“The reason for serving latkes on Hanukkah is to commemorate the miracle of the oil, in which a tiny bit of pure olive oil needed to kindle the Eternal Light in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem lasted for eight days. No potatoes were involved in the extraordinary event, of course, because potatoes come from the New World and were nowhere to be found in the land of Israel more than 2,000 years ago. But somehow, potatoes became universally accepted as part of the culinary traditions of Hanukkah.”

– Faye Levy, Detroit News

Buenos Aires – I am surprised, no… shocked, appalled, scandalized… that I haven’t been flooded with e-mails asking “Nu… how did the Chanukah Christmas Eve dinner go?” I guess everyone got it out of their system beforehand asking “How are you gonna pull that one off and keep everyone happy?” Look, we all know (even those who don’t want to admit it) that early Catholicism co-opted already existing festivals to make them more palatable to whomever they were in the midst of converting. And we Jewish folk will eat pretty much anything if it’s put in front of us, and second helpings please – oh sure, it’s not like grandma used to make, but it’ll do in a pinch. Or for dinner.

It went well. Quite well I think. One guest just sent me a note saying,“And thanks again for a spectacular dinner on Christmas eve – I didn’t miss home a bit.” – I’ve already advised him not to mention the latter part to his mother.

It was definitely a bit of a mishmosh, with dishes coming in from various culinary traditions, though in the end, I think it all worked together. We started off the evening with a semi-almost traditional Mexican Ensalada de Noche Buena, or Christmas Eve Salad. It’s a colorful mix of fruits and a little vegetable, all dressed in mayonnaise, topped with toasted peanuts… sort of the Mexican version of an Ambrosia Salad. But… there’s no jicama here, which would have been a nice touch… I suppose I could have used water chestnuts or something similar. And I forgot to put the peanuts on the dish (I did spend the next day or two nibbling on them). And pomegranates are not currently in season, so I had to use pomegranate syrup. These are the things that derivatives are made of. The salad was a composed arrangement of cooked beet wedges, slices of fresh pineapple, orange supremes, diced apples, and sliced bananas atop lettuce leaves, and then a dollop of a homemade mayo that was perked up and turned pink by the addition of the pomegranate syrup and then thinned out with a little cream. We went with a level up of wines as well for the evening, to make it a little more special. For this dish we started off with a festive Chandon Rosé Brut.

Tossup for me on the soup or the next course as to favorites… I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise, these two drew a good amount of their inspiration from my own background. Yet, I managed to throw in some twists from other cultures. I had to get in the “seven fishes” from southern Italian tradition – don’t ask why, I just did, and it fit perfectly with making gefilte fish, which are not a Chanukah dish – though many folk eat them year round, they’re often associated with Passover and made with matzoh meal. The seven fish thing also fit with various Jewish superstitions as well – gefilte fish are supposed to be made from more than one fish in order to avoid the appearance of borer, or “choosing” on a Sabbath (it was a Wednesday, so that didn’t really apply), and top that with fish are supposedly not subject to ayin hara, the “evil eye”, and eating a mix of fish therefore brings good luck. But we also had to get in a touch of Henry’s Peruvian background…

The gefilte fish were made following the same recipe I’ve presented before, though with a mix of roughly equal parts of lenguado, merluza, mero, pez gallo, salmón blanco, brótola, and abadejo (sole, hake, bass, elephant fish, perch, cod and pollack), and rocoto peppers instead of jalapeños. They were served chilled in a likewise chilled tomato and cilantro broth – I cooked red onions and a couple of red hot peppers in a little olive oil until soft, added garlic, cumin, and a mix of sweet and hot paprika, then lots of diced, fresh plum tomatoes, some tomato paste, a whole lot of cilantro, and some salt. I covered that with water, brought it to a simmer and let it cook until the tomatoes were nice and soft. Then pureed the whole thing in the blender and chilled it. To finish, I seasoned it with salt, pepper and lime juice (after it was chilled). The soup was paired with Las Perdices Sauvignon Blanc 2007, easily one of last year’s best Sauvignons from Argentina, and only 500 cases made.

