“Buenos Aires Te Mata” (Argentine saying: “Buenos Aires kills you”)
Buenos Aires, Argentina 1997
Typically for Argentines this saying is a boast rather than a lament, but it beautifully captures the challenges of living here and perhaps explains why this city is the world capital of both psychoanalysis and plastic surgery.
To start with, there is the ever-present danger of being robbed at gunpoint. Every block in the better parts of town has its own guard post, which is manned day and night and funded by the street’s residents. I wave cheerfully to our man on the way to my train downtown in the morning and our five year old daughter sometimes bakes him cookies. Sadly, home invasions are still a common occurrence- our delightful diplomat neighbours have suffered them twice in the space of a year- so much for the guard post! Taxi robberies are also an everyday hazard; the cab driver will stop to let in another “passenger” who will then have you empty your bank account at the nearest ATM at gunpoint.
Getting around the city is a constant challenge with unruly, often violent demonstrations by striking workers, in addition to the weekly gathering by the Casa Rosada (Presidential Palace) of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, whose family members “disappeared” during Argentina’s “Dirty War” in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These events randomly close huge swathes of downtown on a regular basis, sometimes trapping me in the office. Traffic congestion can be massively challenging too, though mercifully it is often at its worst in the small hours of the morning as the locals head home from late night dining (if you enter an Argentine restaurant earlier than 8:30pm you will be given the afternoon tea menu) or from night clubs, for a few hours of snatched sleep.
In this febrile atmosphere, timekeeping and punctuality are at best elastic concepts. I have learned to curb my Northern European enthusiasm for these overrated social norms by packing a snack and a good book when waiting for a business meeting to start.
Especially dramatic are the frequent tropical downpours in the summer rainy season, which can turn the streets of the capital (most of which have woefully inadequate drainage), into fast moving streams and sometimes even rivers, in a matter of hours. I’ll never forget the day after Christmas one year when record rainfall of well over 4 inches in 3 hours flooded our part of the city. Sabrina and I had gone downtown by car under sunny skies to do some shopping when we got a call from Rosie, our resourceful Paraguayan maid, that the ground floor of the house was starting to flood. Panic-stricken we drove blindly back up Avenida Libertador, (the main road that runs north south alongside the River Plate), past growing numbers of people paddling canoes, as the water rose to nearly the tops of our car doors. This would have been total madness in any vehicle, let alone the Alfa Romeo we were driving. Somehow the car made it through the flood to our house and we spent the next several hours bailing the water out of the ground floor rooms.
Later that afternoon as the rain subsided and the sun re-emerged, we cracked open a bottle of local bubbly and barbecued a huge spread of seafood to celebrate our good fortune. Just another day in troubled paradise!
Mixed Seafood Grill with Garlic Mayonnaise: Serves Six
2 lbs shrimp, frozen, 21-25, leave the shells on
1 box frozen New Zealand green lip mussels
1 pkt frozen jumbo scallops
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
6 cloves garlic, minced
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup EV olive oil
Mix the last 7 ingredients together, marinate the seafood with it. Leave to marinate for no more than half an hour. Cook on the grill until done (all except for the scallops which I instead sear on a very hot skillet).
Buenos Aires sounded really terrifying but the mixed seafood grill sounds very good. While cooking, why not Spotify the 2021 album by the London Tango Orchestra entitled 'Abrazo Abierto'........'Open Embrace' and get dancing in the kitchen!