More Firsts

On Sunday I went with the Goldfarbs to their country house in Tigre, a small vacation town a half an hour outside of the city. The house was amazing, gorgeous, with a huge indoor barbecue pit/shelf constructuion, an in-ground pool, and an entire golf course in their backyard. I went with Raquel and two fo her grandchildren; we were the first to arrive. I went bike-riding around the gated community, a Jewish country club called Koaj, with one of the Goldfarb grandchildren (Toby), my first time biking here in Argentina (and boy do I miss it) and by the time we got back everyone was there, the sladas were out and the meat was grilling. The asado was, of course, amazing, and I ate more meat in that one sitting than I have ever eaten in any given week; the meat was delicious. One of the main highlights, though, was the seltzer, which they served in spritz bottles. I have never had seltzer so bubbly and fresh-tasting. The spritz bottle beats any of the pre-bottled seltzers at home, and I am tempted to buy one when I get back. If anyone wants to know what they can get me for a birthday present, well, a spritz-bottle for seltzer would do the trick. It was wonderful.
The other highlight, also a first, was the mate. Mate, pronounced Mah-teh, is the Argentine national drink and drug. Everyone does it, passing around the gourd filled with the herb at parks and meals and just when hanging out, every taking turns sucking through the straw, or bombillo (the ll makes a sh sound). There is an art to mate, and people sit around in circles while person prepares the mate in a gourd and passes it to someone; when that person finishes the mate he gives it back to the preparer, who refills the gourd and passes it to the next person, and so on. It is quite bitter, though some cut it with sugar, and it provides quite a buzz thanks to a copious quantity of the active ingredient in the herb, mateine, which contains trimethylxanthine, a bitter xanthine alkaloid that is an odorless white crystalline powder in its natural form. It is also a psychoactive stimulant drug, and probably the reason mate is so popular. I cannot see myself becoming a regular user, as the withdrawal symptoms include pretty bad headaches, but maybe I shall buy my own gourd and mate to bring home with me.