Okay, I know all the arguments that say you have to stand there and individually fry latkes, or just a couple at a time, and they have to be round, and really crunchy on the outside, and greasy, and all that. But, remember, this was simply inspiration time. I baked them as one giant latke-ish sheet in a large pan, finishing them by broiling them to get the top nice and browned. Basically – grated potatoes and onions, extra liquid squeezed out, mixed with a little whole wheat flour and eggs, spread in a well oiled pan and then topped with more oil. I cut it into squares and then topped each with a rollup of smoked salmon and some caviar, and then, originally I’d been thinking about huancaina sauce, the Peruvian yellow pepper and cheese sauce for potatoes, but it sounded too heavy, so went with just a nice fiery pepper sauce – roasted yellow bell peppers and ají amarillos pureed with green onions, garlic, white vinegar, olive oil, water, lemon juice, cumin, turmeric, salt and white pepper. I found a beautiful Alfredo Roca Bonarda Rosado 2007 that matched up really well with this dish.

For the main course I had been looking at roasting a goose – I finally found a source for them here. Problem is, that goose loses a huge amount of weight in melting fat when it’s cooked – a fifteen pound turkey might feed a dozen people, but a fifteen pound goose will at most feed about 6-7, and I don’t have the oven space to cook two at a time. I thought about whole ducks, I could have gone with a couple of those, but decided against having to randomly give one person the leg, another the breast… all that stuff that can be worked out when carving at the table with a turkey on t-day, but when plating in the kitchen, you know someone’s going to be disappointed. So, magrets of duck (plump breasts) – and I decided to make them the way I’ve done before, with smoked eggplant puree and a piquillo pepper sauce. I wanted a nice Syrah to go with the duck and found a couple of bottles of 2004 Gentile Collins Prestigio that worked quite nicely.

And finally, bringing in a Chanukah tradition of, more or less, a cheesecake, and a Christmas Eve plum pudding – I made a cheesecake that had a layer of fresh red plums that had been cooked in butter and brown sugar first. It didn’t quite firm up right – the day was hot and humid, there was a ton of stuff in the refrigerator, or maybe the plums were just to moist – but the flavors worked beautifully even if the texture was a bit too soft. A nice port-style wine, the Bruno Barra Tardía Tinto 2005 pulled off the finish perfectly.

 Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.”

– Henry Miller, Author

New York City – The first week I moved to The Big Apple, in 1982, someone told me I had to go check out “the best deli in the city” because they were probably going out of business that year, the building being sold to developers… I went. It was an experience, and for a boy from the midwest, still wet behind the ears, their corned beef and their pastrami were a revelation. Prior to that the versions I’d had, likely, were all vacuum-packed slabs of meat from commercial ventures, good no doubt, but in a different sphere of existence from these hot, steaming hunks of meat carved up to order, piled high on bread, a squirt of mustard, a handful of pickles on the side. Nothing more, nothing less. And, so I discovered the world of the “true” New York deli at Katz’s, 205 East Houston Street, Lower East Side. In short order, too, I found my way to Ratner’s, the Second Avenue Deli, Gus’s Pickles, and others… all long gone.

But Katz’s remains. And every year for the last twenty six years, I’ve heard that I have to run right down there because developers are buying the building and it will be no more. And, once every two years while I lived here I would wander my way over and run the gauntlet to end up with a heaping helping of melt in your mouth meat. I haven’t been since moving away a bit over three years ago now, and Sunday afternoon I met up with a friend with whom I usually head out to try interesting and obscure Asian spots that he’s discovered. He suggested Katz’s. It was so out of the blue, so out of character, that I couldn’t think of anything to say but “yes”. And so we trekked down to the Lower East Side, hopping off the bus in front of Yonah Schimmel’s, the only spot one goes to for a really good knish… no, I mean a really good knish… but knowing what lay in store for us, we ambled on by. We continued past Russ and Daughters… peering longingly in the window at the array of smoked fishes, and pickles, and… no, really, we know what we’re in for, we must… keep… going…

