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Yes, we did it. We broke down the other night and gave in to our oh-so-American craving for vegetables and trekked on foot, through our neighborhood, to a restaurant called Arte Sano.

(Tom discovered it via guide book.)

It was a good thing that we set out to seek some good-old, crunchy, Portland-style food because on the way, we stumbled upon an expensive, but super yummy, Indian restaurant called (appropriately) Tandoor!

Once settled at Arte Sano (in what is really a lifestyle business–they offer yoga, dancing classes, and some nutrition services, if memory serves), we started our meat-free adventure with a delicious home-made wheat bread (a nice contrast to the wonder bread-style roll that is common here) and a dish of carrot mayonnaise, which was actually a bright orange carrot dipping sauce.

A sign of how much we were craving vegetables? Zelda had three helpings of a simple spinach, arugula and tomato salad drizzled with olive oil and vinegar. I nearly fainted.

Zoe inhaled her wheat-tofu stir fry and tabbouleh salad. We all had delicious fruit smoothies.

If you are in Argentina and need a break from the beef, Arte Sano can be found at Mansilla 2740 in Recoleta.

Photo by Flickr user alex-s used under a Creative Commons license

Our experience with Argentine cuisine thus far seems to support the notion that if you feed your livestock massive quantities of what they naturally eat, then that meat is chock full of important nutrients that you wouldn’t find in grain-fed or feed-fed animals in the United States, thereby eliminating the need for vegetables all together.

So if your beef is high in CLAs and Omega 3s, and contains higher levels of vitamin E and beta carotene, why the hell should you bother to eat a salad?

Actually, in Argentina, it appears that cheese has replaced salad. Meat and cheese! And if you want some variety, you throw some yummy pastry dough around your meat and call it an empanada! (In which they might include egg, because you don’t want to stint on the protein!)

Now, in all fairness, it is early spring here, which can be a tough time for produce. But, having said that, it is clear that the fruit and the vegetable are second-class citizens to the meat and the cheese when sitting at the table.

There are worse ways to go!

TGI Friday’s. Yes, there is a Friday’s here. Yes, I am ashamed to say that we have eaten there. (We happened upon it after a lot of walking, the kids were starving and began lobbying…well, you get the picture). It was packed with locals. And, for those of you wondering, the Friday’s food here is as bad as it is in the US, the waitstaff does wear crazy hats and buttons, and the music is too loud!

Cheerios. They have a 5 grain Cheerio here that I’m really digging because they are firmer and crunchier than our Cheerios–they don’t dissolve in the milk on the walk from your refrigerator to the table as they seem to in the United States.

Authorized Mac Dealer. Funny, the staff at the Mac dealer we visited here in Baires was about as helpful as the folks at The Mac Store in Portland (you know, the one in the Lloyd district)–in other words, not remotely helpful. The staff here announced that “nowhere in Argentina” could you find the cord we were looking for. Tom traipsed to another Mac dealer and bought it without difficulty. (I’ve never understood why the Apple Stores are so great and the staff so helpful but the authorized Mac/Apple dealers are always so damn snooty and difficult to deal with–hmmmm?)

Starbucks. They recently opened in Argentina and the store is apparently the cool hip place to be for young, upwardly mobile people. (I am happy to say that we haven’t been there!) At least their brand is doing well here; in the US they’ve become the dumpy coffee place in Safeway!

Zoe had her peanut allergy food challenge today. (This is the last test, where they feed you peanuts and see if you have a horrible allergic reaction, to determine if you still have the food allergy in question.)

The doctor began by dipping a peanut in water and having Zoe drink the water.

Slowly, over the course of four hours, she worked up to a half a cup of peanuts. She was fine, loved the taste, and had nary a reaction.

Actually, “fine” is probably an understatement. She was deliriously happy. She came home and ate some Peanut M&Ms and then wanted to eat at an Asian restaurant for dinner (which we previously had to avoid because of their ubiquitous use of nuts).

She was so excited, she asked Tom and I to be her “nut buddies!” We hope Zelda grows out of her nut allergies as well.

For some reason, I like to commit myself to plans that sound like a good idea without really thinking through all of the ramifications of said plans.

Take “Special Lunch,” for instance.

Tom usually handles school lunch during the week, and he commented one day that he had gotten into a rut, serving the Zs the same food all of the time. Without thinking, I volunteered to make “special lunch” once a week for the girls, noting that I would try new things, all of which they might not like.

The girls were on board. Tom was on board. I was crazy.

Why, when we are in the midst of packing and purging, would I commit myself to an extensive once-a-week lunch experiment? It makes no sense! Still, the girls remain excited by, and love the concept of, special lunch, even though they haven’t actually enjoyed eating all of the actual lunches!

Tom and I would like to take our cooking skills to the next level and get to a point where we would shop daily at local markets, pick up what’s fresh, and make our meals sans recipes. The idea being that we would actually have the time to experiment with and enjoy cooking again.

And, of course, Tom would like to become an expert in cooking (and eating) all types of grass-fed beef.

You know, it occurs to me that quantifying all of the stuff we want to do while taking our sabbatical really puts the pressure on!

What if we don’t do any of it?!? What if we turn into blobby ugly Americans who refuse to speak Spanish, stay at home all day watching American TV shows, and then we come home early?

The first step in planning our trip to South America was mounting a PR campaign with the kids–slow and steady, nothing too flashy–to get them excited about the upcoming Offermann-Reeves exodus.

The two things that have really captivated their imaginations: the exchange rate and the easy availability of great ice cream and gelato. They are constantly running tallies of their saved allowances and then calculating what those savings would be worth in pesos and having us check their work. Who knew that a six- and a nine-year old could be so excited about monetary exchange rates?

And the ice cream…when they discovered that vendors will actually deliver gelato to your door, they truly could not think of a cooler place to live than a city with home-delivered ice cream.

Other than that, I don’t think the move is really tangible for the girls yet. That will change as we start to sell our cars and put items in storage. We’ll see if they are able to maintain their sanguine attitude as we approach our departure date.