Food Tours in Buenos Aires and Beyond!

"Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators." -- Olin Miller

I have been offered several writing opportunities in the past and normally I would have loved to attempt a shot at making money with writing. However, I have not been able to take advantage of those opportunities. I am way too busy with Sugar & Spice.

En el pasado me han ofrecido trabajo escribiendo y siempre me hubiera gustado poder aprovechar esas oportunidades, pero nunca pude porque estoy muy ocupado con Sugar & Spice.

One opportunity I just couldn't pass up was writing about food.

Una oportunidad que no pude dejar pasar era escribiendo sobre comida.

This job required that I travel to food spots; interview business owners; try new foods; take pictures of food... it sounded like great fun!

Este trabajo requería que viajara a locales de comida; entrevistar a dueños de emprendimientos; tomar fotos; probar comida... sonaba muy divertido!

Now the fruits of my labor are once again out in the real world. The first time it was with Sugar & Spice.

De nuevo, uno de mis creaciones esta en el mundo real. La primera vez fue con Sugar & Spice.

I am now one of the writers in an iPhone app called Rama Tours. Originally the app was created as a travel history tour app.

Ahora soy uno de los escritores que escribe para una applicación de iPhone llamado Rama Tours. Originalmente el app era sobre turismo histórico.

"Ever wanted to walk through Chicago after the great fire? Watch the Brooklyn Bridge emerge from the depths of the East River? Experience the wild abandon of Mardi Gras during the Depression?"

Alguna vez te hubiera gustado caminar las calles de Chicago después del gran fuego? Mirar el Brooklyn Bridge nacer sobre el East River? Festejar un Mardi Gras durante la gran depresión?

In 2010 BBC Travel picked Rama Tours as one of the best new travel apps!

En 2010 la BBC Travel eligió a Rama Tours como uno de los top 10 apps de turismo!

Now this fantastic app has branched out to food. They looked for writers that were local food bloggers in their target cities and that had something to add to make the experience as rich as possible.

Ahora este app fantástico se expandió a la comida con Rama Food. Buscaron a food bloggers que especializaban en escribir sobre comida en las ciudades que ellos buscaban.

For Buenos Aires you have Dan Perlman, Maria Carra and yours truly.

Para Buenos Aires eligieron a Dan Perlman, Maria Carra y a mi.

For my first attempt I chose to look for the best medialunas. Argentines are very proud of this morning and afternoon staple of local culture. They are the most ubiquitous food items that you will find.

Para mi primer tour elegí buscar las mas ricas medialunas. Los Argentinos tienen mucho orgullo por esta delicia que consumen a cualquier hora del día.

Not only where the places that I was looking for had to have a great medialuna, they also had to produce them by hand. I was going for the homemade, just out of the oven variety.

Los lugares que buscaba no solamente tendrían que tener las mas ricas, también las tenían que hacer a mano. Yo buscaba recetas caseras y medialunas frescas recién salidas del horno.

So what would you learn about the local medialuna scene by taking my tour? You would learn how to order them, how to best time your visit so you can score one fresh out of the oven, how to order the coffee that goes with them, how to tip the waiter, and the most important thing of all.... how to score some of the yummiest varieties in the city.

Que se aprende de las medialunas tomando mi tour? Como pedir, a que hora visitar para conseguir las mismas recién horneadas, cuanto dejar de propina y lo mas importante de todo... como conseguir unas de las mas ricas de la ciudad.

My tour is only $0.99 cents and once you are out walking around Buenos Aires wouldn't it be great to have this little tour in your pocket? You wouldn't even need to have access to wifi once you have downloaded it either.

El tour de las medialunas cuesta US$0,99. Con este tour tendrás en tu bolsillo, sin necesidad de tener wifi, acceso a las medialunas mas ricas y frescas de Buenos Aires.

This tour is iOS for now, but soon it will be available for Android.

Por ahora este app es solamente para iOS, pero pronto tendrán una versión para Android.

To stay up to date with Rama you can follow their Twitter account and Facebook page.

Para seguir las noticias de este app podes seguirlos por Twitter y por Facebook.