And so, we finally entered the cacaphonous, begrimed hall that is, probably always has been, and probably always will be, Katz’s – a place most of the world only knows from When Harry Met Sally as the spot where she demonstrates faking an orgasm… We began the arduous task of “dining”, a term that can only be applied to the experience by one with the loosest possible definition of the term. The security guard at the door looked us over, handed us a couple of “tickets”, the same speech that he must give a thousand times a day rolling off his tongue – don’t lose the ticket, all tickets must be turned in when you leave, whether it’s been used or not, keep the ticket with you at all times… yeah, yeah, heard it before… let’s move on. Pick a line, the shortest line, in front of any of the “cutters”. It’s a push and shove match for the most part, and the tables come so close to the cutting counter that there’s not really any space for a line anyway. The place is full of Asians… how odd, for years it’s been all about the Jews eating Chinese food, clearly they’ve decided to return the favor.

We pick a “line” with only one guy in front of us… how were we to know he was ordering a dozen sandwiches to go? A near quarter hour ticks by until we finally get to the counter, slip a couple of singles into the tip jar – it’s the only way to get a sample slice or two, not to mention friendly rather than surly service. We order one pastrami and one corned beef sandwich, on rye, smear of mustard, don’t think about ordering anything else… really.. no potato pancakes no matter how good they are… no salads… okay a handful of pickles, but really, no more than that. Hand over one of the tickets, the cutter marks it with strange squiggles that will mean something to the cashier later. One of us moves down the line to wait another ten or so clicks of the minute hand, a line that ought to move quickly since it’s just cans of soda, bottles of beer, and french fries… lots of people are getting french fries… fools… they have no idea how much food they’re in for. A couple of Dr. Brown’s Creams, hand over one of the tickets, more squiggles, grab some straws… let’s find a table, thank god we didn’t go stand in the line for those potato pancakes, no matter how good they are. Shove the debris from the last customer off to the side and sit at one of the longer “communal” tables, it’s the only space available, and if we’re lucky, one of the two or three cleanup guys around will actually deign to pick up some of the trash from past customers.

And, we dig in. And it’s everything I remember it to be. The pastrami, spiced and smoky and so tender it falls apart as we tear through our half a sandwich each… a pickled tomato or cucumber interspersed here and there. Then, on to the corned beef, saved becase we know what the experience will be… the long pink slices ribboned with fat looking like o-toro, tuna belly… and, in similar fashion, melting on the tongue. I learned long ago not to hesitate at this point, if one slows, one will not be able to finish, and indeed, my companion, who has “taken a break” between the pastrami and corned beef finds himself too full to continue before he’s made it halfway through the latter, and gives up, pushing his plate away grimly. But I am gamely licking my fingers as the last morsel disappears. Then again, I hear the developers are coming, and perhaps I, no longer resident of the city, will never see the inside of Katz’s again….

 Sound bites and quick appraisals are not conducive to thorough analysis. People’s reputations often rest on how we talk about important matters.”

– Janet Reno, former Attorney General of the United States

Buenos Aires – It’s simply not in the cards to review in full every spot that I get to eat at. Sometimes it’s because I’ve only popped in for a quick sandwich, and don’t get any real feel for a place, sometimes because I feel like somehow or other I’m missing a true sense of what the kitchen or staff or ambiance are normally like, most often I just simply don’t feel like I have enough information, but perhaps have no plans to retry a spot for one reason or another. Still, I like to let folks who might head to one of these spots get at least a glimpse of what they might be in for. So hence, forthwith, and any other legalisms that sound like they fit at the beginning of this sentence, a quartet of blurbs:

Now, these lovely potatoes are in a spot that I might actually get back to at some point. I met up with an editor friend at Sangria, Tucumán 400, in Microcentro for a quick lunch. We sampled an order of these delightful, pretty much perfectly cooked papas bravas – sort of squared off french fries served with a nice spicy mayo dip. We also tried one of their little tapas platters – a mix of different seafoods that ranged from some anchovies pretty much straight out of the can to some really tasty baby squid in olive oil, herbs, and garlic. This place is a relatively new locale from the same owner as Bar Petanque, a French brasserie in San Telmo that I’m not particularly fond of. Here, at least, the service quality was quite good, and the food tasty.

