we officially launched Casa SaltShaker on James Beard’s 103rd birthday.

2007

I took some classes - an eight session course in molecular gastronomy, which was just really becoming “the thing” back then; a course in cheesemaking, followed by another in fermentation and cured meats; and, a day spent learning to make empanadas, chipas, and pão de queijo. Trips to Ann Arbor, my hometown, for, of all things, an elementary school reunion (because somehow the coordination for our high school reunion didn’t happen right) and to see a group of friends I used to work with in EMS, and to New York to visit with friends. And, my first visit to Peru - we went to the Sacred Valley, Macchu Pichu, and up to Trujillo where I met Henry’s family. And, I published my first book, a bilingual food and wine dictionary (which is now in its second edition and probably should be updated to its third).

2008

I had my 50th birthday party - several friends came down from the US, plus a big group of local friends. And, a few days later, a tasting of wines I’d collected over the years from my birth year, with a group of local wine industry friends. I started teaching classes, launching what has become our most popular series over the years, the Color Palate of Italy, beginning with a class on basic ingredients and different ways to use them - olive oil, garlic, ricotta (which we made in class). A trip to NYC with a “side trip” to Chicago. Two trips to Mendoza - one for the Masters of Food & Wine, and another a press trip with Wines of Argentina.

2009

Second edition of my dictionary published. Trips to Ushuaia and Santiago. Overall, a strangely quiet year - we did a bunch of short, local trips around BA province and across the river to Uruguay. Looked seriously into buying a building in Palermo as a combination living space and restaurant, but someone offered more money than the asking price and it was more than I was willing to try to top. And, although we didn’t take advantage of it until a couple of years later, Argentina passed its marriage equality act, and we were there for the historic announcement.

I think this is a good stopping place - five years at a time. I’m going to spread this out along with other stuff.