Sunday, May 16th, 2012
I managed to get myself up before noon because we were
heading to Juan’s uncle’s house early to prepare all the food (the thought of
food woke me up…). Immediately upon arrival, we were greeted by Juan’s very
warm, friendly aunt and uncle. Then shortly after that, they started cooking up a storm. The most delightful smelling
storm I’ve ever had the pleasure of sitting through.
Not only did they make 209795724 servings of pasta, but
there were also 3 types of sauce (Roquefort, creamy bacon mushroom and more of
a classic sauce, but that was actually kind of like stew). I was starving just
looking at how good it would be.
I felt useless in the kitchen, so I headed out to the
beautiful backyard filled with citrus trees, grass and plenty of fall sunshine.
It was the perfect day. Little by little, more and more people started to
arrive and I realized that Juan really wasn’t exaggerating on the number of
people. If anything, there could actually even be more!
Clearly being the foreigner to the family in every sense, I got
some weird glances from those who I hadn’t met before (which was 90% of
everybody), but shortly started a conversation with Juan’s, eh, I’m not really
sure how she was related, as well as some interjections from his feisty sister. I was impressed with myself because I understood everything they were
saying despite going at rapid speed. They laughed whenever I used lunfardo and
seemed proud that I was trying to give the Spanish of Buenos Aires its due
justice which so many foreigners really fail horribly at. After a few too many
glasses of Kalimotxos, the food was finally and the kitchen gods spoiled us
with plate and bowl after plate and bowl of food. It was absolutely incredible.
Best pasta I’ve ever eaten in my life. Not to mention the fact that I was
eating it with pseudo-Italians. It was great. I felt like one of the family,
too. So in addition to loving food because it’s delicious, I love it because it’s
something everybody can share.
After the gigantic feast, everybody was fat, happy and still
going for the wine. It was my kind of family get together. Everybody was
laughing and chatting and telling stories. Stories about people I didn’t know,
but still managed to understand them enough to find the humor in it all. We
even had a few sing-a-longs, as Juan’s uncle and cousin play guitar. Granted, I
didn’t know the lyrics to save my life and my voice is horrible, but nobody
seemed to care. As an outsider it’s always fun to look at families and how they
interact, their mannerisms and their subtle nuances. Based on what I saw, it
looked pretty great to be a Baldassarre.
And then our own goofy little threesome “family” drove home,
as Juan drove, Ana picked the tunes and I fell asleep in the back seat. Oh to
still be la nene…
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