Recently my roommate G had some friends over, one of whom is Spanish and cooked dinner for the lot of them.  Unfortunately I was on my way out the door to a milonga when they arrived, so I didn’t get to sample what he was preparing (though I did see that he brought sea scallops which was almost enough to make me skip tango.  Gotta find scallops, and soon).

There was plenty of gazpacho leftover and my kind roommate let me have some.  At the first taste, I started feeling inspired.  Then my roommate shared his pasta with me, which had been tossed with green olives.  All of this beautiful tanginess, all of this color!  I immediately got out my Mediterranean (mostly Italian and French) cookbooks, started re-reading this book, which is full of inspiration and nice recipes, and went online to my favorite recipe sites, preparing myself culinarily for the coming seasons of sun.  I’ve always eaten Mediterranean, but was not so inspired the first few months here, and now with the change in seasons, comes a change in the ingredients available and a change in what I crave, which means a change in recipes.

One of my favorite sites from which to get recipes is Divina Cucina, an inspiring site by a woman based in Florence, Italy, who gives cooking classes.  Her recipe page is great, full of things that make me think of my relatives in Lucca and the wonderful dinners we’ve had together.

The other day for lunch I decided to make my own spin on her recipe for tonno e fagioli.  Never one to follow a recipe exactly, I used chickpeas (garbanzos) instead, and added some sliced green olives to add a little extra tangy flavor.  Absolutely wonderful!  Then yesterday I had Miss Tango over and I tried the recipe for spaghetti di vino, which was very simple and delicious, only I used bucatini instead of spaghetti, and added sage.  It was wonderful and we decided it would be very nice to add some black olives next time.

See?  It doesn’t have to be all about meat and papas fritas down here (though I love both).  If you have a kitchen and some inspiration (and a verduleria nearby), you can get creative and eat very well.

A departure from my usual topic…

I checked an old e-mail address today that I don’t check anymore, and received the very sad and sobering news that a friend of a friend (who I didn’t know personally) died at the age of 40, from metastatic melanoma. (Uh, that’s skin cancer and it’s not good.)

It made me think about how when I got here in February (summer), for a good two or three months the people I met would tease me about my pale skin and ask me why I didn’t lay in the sun. The same thing happened to me in Italy all the time, and blogger Nicki in Positano has had to listen to it as well. (As soon as I’d tell them about my father’s bout with malignant melinoma and how I have the gene that makes me more susceptible to it, they would stop and apologize).

My Italian and Argentine friends seem to think they are immune to skin cancer for whatever reason, but guess what – my dad’s side of the family has entirely Italian blood just like (a lot of) them, and a lot of my relatives on that Italian side – even those with darker features -have had to deal with skin cancer of one sort or another.

Anyway, it’s time to get my skin checked – I’m super overdue and this news has served as a reminder. The search for a dermatologist in Buenos Aires begins, and I hope you all read this, realize that you are NOT immune, GET YOUR SKIN CHECKED and those of you in the northern hemisphere who are about to pass through summer, PLEASE stay out of the sun – if you must go out there, make sure your sunscreen protects you from both UVA and UVB rays. If you live in Seattle where it’s overcast you’re just as much at risk – put some sunscreen on that face!

And ask yourself: is it really worth it to be tan today, only to find that a decade later you have either a) nasty wrinkly leathery saggy skin or b) possibly deadly skin cancer?

Didn’t think so.

Make Tina happy and get your skin checked.