"Cookies Remasterizadas" de Cielos Argentinos

Nos acaban de publicar en una nota para la revista Cielos Argentinos!  Basicamente nos eligieron como "probablemente las mejores del mercado"!


Hagan click sobre la foto para ver el articulo en detalle!


Gracias Cielos Argentinos!

"Cookies Remastered!" - Cielos Argentinos is an airline magazine and they have just written about us. I think this is the first time we have appeared in one of these types of magazines. They just basically said that we are "probably the best out there"!


I will take that, thank you very much!


Click on the image to read it in detail....


Thank you Cielos Argentinos!

BA Cast vs Me (part 2)

I previously had the pleasure to be on B.A. Podcast and share some wine, copetines and conversation with Fer, Daniel and Diva.

You can read how that went by clicking here.

This time around Fer fired back with a top 5 of his own.

He vowed revenge and he's delivering it on a nice cold plate. He even has a back up cheering squad that should sound familiar to anyone who has lived in Argentina (or has watched the Argentine national team play).

Listen in Yanqs and see what makes us pesados. The recording is a collection of five Top 5's. Fernando's list is the last one.

After reviewing my list I am still sticking to it. However, I did receive a suggestion that I should try the chimichurri on choripan and that was a great suggestion. This works way better for me.

I also received a link to an article on sandwhiches de miga by another expat, and yes, when they are as good as they can be, they can be okay for me. I am still not dying for one though.

One more thing, if you click the label below called "BA Cast vs me" you would get a listing of posts that go back and forth between Fernando and myself.

In case you can't tell, I really like talking with these guys and more often than not we are actually in agreement, but we have a blast when we disagree.

BA Cast vs Me?

I seemed to have touched a nerve on my appearance on a fairly new podcast that has popped up in Buenos Aires. But, before I get to that maybe I should introduce you to this show.

Above all, it is entertaining, funny, witty, and they manage to do this even when they touch on serious topics. It never gets pedantic.

The hosts are Daniel Karlin (The American) and Fernando Farias (The Argentine).

Listening to them is like looking at the actual clash of cultures. It's like watching the melting pot get maid; a little of this, a little of that, mix in a dose of how things have always been with some "variety" (which happens to be Fernando's new favorite pet peeve thanks to yours truly and a little help from Daniel) and you get this show.

Some of the things you get to learn about would be the local´s courting ritual from the perspective of an expat woman in Baires on show 1, as well as how many alfajores are eaten on any given day in Argentina.

The number will shock you. Keep in mind the population is 40 million when you listen in on this one.

On episode three you have Maria Carra of Buenos Aires Foodies and Larry of El Tejano (my favorite salsa!) as guests talking about steak sandwiches.

For episode four Maria Carra comes back to give her top 5 DDL's and Yanqui Mike joins the conversation on socialism, unions, leftists, and the profit motive.

There is Ian Mount from Goodairs; a Canadian expat woman foils a bicycle robbery; they chime in on the culture of children; what do people do on the beach when they find a lost child and so many more little tidbits of life in Argentina.

Speaking of tidbits of life in Argentina they want to hear directly from you. On Tuesday, the 21st of December (yeah that´s tomorrow!) they are going to be at Sugar.

Go with your best story depicting a cultural or linguistic misunderstanding. The winner will get to be on their show. Daniel called his date "un gato" for example and not only did he live to tell the tale, he married her. That is one serious chamuyero.

Take my word for it. It´s a lot of fun taping with them. Which, leads me to my visit with them.

When I visited with them I took Diva, the sassy and mysterious beauty behind Bitch Tours, and she gave her top 5 questions that tourist ask her.

We had a blast chamuyando over wine, mate, cookies and brownies.

I was asked for my top 5 list and I could not think of one on the spot. Mine literally took days. Should I turn it in? Will I insult anyone with this?

I seemed to have touched a nerve with Fernando. Listen to him introducing the segment and you can´t help but see that I cut deep.

Here are my Top 5 mehs. These are things that Argentines think are fantastic, but I just shrug my shoulders and go meh.

You could also hear delight in Daniel reading them on the program.

Drumroll.......................

