A man…a plan…a canal…an Arjewtino cooking blog.

I’m leaving for Panama this morning on a two-week trip with The Princess that will take us through Costa Rica and, hopefully, NOT Guatemala.

Many of you might remember my trip last year to Guatemala, where The Princess and I visited Xela, swam in Lago Atitlan and rode horses, and where a Guatemalan stole my wallet and spent $2,000 on a shopping spree.

I’m still waiting for an apology from El Guapo.

In honor of this Central American trip, I decided last night to cook a meal.

Though I usually leave the cooking chores to The Princess (since my culinary skills pale before hers), I found myself on my last night in the states with nearly a pound of New Zealand butterflied lamb chop I had picked up at Whole Foods over the weekend.

It was either grill that sucker or make myself the Arjewtino Special: Ramen noodles with a side of 7-11 microwave burrito.

So I opted to actually use my own kitchen.

This resulted in such a great meal that I decided to turn Arjewtino.com into a cooking blog. At least for just one day.

I started by seasoning the lamb with oregano leaves and some salt/pepper mix I found in the cupboard.

I then threw the lamb on the pan. I started to realize that I was either a gifted chef or cooking is much easier than people say it is. Seriously. Step 1: buy overpriced meat from Whole Foods. Step 2: throw it on fire. How hard is that?

And then the fucking smoke alarm went off. Motherfucker. Who knew Step 3 of cooking should have been open the windows? No one ever tells me anything. I took the battery out of the alarm and went back to cooking. I’m sure that’s safe.

This is what I like to call “technique”. It’s a cooking term, you wouldn’t understand unless you went to culinary school. Or are from Argentina. The technique I’m employing here is something I like to call “flatten the piece of meat against the pan to make it sizzle”. I think Gordon Ramsay does that when he’s not yelling at his wife for leaving the toilet seat down.

Cooking the lamb took more time than I expected so I had some time to look around the kitchen. Do you know that dishes don’t just wash themselves? Strange, right? The Princess left last Wednesday and not one dish has been washed. No idea what to do about that. I’ll just wait until she gets back. I’m sure it’ll sort itself out.

Ok, the lamb was taking too long (and NOT cooking in the middle) so I double-butterflied it. This brilliant move on my part not only worked but also resulted in a piece of meat that looked like a Rorschach inkblot test. This one reminded me of road kill. I think that means I’m insane.

Of course, no cuisine involving meat is complete without fried egg on top. This Argentine style, called a caballo, is always the best part of eating meat. I fry eggs on beef, chicken, pork, fruit, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, oatmeal, and cereal. Ask any of my friends. True story.

The finished meal. I have to say, it was incredible. Was I surprised that such a cooking novice like myself could create such a delicacy? Of course not, I’m awesome at everything I do. I also added a side salad, some red wine, and an alfajor to the meal. If you don’t know what an alfajor is you obviously have never been to Argentina.

I hope I can blog from Panama and Costa Rica and rub in the fact that I’m on vacation and you’re not but I’m not promising anything.

In the meantime, if you get bored, read through the archives.

And for God’s sake, whatever you do, leave those batteries in your smoke alarms.