I went with her last week on one of her Palermo Fashion Tours and honestly – four hours passed in a flash.  We started out meeting Kirsty and the rest of the small group of girls also on the tour at a cafe in Palermo.  We enjoyed some coffee and really just broke the ice.  As part of the tour, Kirsty gave us complimentary tote bags filled with a tailor-made itinerary with addresses of all of the stores for our small group, one of the latest style magazines, discounts and V.I.P. cards as well as some great suggestions for spending your time in BA.

As the tour began, I noticed right away that Kirsty was really speaking and most importantly, listening attentively to what each of the girls in my group had to say.  To me, that’s all she had to do to sell me that this was going to be a fun time.  Also something really important to know from the beginning was that she doesn’t work on commission, so I didn’t feel any kind of pressure to purchase something that wasn’t right for me.

Since this particular tour went through Palermo (she also does tours in Recoleta and San Telmo), I figured that I would have gone to at least some of the stores that she led us to, but I was totally mistaken. She took to these hidden gems that I’ve passed walking the down the street probably 40 times and said to myself, “Hmm. That place looks cool-” but never had the chance to stop in there or was too intimidated because I thought it would be too ridiculously expensive.  I was so pleasantly surprised and proven wrong about the prices each time. As we went from store to store, Kirsty would introduce us to the salesperson, explain to them what we were looking for and in each case, learned so much information about the products and people behind the design that each person in the group felt really connected to them.  I walked out of each place saying to myself, “I didn’t realize that this place that I passed up so many times was so interesting!”

Most tours end up with a luncheon at a chic new restaurant in the area and a chance to rest your arms from all the bags you might be carrying.  Tours are open to the public and rates are very, very reasonable considering all of the energy, effort and organization that Kirsty has put into her programs.  I highly recommend the fashion tour if you’re here alone, with friends (and this is NOT just for us ladies…) and even if you live here as a local, you’re guaranteed to find some new and interesting places (like I did!).

For more information on her Boutique Fashion, Photography or Garden Tours, go to her website: BA Boutique Tours.  Her contact information is listed at the bottom of her web page.

Nueva coleccion Guapa Gloria Sobres

Originally uploaded by rakelchavez

mmm.. no I want them all…

http://www.guapagloria.com

I so want the Daft Punk purse.

Anyone seen these around here? This designer is from Venezuela but has some sort of connection to Buenos Aires… I WANNT!

Defo going on the HOT list for this month!

check!

8 oz. cream cheese
1/4 c. heavy cream
2 tbsp butter

Soften the cream cheese a bit by mixing it up, pour in the heavy cream and mix some more and then add the diced butter and mix until they’ve disappeared. It’s super simple. For this particular recipe I just use regular old cheap cream cheese (not Philadelphia) and my recipe comes out perfect every time.

So on to the recipe for TWD. Everything came out looking so pretty – I was totally happy with my few minor cosmetic adjustments and I had such a fun time in the kitchen as I always do… The cake was simply delicious, although Javier kept critiquing the cake as though it was a Tiramisu – saying that it should be totally moist with espresso throughout the cake and he kept trying to take the parts that were super moist. (It was kind of annoying). But once I explained to him that it wasn’t a Tiramisu, that it was a Tiramisu flavored CAKE, he kind of backed off and admitted to its goodness.

It looked really pretty, it tasted fantastic, but in the end, I think I’m just not a big cake fan. If there’s going to be a cake, it’s gotta be chocolaty and creamy and fudgy and rich all at the same time.

On the other hand, I know the cake’s value. If someone asked me to bring an interesting cake to a party, I’d make this one.

I found some at our local grocery store that was freshly baked.
Anyway, I served it to a 100% Argentine crowd. Everyone ate it right up, but what’s to be expected with all that chocolaty sweet creamy goodness that I made! And on top of everything the chocolate sauce was DEVINE!
I had never made nor eaten bread pudding before in my life, but now that I have, I’ll do this recipe again.