5. Quilmes - Yep, it´s Argentine´s Budweiser and that is not a compliment.

4. Churros - Just across the river in Uruguay you have great fresh churros. Why can´t they make them here like that? They have to put this awful fake chocolate covering on the churros and totally ruin it. Isn´t there a Spaniard among the population to help out? I can even get a better churro in the streets of Chicago with even more variety of fillings to boot.

3. Chimichurri - I was expecting a little heat, a blast of flavor that would bring out a party in my mouth when combined with steak. All it does is get in the way of a fabulous steak. Meh! Even they try to pass the blame on to the English (read the wikipedia entry).

2. Kiosco Alfajores - Not the premium variety, but those other ubiquitous hockey pucks of dulce de leche and cheap sandwich cookie covered in fake chocolate. Thankfully there are some great quality ones, but the massive consumption of the cheap variety makes them an Argentine staple and to me they are just meh.

1. Sandwiches de Miga - To me they are basically a wonder-bread sandwich with the crusts cut off. Yeah, I used to have those, when I was 5 years old.

So what do you think?

If you have not listened to the show you should fix that and give them a listen. The shows are very short. They run about 20 minutes short, just long enough to listen on a bus ride to and from work, date, doctor´s appointment, whatever. And if you hit un corte de calle, you can listen to two, three, four of them.

I have linked to the show all over this post. If you have iTunes you can also subscribe to the podcast.

In Search of the Other America

Los 10 Pan Dulces Más Ricos / Top Ten Pan Dulces Buenos Aires

We made another Pan Dulce list again! This time Carolina Aguirre of Planeta Joy gave us some Top Ten List love and La Nación also published the article.

This is not the first time we have shown up on a Top 10 list.

Just last night I stayed up 'till 5am working at the Dot Shopping mall.

We were there actually supervising more than anything else.

We hired a window dresser to help out our new shop at the Dot Shopping mall. It came out fantastic! It was like opening a new store only one month into having a new store already.

I so wanted to take pictures, but the shopping mall turns the lights off and the pictures would not come out nice at all.

This would be my round about way of saying that you could also get our frequently Top Ten mentioned Pan Dulce there as well.

Now, I just need to take a nap.

2007 - Bacanal Top 8 Pan Dulces
2009 - Oh La Lá Top 5 Pan Dulces
2009 - Joy Top 10 Pan Dulces


********************

Este año volvimos a las listas de los mejores Pan Dulces! Este año fue de la mano de Carolina Aguirre de la revista Joy. Nos incluyó entre los 10 mejores pan dulces!

Esto no fue la primera vez que nos han incluido en este tipo de listas.

Justo anoche estuvimos trabajando sobre nuestro nuevo local en el Dot hasta las 5 horas de la mañana. El local quedó muy lindo y no lo pude creer, pero fue como recibir un local nuevo, solamente un mes después de haber abierto un local nuevo.

Me hubiera gustado tomar fotos, pero el shopping apaga la mayoría de las luces y las fotos no salían bien con tan poca luz.

Básicamente estoy tratando de avivarlos de que los pan dulces también se pueden conseguir en el Dot.

Ahora necesito dormir un poco.

Muchas gracias Carolina!  Thank you Carolina!

Tea and Cookie Event for Bloggers/Press

After our very first Cookie Day, I never did another one, but that is about to change.

This time it´s Tea and Cookies and it´s at the Dot Shopping Mall. Yes, Argentina now has a Sugar & Spice store at a shopping mall.

I have only 3 simple rules. 

Only the first 15 responses can make it. If I get many more responses, then I would be open to a second event at a later date. In any case, you will get a response from me.

You can bring a guest (and no they don´t count towards the 15 response limit. That´s why I called it a response limit and not a person limit).

1. write to cookiesandtea@sugarandspice.com.ar
2. please include your name, your blog/magazine/newspaper/etc you represent, and if you are bringing a guest, please let me know.
3. you will get a response with an invite.

Please don´t worry. I will not spam you. I am not a large faceless corporation with the resources to fill up your e-mail in-box on a consistent basis.

I can´t even consistently write on my own blog much less have time to spam anybody.

Anyway, I want to make sure that the people who do show up get my undivided attention and I get the chance to present our line of teas and cookies at the shopping mall.

