Comida!

    The food in Argentina isn't too much different from the States. I haven't eaten anything too crazy yet. Steak and pasta are the most common meals, and I've already had a lot of both. They like their steak well done and usually with a salad or potatoes. In the market, we saw all the other parts of the pig and cow that people here eat, like the tongue, stomach, liver, kidneys... all sorts of good stuff.
For breakfast, I've been eating frosted flakes, with raisins, and the milk that comes in a bag. The milk is sweeter than at home, I'm not sure if it's more similar to whole milk, or just made differently. To make coffee, my family puts an instant coffee powder into their milk, or they add sugar to the plain milk.
    Juice here consists of Tang, and only Tang.
    Water is either con gas or sin gas, and luckily I like bubble water because sometimes you don't know what your going to get when you buy a bottle or order it at a restaurant. Water isn't free in restaurants, and sometimes is more expensive than wine or beer. I keep forgetting and ordering water, and then taking it back quickly because I don't want to pay for water.
    Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. It is usually three courses and served around 1 or 2, and lasts for a couple hours. I've had salads or tomato and cheese for the first course, and yesterday I had a squash soup for the first course. Steak or pasta is the main meal. Milenasa es also common; it is a flattened piece of meat, usually fish, chicken, or steak, that is breaded and fried. It can be served with tomatoes and cheese on top. We squeezed fresh lemon on it, and had it with mashed potatoes. For dessert I've been having fruit with dulce de leche.
    Dinner is later in the night, some families don't eat til 11:30, but mine has been eating around 9, which I prefer so I'm not starving all night. Dinner is something lighter. We had a spinach tart one night, and pasta another.
    I've been drinking coffee and tea to stay awake, since this nightlife here is exhausting me. Today I had a submarino, which is hot milk and you put a piece of solid chocolate in it to make hot chocolate.
    I've experienced a few new combinations of food that are a little odd to me. Twice now I've had egg put on my meal. At a fast food restaurant at the mall, there was scrambled eggs on my fries, and for dinner tonight I had egg on my taco. It was better on my taco than on my fries.
    My host brother made a licuado (smoothie) tonight that was made of mandarina (tangerine), banana and apple. When he offered it to me, he warned me it wasn't very good, but I tried it anyway. And it was a terrible combination of fruit. He told me it was because the mandarina had seeds in it. O well, maybe another licuado will be better. 
     I've been given a spoon to use for many foods that I don't normally use spoons for, and it's difficult to adjust to. For dulce de leche, I would normally use a knife to spread it, like I normally do for peanut butter or nutella, and I feel silly trying to spread with a spoon. The dessert below in the picture is the same situation. I think a fork would be appropriate for queso, but here a spoon is better.
    Now I'm ready to get to the vineyards here and try some wine!
    This is my "cheese and sweet thing" that I wrote about in my first entry, that I had for dessert the first night in Buenos Aires. My family fed me this again in Mendoza, and I learned there are two options for the sweet jam, sweet potato or quince, so I was correct when I heard those two ingredients. This time, my family gave me about one tenth of the amount on the plate in the picture, which was much more reasonable. I don't know why the restaurant served me so much for one person.

     Carne Exotico