FROM NATALIE

I like the Argentinian way of dining: Slow. You order an appetizer, you sit for a while. Then you order dinner, then sit for a while. You think about coffee and dessert, then you sit for a while. Our first night’s meal lasted for more than two hours.

On our first night, we went to an Armenian restaurant called Sarkis. It’s a very local place, -- there were huge lines outside the door when the doors opened at 8pm -- and we’d been warned that the menu was neither in English or Spanish. I don’t know about you guys, but my Armenian is pretty rusty. There was a lot of, “That word has a ‘c’ in it. ‘Chicken’ starts with ‘c.’ Let’s try that. “ Then we’d end up getting some vegetarian dish.

But it was all delicious and cheap, considering we had three appetizers, two entrees and two bottles of wine for less than $50.

I also like the Argentinian way of preparing food. Yesterday we took a cooking class. And by “cooking,” I mean we did a bit of chopping, a little stirring and a lot of wine drinking and empanada eating.

Our lesson was in the art of empanada making, taught by the very sweet Teresita. Imagine us and about 8 other people crowded around a kitchen island depitting olives with this cool gun thing and measuring flour on this old fashioned weighted scale. Then we had to shape the dough into balls and roll it out into circles. Just a really good time, even if rolling dough into circles is easier said than done. (Some of our misshapen pieces resembled various continents.)

As Jordo noted, he’s not a natural when it comes to rolling dough. But as I so kindly pointed out, he has a lot of other skills. Like he can kill bugs without flinching. I’ll happily roll empanada circles if he slays cockroaches. Marriage is a give and take.

Then we stuffed the dough with either a meat mixture or a corn mixture that we’d made. That’s also not as easy as it sounds, and let’s just say there were some very special empanadas.

It was just a really good time. We met some nice people, who we plan to see again while we’re here and we got to slurp Mate, the national drink. (They really want you to slurp it. It’s good manners.) We ate and drank so much that we were pretty wiped out by night time. I even fell asleep during the Yankee game.

Speaking of the Yankees, during Sunday Mass, we stopped in for a visit at Iglesia de San Jorge (Posada, as I mentally added). We lit candles and I prayed for the Yankees to win the World Series. I think I looked suitably holy and somber when I did this, so I’m sure the lady who sold me the candles thought I was praying for my dying relative’s good health or world peace. She didn’t know that I routinely make baseball bets with the heavens in an attempt to prove or disprove God’s existence. (Thus far, “disprove” is winning. During Game 1 of the ALDS, I swore I would go to church every week for a year if CC Sabathia pitched a perfect game. The minute he gave up a run, Jordo was like, ‘You sure dodged a bullet there, friend.”)

Three days into our trip and we still haven’t had any steak. But lest you think we’re total failures, we’ve polished off 8 bottles of Malbec. Priorities.