These days it would be the only chance I get to eat and drink anything during the day!

The last time (and only time really) I did this it was a lot of fun.

The only thing I ask of you is if you have it in your heart to write about the event and about the store and the great time, or even not so great time if that´s the case.

That´s it!

So please consider coming out for Tea and Cookies!

Tuesday 23rd of November

5pm or 17:00 hours

We are located on the first floor right in front of Zara

@The DOT

Entrepreneur Invasion

I was interviewed a while back and I just found out about the article in Apertura magazine being on-line. Actually, the article mentions a whole bunch of fellow expat entrepreneurs:

Martin Frankel with Areatres, Sugar Bar and Expat-Connection.
Micheal Evans with Vines of Mendoza.
Jordan Metzner and Sam Nadler with California Burrito Company.
Micheal Legge with Natural Deli
Rémi Noiriel with Jacarandá Films
Nigel Tollerman with 0800 Vinos
Daniel Rosenber & Liran Jakob with Minihostels
Maria Macdonald with Yoquevos.com
Jed Rothenberg with LandingPadBA.com

This happens to be a partial list by the way. Any other expat entrepreneur out there that would like to chime in and let us know of your businesses go ahead and let us know about you in the comments.

Clarin´s Top 10 - Sugar & Spice Makes the List

Not a bad way to end the year or start a new one. Clarin, Argentina´s largest newspaper, included us in their round-up of entrepreneurs with the most innovative ideas. For some reason, the online article is not complete so you would have to read the actual paper or you can click on the picture above if you can read Spanish.

Another expat (this one from the UK) was also mentioned. His company is 0800-Vino and it is a wine delivery service that promises to have your order delivered to your home within the hour.

Clarin chose among all the companies that they interviewed during the year. This was a complete surprise to me, and I found out about it after a friend of mine wrote to me congratulating me on the article. Thanks Tom!

The article is in Spanish, so what follows is my own personal translation of our part of the article.

Frank Almeida said that he came to this country out of love. He arrived in 1999 with his then girlfriend, now wife, but he soon started to miss some things. "I could not find cookies, like I knew cookies". To satisfy his nostalgia, his wife started baking out of their home. Today they are the owners of Sugar & Spice, a brand of gourmet cookies that invoiced $1,500,000 pesos in 2007.

We first "baked them at home and sold them to local bars and cafés of Palermo Viejo". Later they rented a space, bought an oven and designed their packaging. They managed to sell to Falabella (multinational departement store chain) and that is how they started their relationships with large clients. They also obtained angel investment to the tune of one million dollars. With that money they bought a factory with 800 sq meters of space. Today you can find their products in Jumbo, Disco, Libertad and La Anonima.

Of course we can also be found in many small gourmet shops, cafés, wine shops, cheese shops, video stores, chocolate shops, etc throughout the country from Tierra del Fuego to Misiones.

Radio Reminder - La Isla

I will be on the radio today at noon. The show is called "La Visión" (The Vision) and I will be interviewed by Carlos Clerici and Alejandra Zuccoli.

La Isla 89.9 FM - La Vision


********castellano*******

Me van a entrevistar hoy a las doce del mediodía en el programa "La Visión" de Carlos Clerici y Alejandra Zuccoli en La Isla 89.9 FM.

Largest Environmental Disaster?

I wonder, if the US media aren't around to call it, then could it really be the largest environmental disaster?

Or could it be that George Bush does have a direct line to the big guy in the sky? I can just imagine his nightly prayers going something along the lines of "Dear Lord, if there is another major disaster please make the media blind to it, and could you maybe help in taking care of it? I mean, we are the greatest country in the world."

Source 1 - "Let's talk clean coal" by Pharyngula.
Source 2- "Environmental disaster in Tennessee rivals largest oil spills" by Inside, Looking Out.


Seriously though, where the hell is the major media coverage on this?

Pan Dulce on My Mind

This is the time of the year that I am busiest, stressed out, and would have been pulling my hair out by now, but that was last year´s trick.