So in thinking about what to do on a Sunday – it really depends on what you like to do. Right now we’re in the middle of the World Cup qualifying games and you may not see all of the best local players on their local teams respectively – but that never deters die hard fans.

Perhaps you got to bed earlier than 7am on Saturday and you know that your Sunday is going to be free, but what are you going to do? Well, gyms are usually (but not always, depending on your locale) closed on Sundays – take that as a cue to hang out with your friends and family on these days.

Why not try heading to San Telmo for a nice day of people watching. Start off your day with a nice greasy breakfast in Bar El Federal on the corner of Peru and Carlos Calvo. Everyone knows that there’s the Sunday market in San Telmo and every once in a while, it’s great just to go there, walk around and take in the sounds of people, animals, music – whatever – and you can overload your senses with all that the market has to offer.

If you’re not up for a bunch of human interaction, why not spend a lazy day in Buenos Aires’ Botanical Garden. Take a blanket and a good book with you – sit back and spend your time in peace and quiet. If you’re laying on the grass, you may get a little furry visitor that wants to curl up with you and keep you company – but if you’re allergic to cats, take some anti-histamines before you go.

But on Sunday, I got up bright and early, thinking of all the cool things that I could do decorate cupcakes.  I had a creative rush – and I knew that I needed to decorate as soon as I woke up from my sleep.

I made some organic brasilian coffee and got to work first on the frosting.  As soon as that was done and in the refrigerator to cool for a while, I started on the cupcakes.  I made chocolate.  I love chocolate.

I let them cool while I had some pasta with pesto for lunch.  (mmmm) Once the cupcakes had cooled, I began to frost away!  I had so much fun doing these, and I think I’m going to put next week’s adventures on auction on my facebook page.  I’m really enjoying doing these auctions by the way – it pays for the materials for the baked goods and I can cook away to my heart’s content but not have to worry about having too many desserts around my house during the week!

So here were my mini creations! This is a flickr slideshow. If you want to see them a bit larger, go to my flickr page: click-click!

More importantly, was the dessert – I wanted to go with the whole Italian theme so since the pasta was such a beautiful shade of green from the pesto, I went for white and red during dessert. Keeping with the Italian food, I put a little twist onto the traditional “strawberries and cream” – by this, I mean I raised the bar. It was too easy – and left my dinner guests pretty satisfied.

So for this recipe, I have no exact measurements. I guess the quantities you use will depend on how many desserts you have to make. I made four large desserts and two smaller ones – all with these ingredients:

three packages of strawberries
a sweet liquor (perhaps grand marinier… didn’t have that so i just used campari and orange juice)
300+/- ml heavy cream, whipped
250 g ricotta cheese (more or less)
8 crunchy dryish almond cookies or a handful of crushed almonds
sugar to taste

So I started off by washing the strawberries and removing the stems. I saved a few on the side where I didn’t remove the stems for decoration. I put them in a large bowl and tossed a little less than 1/4 cup of campari and a few splashes of orange juice on the strawberries. Let them soak up flavor in the refrigerator for about 3-4 hours (or even overnight would be nice).

After the strawberries have been marinating for a while, I put the almond cookies in my miniprimer and chopped them until they were very fine. They had the consistency of brown sugar when I was done. Next whip your heavy cream, adding some sugar to taste. I added about 2 tablespoons, but that wasn’t enough for my Argentine boyfriend. I probably should have added more for him. In another bowl, I broke down the ricotta cheese with a fork. Then with a rubber spatula, I gently stirred in about 1/4 of the whipped cream, and folded in the rest.

I then began layering the strawberries in their juices and the whipping cream / ricotta mix until I filled the glass. I topped it off with a few teaspoons of the crushed almond cookies and a fresh strawberry. It tastes great after it’s been in the refrigerator for a few hours.

The ricotta and almonds gave this dish such a beautiful texture and there was a lot of flavor from the strawberries soaked in campari – So that was the end of another beautiful St. Joseph’s day!