Queridos amigos,
The truth is you can have both. We tried to order tea when we first arrived in Baires only to be turned down over and over again,. The leather cup is so handsome and the silver bombilla so elegant, what did we have to do to become initiated? We already knew the mystique and would try not to commit a faux pas like actually touching the bombilla. We knew the cebador had to pour the mate and pass it to you and then you had to polish it off in a single gulp. We learned to recognize the thermos that people carried with them which carried the sacred brew. The cebradores did not seem at all mysterious. They looked like normal workmen. Or maybe that was the mate costume? They told us in cafes that it was only offered in homes and at special parties. Surely some hospitable person would invite us. Hint, hint.
We tried to let go of our obsession. Linda and Andrew became content with hand squeezed and stirred limonadas which we thought delicious too. Tom learned to order cortados, the demitasse cup of espresso by making cutting motions with his first two fingers. Often a cortado came after dinner with a caramel dessert called "dulce de leche", called "cajeta" in Mexico. There was a special breakfast roll called "dulce de leche" which my morning routine led me to buy along with the media lunes. You could buy a dozen breakfast rolls for a hundred peso note, about $7. The hundred peso note indeed seemed to be the lynch pin of local currency. Everything was a multiple of a hundred pesos. Evita's picture was on it and I showed it to Luis, my hairdresser when I wanted him to do my hair in an up-sweep like hers. You will forgive me for digressing to confide that in the middle of one coiffure Luis exclaimed, "Oh my God, Que belleza!". Everyone in the salon came running out to admire his creation. I knew they were drinking mate in the back room, but even as the object of admiration I was not offered a sip.
We also loved to drink cafe con lagrimas, milk with only a tear drop of coffee before bed, guaranteed for dreams of a handsome tango partner. I might have asked Luis had there been any mate in the picture. I named my magazine "Cafe Solo" fifty years ago. Should I adopt "Mate" for the title now? I had to come to terms with this passion, either forget it or acquire it.
The day before we left I was finally invited for mate by the homeless man I had befriended. He looked so sad and starving that I started bringing him all my left over dinners. Don Julio's, our favorite steak house, was more than obliging to package up the miraculous lomo (please forgive me for abandoning my vegetarian regimen). I also bought a leather suitcase. My cashmere sweater and fox fur cape will forever remain a secret but I will wear my waterproof gaucho hat during the California rains. When in the pampas do as the gauchos do.
My benefactor was consuming the mate in the park where Yasmin and I took the children to feed left over media lunas to the las palomas. A groups of scruffy men and women gathered around him. We often give them our small peso bills. Now he was offering me my heart's desire. I said, "gracias" to this cebrador and accepted the taza. I drank it down. The brew was not ambrosia, but the ceremony was sacred. It would have been a mortal insult to refuse. At last I became an authentic porteno.
I do not think it was the kind homeless group that gave me pneumonia. I think it was the stale air in the airplane. Shortly after our return I couldn't breathe. Tom took me to emergency and the hospital kept me there for three days. That is why, querido amigos, you have not heard from me. More soon now that I am well.
Abrazos,
Glenna
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