Patricia Gilmore is this year´s Pan Dulce Angel. She, and 18 volunteers, went around the city and gave any homeless person they could find an edible hug (a.k.a. Pan Dulce). I donated some pan dulces to her idea and you could read more about that by clicking here. She promises to organize this thing better next year. She could possibly have a database that would be valuable to the city... just thinking out loud.

This year we participated with Girl´s Night Out and we raffled off 5 Pan Dulces de Tus Sueños. There were also many other things raffled off and it turned out to be a very fun night. The weather was very nice, drinking champagne, surrounded by women. Too bad I forgot the camera at home.

Yo Que Voz, also participated and they have a promotion going on with our cookies as well.

Oh, La La (the picture above was taken from the magazine) just placed us among the top 5 pan dulces this year. You won´t find it in the link I provided though; it´s only in their printed magazine.

So far, we are on track to selling almost three times as many Pan Dulces this year as we did last year, and that is a great way to wrap up this holiday season.

Girl´s Night Out

This event is for all women, and for that woman in your life (if you are a guy reading this).

Go ahead, sign up, go have some fun drinking, socializing, shopping, eating, shopping some more and all the while knowing that you are also donating to a local charity.

For this event we are going to raffle off 5 of our Pan Dulce de Tus Sueños. You need to buy a ticket to the event be eligible for this raffle that they will organize.

For all who participate they are going to be giving away some goodie bags that will have Sugar & Spice goodies included.

Click below to get more details.

www.girlsnightoutbuenosaires.com

Podcast Reminder - The Socially Responsible Cookie

Patt Gilmore stopped by the store last week and we had a chat over coffee and cookies. She surprised me by putting the interview up right away. If you would like to hear it you can click here.

Her site is called What´s the Frequency Argentina?

While you visit her site you can also listen to her other recent interviews covering ice cream, grilling meat, etc. She also has an audio book called Squatting Over a Bucket Under the Argentine Moon.

If you have iTunes you can also look up her podcast and listen to it on your iPod.

You are sure to find something to interest you at her site.

Oh, that non-profit that I could not remember during the interview is CCRAI.

Radio Reminder - Pan Dulce (Panettone)

Mañana me van a entrevistar en la radio en el programa de Adalberto Rossi "Cátedra
Avícola y Agropecuaria" am750 entre las 7 y 8 horas de la mañana. El tema sera sobre el Pan Dulce.

Obviamente voy a hablar sobre el Pan Dulce de Tus Sueños.

********English*********

I am going to be on the radio again. What, you haven´t heard me on the radio?

I can´t blame you. I haven´t mentioned it before. I have been pretty bad about that so from now on I am going to try to let everyone in on those little events before hand.

Tomorrow, between 7am and 8am Argentina time, I will be interviewed on a show called "Cátedra
Avícola y Agropecuaria" on am750. The topic is going to be Pan Dulce (Panettone).

Obviously I am going to talk about the Panettone of Your Dreams.

Time Out Buenos Aires 2008

click on images for a larger view

A while back I wrote about how we were starting to get noticed by the media, but Time Out, for example, did not know who we were; Well, they know us now.



They took a couple of pictures; chatted with me for a while over cookies and coffee; and they went back and wrote this about us:



Does this mean I better get cracking on making muffins? Should I take that as a hint?

One more further clarification. We are open Monday through Friday from 9am to 7pm and close from 1:30pm to 2:30pm for lunch.

We also are open on Saturdays from 9am to 1pm.

I am still tickled pink that they thought of us and I love their description. They have just shot to the top of our short list of magazines that we are going to publicize in.

Happy 4th of July!

The picture is from Living Large, and it is of Buckingham Fountain in Chicago.

After all these years in Argentina, last night was the very first time I actually celebrated the 4th of July on the actual day. Normally I would go to the Embassy's gig, but they normally have the full blown affair in March when the weather allows us to celebrate outdoors. It's actually a great event with hamburgers, hot dogs, food vendors, a Scholastic Books tent as well as games and music events. I even got to judge a pie contest one year; but that is a completely different event from the one I went to last night.

