i am not a professional baker

if you read my old blog, you may remember that i have a fondness for baking.  and yet, here in buenos aires i have made very few baked goods.  why, you ask?  because i cannot figure out how.

first, i had a hell of a time finding ingredients such as baking powder, baking soda, brown sugar, etc.  it makes me wonder if everyone just makes their baked goods from a mix.  but eventually i was able to locate some (not all!) of these essential items.

but then we have the problem with the ovens ... you see, when i bake things, usually i like to set the oven at a specific temperature.  usually 350 degrees.  sometimes 375 degrees.  but this is an impossibility here.  please see the oven at left.

you may notice that there are NO NUMBERS anywhere to be found.  now, for the stove i guess numbers aren't really necessary.  but i ask you, how are you supposed to figure out what temperature to cook things when all you are given to work with is a picture of a big flame and a little flame?  at first i thought maybe we just had a shitty oven, but then i learned that everyone has ovens like these in their homes.

so i asked an argentine how you are supposed to bake under these conditions, and he was quite shocked that i had a problem with this system.  "why do you need to know the temperature?" he asked, "certainly you can tell if the oven is hot, no?"

yes, i can in fact tell when an oven is hot.  i have that power.  but i explained that i wanted to know the exact temperature.

"why," he asked, "are you a professional baker or something?"

well, this stunned me a little.  am i asking for too much? am i being a baking prima donna?  so i decided to quit my whining, and i set off to bake some cookies.

now, let me tell you that cookies are hard to find here in argentina.  sure, they sell oreos and chips ahoy in the supermarket, and i have become quite fond of the dulce de leche sandwich cookie goodness which is an alfajor,  but try to find a good old fashioned homemade chocolate chip cookie and you're shit out of luck.

so it was with great sadness when my cookie baking experiment turned out like this.  first off, i have no idea why the cookies did not expand and rise like normal cookies.  instead they remained as little balls of cookie dough.  (i blame the baking powder).  second, the oven temperature was obviously too high making it impossible for the cookies to be baked on top without being severely burned on the bottom.  and finally, although the non-burned parts tasted okay, they more closely resembled biscotti than a chocolate chip cookie.  (again, i blame the baking powder).

this baking disaster took place in our old apartment, and during the baking the window of the oven actually FELL OUT of the oven door.  i'm sure that didn't help matters.  anyway, i have yet to attempt to bake again in our new apartment.  probably because i am not a professional, and am therefore unqualified.

not quite a hanukkah miracle

so not to be rude or disrespectful, but i've been noticing that things here in argentina are made in a way ... oh, how to say it politely ... like crap.  we have this thing in our kitchen called a calefactor.  the calefactor heats, or is supposed to heat, the water in the apartment.  it is a simple idea, really.  there is a pilot light which is to remain lit all the time as a signal that gas is not leaking into your apartment slowly killing you.  then, when it is time to use hot water, there is a great whooshing of flames inside the calefactor which immediately heat the water you are using.  simple, right?

here are the problems:
1.  often the pilot light goes out for no reason.  we have told numerous handymen this, but they say that the problem is not the innocent calefactor but the fact that the calefactor is so close to the kitchen window.  obviously, it must be a breeze from the kitchen window which we keep CLOSED AT ALL TIMES that is blowing out the pilot light.  i ask you, why put this thing near a window then?  and why is  it constructed in a way that a small passing breeze could blow out the flame in the first place?  sometimes, and this is my favorite, when someone tries to use the hot water and the calefactor actually works, the whooshing of the flames is so intense that the wind that the fire creates (or lack of wind?) actually puts out the pilot light.  ironic, isn't it?

2.  frequently (usually in the morning when i am trying to take a shower before work) even if they pilot light is lit, the flames do not catch, and then the gas is going but it's not on fire, and therefore it is not heating the water.  when this happens, you need to go over to the calefactor and turn the knob ever so slightly, testing it out in each position, until you are able to find that magic spot where the gas will actually catch fire (please note: the magic spot is different every time).

so recently we had a handyman in to "fix" the calefactor.  and for about 5 days we actually didn't have any problems.  the pilot light stayed lit, and when we turned on the hot water, the calefactor automatically began heating the water, without any fidgeting or fussing.  AMAZING!  it was, as the bolshevik brought to my attention, quite nearly a buenos aires hanukkah miracle.  but as we approached the eighth day, with fingers crossed that the pilot light could stay lit for eight whole miraculous days without needing to be attended to by us or a technician, what happened? ... the calefactor failed us!  and now we are back to this (several times a day) ...