Queen and Quilmes

Friday, February 10^th, 2012

The last block of Cabildo before my house looked strange. Then I realized it was because there was a power outage. These are standard in BA especially during the summertime when everybody is blasting their AC. I came home and started writing (gotta feed my baby birds back home!), but realized that the battery on my laptop was going to last no more than an hour. Once I powered down, I heard Red Hot Chili Peppers coming from the living room and knew that Juan was up to something (Juan is my host “dad”—he would have been 7 when I was born so I’m calling him “my Juan” from now Juan—get it, cause it sounds like “from now on” and his name is Juan!? Sorry, I’m not fluent enough in Spanish to make puns and play with the language like that yet, so I’m taking it out on you). His laptop was full of life and he was blasting some good tunes to pass the time since we were without power. He poured us each a glass of Quilmes and we shared about what types of music and artists we liked, as well as him noting some important Argentine artists. It was the classic scenario where you’d want a beer and it was absolutely delicious. I showed him some classic liquid drum and bass (my favorite type of music) and the token “chill” music I listen to as well. He seemed intrigued by it as dnb isn’t actually popular anywhere except the UK (sometimes I fear it will take the same ill-fated course as dubstep, but I think dnb isn’t simple enough to do that). The last song we listened to was Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, which has held a special place in my heart since my days of watching Wayne’s World every day after school in kindergarten. Freddie Mercury, you are loved everywhere.

At some point during our conversation about music, the power came back on and we ate some of the best pasta I’ve had in a long time. The sauce was pre-prepared like we have in the US, but it was 100% better than Prego. The pasta had the perfect texture in that it was firm, but soft all at the same time. But there was some ‘crema’ on the table too, and I was a little confused as to what to do with it. But then I saw my host family drop a few spoonfuls onto their pasta so I followed suit. OH MY GOD. We have every other type of sauce in the US, so why do we not have this!? It’s cream, to be sure, but not like the cream you’d put in coffee. It’s way more watered down. Plus, Argentines seem to incorporate it into dishes all the time, like they did tonight. Once again—how is everybody not fat? Que rico. My host family gave me the “uhh…it’s just pasta with prepackaged sauce…calm down” face, and didn’t seem to believe that I thought it was so good, but I could eat that every night for dinner and wouldn’t mind eating it again soon…