I got to catch up with Ian and Cintra from Goodairs. Here is a link to their post on the night. I met up with some other old friends and I even got to meet some that I had only exchanged e-mails with in the past. The get-together, sponsored by Democrats Abroad and Le Merval, was also covered by Clarin.com and you can see a little clip of it below. Yes, I am in it, and you can see me blank out on Obama's name. No I had not had any beers, in fact, I was interviewed just as I arrived. Maybe a beer first would have been a better way for me to go. Ah well, there's always next year.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to see some pictures of Chicago during the 4th of July you can click -here- and see how a future resident of Buenos Aires spends his last 4th of July there, before leaving for Argentina.

Obama in Spanish and Fox "News"

**The following is a post that I wrote for Democrats Abroad.

I found this video on a blog in Spanish called "Bloc de Periodistas" by Darío Gallo.




Snooping around I found that there are a whole bunch of these types of videos. Call me naive, unplugged from the reality of what is going on in the United States; but, really, has there ever been this type of attention on a presidential hopeful before?

Now the flip side to this positive attention. I have first-hand listened from some friends and family the lies that have been thrown out there by Fox News. This "news" program is so irresponsible. They have to constantly tell people that they are "fair and balanced" because that is exactly what they are not. Just place "un" in front of those two words and it begins to be a more realistic slogan for them. Try it, they are Unfair and Unbalanced. Doesn't that feel better? If you don´t believe me just start googling the subject after watching this video below and you will get a whole bunch of material.



As an added bonus I am including a link to a blog that tracks all the nonsense that Fox News dishes out. Part of their slogan is "We Watch Fox So You Dont Have To" brought to you by News Hounds. I am so glad they are sacrificing like that.

Argentina´s Best Kept Secret?

I have long felt like my company was one of those best kept secrets out there.

The people that I would go and pitch my product to didn´t know who I was, they never saw my product, they weren´t sure if they could sell it.

The people I would sell to during the holiday fairs had never heard of us, and would not know where to buy our cookies.

The magazine people would often offer us publicity in exchange for cookies. That´s right, I now have an alternative currency.

The TV people would offer me interviews in exchange for money. Yep, I could buy airtime. I tried to tell them that since no one knew who we were, we really could not afford buying air time by the minute.

All of that has slowly, but steadily changed.

I now have little time to go out and look for clients, they are calling me.

I am so busy that I can no longer participate in fairs or expos.

Magazines and Newspapers are calling us for interviews and a couple of TV shows have jumped on the bandwagon as well, and they are not charging me anymore.

I had my first foreign based interview. John Bell from Digital Influence Mapping Project was in town and he was wondering if it was "easier for small businesses to "get" social media?". Here is an article in Apertura (in Spanish) that weighs in with more evidence to the affirmative to his question.

However, I have not had any luck with any of the foreign media that have been lurking along the cobblestone streets of my Palermo Viejo.

This past Sunday an article was published in Clarin, Argentina´s largest newspaper. The article itself will take a while to go on-line. I was also asked three questions by Apertura. This last one will be in print only.

I also have an interview on the radio scheduled for this Saturday morning. The station is called Radio America. The show is called "El Emprendedor Urbano" / "The Urban Entrepreneur", and it will air from 11am to 12pm. No, I am sure my segment will not be an hour long, more like 5 or 10 minutes most likely. They tell me that this is a brand new show so it doesn´t show up on their line-up yet.

Meanwhile, our humble little store chugs merrily along. It´s very quite and does not see a lot of action. However, every month it manages to sell a little more. This is how I am gauging that we are still a secret in Buenos Aires. In fact, the editor of Time Out Buenos Aires did not even know about us. She has not set foot in our little store... yet. If there is anyone out there that should know about us it should be them.

Now that they do know about us and they are visiting us, together with Clarin´s article, I am beginning to feel nostalgic for that time when we were still underneath the radar. At least, for the foreign media we still are Argentina´s best kept secret.

Minuto Uno / One Minute

Another interview done, but talk about fast. I was pleasantly surprised when we got a call at the store and the person tells us that she called after reading this story to find out where she could go to buy some of our cookies.

What´s more, you can leave comments at the end of the articles in this news site and when I looked we had received a nice comment as well.

The site is called MinutoUno and it is in Spanish obviously.

Click -here- to go directly to the article.