36th Annual Buenos Aires Book Fair

One of our tour books highly recommended this Feria de Libros as not to be missed.  It occurs once a year and apparently librarians from far and wide travel to Buenos Aires for the event.  We were quite disappointed upon arriving at the festival to find a glorified Barnes and Noble that you had to pay to enter.  All the books were new and overpriced and the fair seemed to be run by large book stores who had shelled out an unnecessary amount of money to create mid-sized commercial bookstores throughout the massive event space, much of which was catered to children.  Here are some photos of our experiences in the fair...

Apparently, we missed all the drama: later that day, violence broke out at the release of a book by journalist, Gustavo Noriega.  The book's controversial subject matter (which apparently criticizes the corrupt government statisticians) provoked some 10-15 people to begin throwing chairs into the audience.

Casa de John

John (friend from high school) has generously let us crash with him for the three weeks we've spent in Buenos Aires.  He lives in an amazing group house in the congreso neighborhood.  John and, believe it or not, his twenty roommates along with a handful of squatters like us inhabit a complex of three connected houses.  The setup of the house is tough to capture in photo, but here are some highlights...

One of the houses' three kitchens seen from the roofdeck

Inside one of the kitchen/living rooms

View of the cathedral across the street from John's roofdeck

Beautiful rooftop garden

This one's a bit confusing.  It's the view down into John's house and into the house below as well-- there are lots of roofless open areas like this in the complex.

Another kitchen/living room

Gonzo

house pet/devil-cat

Homemade Empanadas

We recently discovered empanada wrappers sold for next to nothing at a grocery store in Buenos Aires...we were overjoyed and have made homemade empanadas several times since.  I'm sure that making the wrappers yourself can't be too difficult.  We'll definitely have to learn when we get back to the states.

You can put anything under the sun into these little wrappers.  This time, we chose to stuff them with steak, caramelized onions, celery, and roquefort.  We also made a sweet one with plum and roquefort that turned out great!

You can wrap them up in a number of different ways.

Then toss them in the oven for about 20 minutes...we would tell you a specific temperature, but John's oven is too broken to set and the empanadas seem to turn out tasty regardless.

Find stick to hold oven closed if necessary...

Enjoy!

Street Art

Buenos Aires has a thriving, prolific street art scene, the origins of which are often attributed to a backlash against the economic crisis that Argentina experienced in the early 2000s. The city's street art culture, bolstered by a lack of police interest in graffiti, provides constant, colorful entertainment on our long walks around the city.

Samps

Though food samples aren't as copious in South America as they are in, say, the Bowery Whole Foods, we do manage to track them down...

Crackers, jam with preserved lemons, spicy eggplant tapenade, and alfajores cookies at the San Telmo Sunday flea market. Boo yah!

We're in Buenos Aires