On the other hand, I promise you I have no plans to return to this spot. We should have just simply not gone in. It turns out to be the restaurant in the back of a Howard Johnson’s – now, if it had been a real HoJo’s, we’d have been all over the fried clam sandwiches – but it isn’t, it’s a spot called Citrino, Marcelo T. Alvear 1368, Centro, where the food is the epitome of bad hotel food served up for a crowd that was clearly not possessed of palates given the rate at which they were digging into their food. Expect the vast majority of conversation buzzing about the room to be in languages other than Spanish, not surprisingly, I imagine the hotel is primarily catering to folks here for conventions or conferences from various other locales. A soppingly wet and tasteless caesar salad, a piece of cod floating in a lake of melted butter (definitely not the brown butter specified on the menu, just melted), this piece of lomo that consisted of fat and gristle and little else – and served with potato chips… that’s just wrong, an apple tart that amazingly barely tasted of apples, I’d guess it had been in the refrigerator for quite some time, and a creme brulee that just had the wrong consistency – it wasn’t creamy, it was more like grainy jello. Oh, and you’d think in a hotel catering to tourists, if they’re going to translate the menu into English, they’d have someone who spoke both languages do the translating (and the manager and the waitstaff seem to speak both, so there’s no real excuse) – it was so unintelligible that we were laughing out loud.

On my list for awhile was to check out another of the kosher spots in Once. I often get asked by Jewish tourists headed this way for suggestions – given that I don’t keep kosher and never have, I’ve made little effort to seek the spots out. The other day we popped in to Mama Jacinta, Tucumán 2580, a spot that often gets high marks from folks who’ve been. It’s a spot I’d have to go back to to decide – the food was fine, but nothing special – the atmosphere just seemed, off. I think, however, that was more me, I was fighting off a bit of a cold, and somehow it all seemed a bit odd – nothing I can put my finger on, but there you have it. We started off with a very good, smoky babaganoush, and a quite tasty, lemony hummus – but both served ice cold – had they been closer to room temp they’d have been really quite good. They were served with a basket of the usual sort of linked white rolls that are ubiquitous in Argentina – and only a couple of little triangles of good pita bread – more of the latter please. The spinach ravioli were flavorful, but dense and a bit undercooked, and with a fairly uninteresting plain tomato sauce – maybe that’s why they “recommend” one of their selection of special pasta sauces below the short list of pastas – extra charge of course. This revuelto gramajo, pretty good actually – an interesting twist, using pastrami rather than ham, for kosher reasons obviously – a bit light on the egg and a bit heavy on the fried potatoes, but still eminently edible. [Closed]

These guys have a great thing going, they know it, and they’re quickly becoming a little hotspot. The place is Pura Vida, Uriburu 1485, here in Barrio Norte, and it may be the city’s only real juice bar – it’s certainly the only one I’ve heard of. And it’s a real, California style juice bar – right down to all the little things that can get stirred in – bee pollen, soy protein, etc. – they even contracted with a local farmer to grow wheatgrass for them so that they could have a steady supply for those into wheatgrass. I’d have trouble giving this spot a full review – it’s primarily a counter with half a dozen seats where you can eat or drink juices or wait for something to take-out, plus two tables for two for the same. They have a menu of various juice combinations, and of those I’ve sampled, they’re really well done – though, be prepared, especially if it’s not particularly busy, to be treated to a dissertation on why you’re drinking the juice you’re drinking – the juice-master is a True Believer. They also offer up some tasty sandwiches, including this really excellent tuna and salad one, some good salads, and a couple of soups – I’ve tried the quinoa vegetable soup which I have to admit was a bit lacking in both quinoa and vegetables, not to mention flavor, but I’m informed by friends that they have a chicken soup that’s excellent – have to give that a shot. The owners are a trio, I believe, of norteamericanos, the clientele is, at the moment, heavy on the U.S. expat crowd – especially a younger, female clientele with west coast accents – the idioma you’ll hear is pretty much all English. At the same time, I see more and more porteños at least poking in to sample (the spot is only a block from home, so I walk by regularly), and the owners say that more and more are coming back regularly. [Closed]