vamos a tomar mate!

I have found the BEST empanadas in BsAs! Well, I make a pretty mean empanada myself...tasty fillo dough esque pastry treats, stuffed with your choice of fillings, typically: carne picante (a lie, there is nothing picante about Argentine cuisine), pollo, humita, verduras, queso azul, jamon y queso...ricisimo! I have found a stand in La Boca that sells these incredible hot from the oven empanadas for 2 pesos each (that is about 50 cents). I could eat 10 a day, with an ice cold cerveza...I better join a gym 

: ) This country is dangerous to my girlish figure. Screw it.

nothing better to follow up some empanada eating then a tasty mate. Mate is a drink (see the foolish photo of Dave above), actually the name for the container (gourd) the tea is drank from. The tea itself is called yerba and is a green woody like substance that is steeped in water and than drank through a metal straw called a bombilla. EVERYBODY drinks mate here. They even have hot water machines in some of the bus stations to refill your container so you can drink mate at all moments during the day...bus drivers cruise the street drinking mate (and yelling love promises at pretty women out the window), construction workers drink it while working, people kickin it on the street...it is one non stop mate party here (maybe this is the secrete behind the non stop libido - this has to be one country where viagra sales are in the red - old men in their 80's will whistle, smile, and look you up and down with an appreciating "que hermosa que sos!) Back to the mate... I like the taste although it takes some getting used to. I lived in a co-op in Berkeley CA with a group of international people, so I have been drinking mate for sometime, but the first taste is a bit intense. Kind of like hot, bitter, tree clippings. Ummm, tasty. Something about it grows on you though (well, it is a drug) and it has a beautiful sharing ceremony associated with it. The mate is filled with yerba and after removing the excess yerba dust (variety of techniques for this trick as well) hot water is slowly poured in so as not to saturate the entire pile of yerba. It is drank hot with the bombilla and once drained, refilled with hot water and passed to someone in the mate circle. This continues around with the same person refilling the mate with water each time. When you don't want any more the customary thing to say is "gracias" and then it will not be passed to you again. Many of my Argentine friends drink mate for breakfast instead of coffee...I wouldn't go that far, but it is a nice after coffee pre beer beverage choice. They do a great job breaking down the mate ceremony in the 8th class for Bueno, entonces...