Part Seven: Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Day Twenty-Four

It was Monday, the first of our two days at the prestigious Instituto Argentino de Gastronomia. Since I would be presenting to two different groups, I had chosen the same menu for the two nights, a menu that I felt showcased the versatility of technique, flavour, texture and aroma of what I called 'Vegetarian World Food'  (Comida Vegetariana del Mundo). Daksa and I arrived early in the afternoon and set up in one of the school's professional cooking auditoriums. With the aid of a resident chef, we commenced our mis en place. Class notes had been professionally printed. Here is the menu:

Daksa introduced me to one of our assistants for the night, Maria Calzada, a charismatic chef who often presented at the college. She had been the one who had helped secure and promote the event. Maria supplied organic produce from her farm of 100 acres, and was the director of El Rincon Organico, distributing organic products to health food stores, natural restaurants and private homes in Buenos Aires. Maria has brought along a selection of fresh and dry produce for us to use in tonight's class.

Daksa had also invited a friend, the partner of a well-known Argentine TV and Film actor, to do the translation. She sat up the front with a lapel microphone and translated as we went along. Tonight's audience consisted exclusively of food editors and writers from a host of Argentina's food magazines, plus media representatives from most of Buenos Aires' newspapers, radio and television stations. Here we see my assistant chefs commencing to roll the famous Bengali saffron and cardamom scented confections, gulab jamuns.

The two-hour class went very smoothly, with a host of intelligent questions fielded from the learned audience. The facilities and assistance were superb, the whole cookery machinery moving flawlessly towards the night's climax, the eating! A number of chefs from the institute came and joined us for the very generous tasting after the presentation. Everyone, especially the chefs, were amazed at the superb flavours, especially the heavenly aromas and intriguing texture of the gulab jamuns.

After the class, I was introduced to some of the media people who had attended the class. Notable were Maria De Michelis, Editor of Acuario, Jorge A. Lopez Cortes, Director of Multimedios Gastronomicos, and Pablo Bizon From Focus Media, publishing magazines such as the well-respected Mesa Uno and Redaccion. We booked times for some interviews to be held the following evening. Finally I posed for a photo with (from left to right), Maria Calzada, myself, the Director of the Institute (sorry, forgotten name), Vice Director Diego Gera, and Daksakanya Dasi.     

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