Argentina

If you are going to cook something from Argentina, empanadas would be a good idea. From the various empanada places I've tried around California, the ones from Argentina and Chile have wheat flour crusts and the ones from the more northern countries of South America have corn meal crusts. My favorite so far is the Argentinean restaurant Empanada Kitchen in San Diego. I visited in the summer of 2019 with my sister, my best friend from elementary school, her husband and their pit bull puppy. The restaurant has a small patio and they gave treats and water to the puppy. There were a good dozen meat and vegetable empanadas to choose from including beef, lamb, and shrimp, but I'm working on reducing my red meat so I had the caprise, the mushroom & goat cheese, and the chicken. All were delicious and they demonstrated the creativity you can have with empanadas.

The next thing I did to experience Argentina from home was read Hunting Eichmann by Neal Bascomb. I decided that they may have found Eichmann in Argentina, but this is an Israeli story (more about that when I get to my blog on Israel). There is a long list of Argentinean writers and books at https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/thelist/ but I haven't gotten to any of them yet except Jorge Luis Borges.

I did watch several travel videos about Argentina through Amazon Prime. They included:

Natural Wonders of South America: Los Glacieres

Passport to Adventure: Buenos Aires and Bariloche Argentina

Tierra del Fuego, South America - Global Sightseeing Tours

Passport - Buenos Aires

I also read the legend of "The Girl and the Puma" from Not One Damsel in Distress from library. We may not be able to access it at the library right now, but it is also available at https://www.storiestogrowby.org/story/girl-the-puma/. It could be a good starting point for a conversation with your kids about Argentina.

For something to do in person, The Southern California Tango Championship for 2020 has been cancelled, but keep an eye out for it in the winter of 2021. I'm sure there are online Tango lessons out there somewhere if you want to start practicing.

The Crazy Tourist has ten different galleries on Argentina https://www.thecrazytourist.com/?s=argentina. (Photo credit to thecrazytourist.com for the picture attached to this blog.)

If you see something you like (and I see a lot that I like in Argentina), when this pandemic is over, a trip to Argentina using your local travel advisor would be amazing! Shout out to my favorite travel advisor, Kaitlin Darnell at Laura's Travel in Redlands. May the travel industry survive and thrive - may we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace and health to flourish in Argentina and throughout the world.