8 de agosto - Asado

Saturday was going to be a full day for us from morning until night. For two weeks the elders have been planning an asado (barbeque) to be held on the roof of our apartment building. There is a place to burn coals and a grill for the meat. Barbecuing is a popular thing to do here in Argentina, probably because of the gaucho, cowboy, beef reputation that it has. We said, "Sure, let's do it." Elder Valente wanted to do the whole thing and we wondered how he could afford all the meat. We said we would pay for it and he refused. He said I could bring a salad and dessert.

During the next conversation we had about it one day at work, the elders informed us that they had invited Silvio and his wife and child to come join us. Well, that makes more sense. Now we understand how it is all going to come together. Silvio is the person who works with Elder Valente on the apartments, and he is also a chef. He is an excellent cook. For about 5 years before he started working for the mission as the maintenance person who finds and fixes up apartments for the missionaries, he cooked the food for the zone conferences for three different missions. Now that would be a major undertaking. Our mission has eight zones that he would have cooked for, and I don't know how many others would have been on his agenda. Wow! And he would have done this every six weeks for all three missions. Anyway, Elder Valente said Silvio had mentioned before that he wanted to do an asado for all of us sometime.

I still asked what I could bring, and the answer was the postre (dessert). Silvio was bringing all the meat. Couldn't we help pay for it? No way, they said. He wants to do it.

The day was gorgeous. We feared it would be too chilly to be on top of our building, but it was warm and sunny. Here Silvio is breaking up the pieces of charcoal with two sticks. Their charcoal is not the briquettes like we have. They have large pieces of charred wood. We aren't sure how they make it. To light the charcoals, he made a fire with wood and then put the charcoal pieces on top to heat them up and start them burning. Then, he chopped them up in smaller pieces to spread them out evenly.

The meat consisted of ribs, chicken, and chorizo (sausage). He cut the chicken and opened it up so it laid flat on the grill. All pieces were still connected. He had a pile of hot coals to the side and then he would put them under the grill when needed.

There is a room above us (we are on the 5th floor) that has tables and chairs in it for parties or gatherings. So we set a table there with the plates and glasses from our apartment.

The view from the roof top is pretty impressive. For as far as you can see, there are buildings, buildings, and more buildings.

The group consists of Elders Nelson and Valente, the Kroffs, and Gabriela, Silvio, and 3 year old Antonella. She is so darling and has beautiful hair. Their last name is Bollentini and they are Italian. Her family comes from Sicily (we told them about Crawfords going there on a mission) and his family line comes from northern Italy. He served a mission as a young man in Argentina. I think his family was living here at that time. He understands English, but doesn't speak it a lot unless talking to me. Sister Bollentini cooks food for two meals for our elders each week. They pick it up on Wednesdays. So they eat good for two days out of the week.

The meat is almost done. It is the main part of the dinner. They load the barbecues up with tons of meat and they eat mainly that.

The only other thing we had was a salad which was lettuce and tomatoes. They put vinegar and oil on it as a dressing. I had a package of Italian dressing which is made with oil and vinegar and asked Sister Bollentini if she would like me to make it to put on the salad. She, of course, agreed and they really liked it. We just tossed it into the lettuce and served it up.

Here is Silvio with the finished product. We were all anxious to dig in. AND, it was absolutely delicious. Everything was so tender and cooked just right. It was wonderful. They gave us the left overs even though we thought the always starving elders should take it home. But the decision was that we keep it.

So the Bollentinis brought the meat, salad, and drink. That was a bit lopsided, but they wanted to do it. If they would have invited us all to their home for an asado, we could have gone, but the elders wouldn't have been able to go because Silvio lives outside of San Fernando and our elders can't leave their area. So having a nice place to cook like in our building was perfect.

We bought helado for dessert. Two kilos would feed us all with some to spare. I also made a chocolate cake that had whipped cream and sliced peaches in between the layers. I tried to duplicate a cake that we had at the home of one of our members a few weeks ago. It was okay, but not as good as the one the member made. I'll try again sometime.

We had the asado at noon and ended at 2:00. Of course, Silvio came at 10:30-11:00 to get things ready. The elders still had to shop and do their internet emailing of letters to mother. We cleaned up and got prepared for our next event of the day which was two baptisms at our branch in Tigre. Pictures will be on Sunday's entry.

After the baptism which started an hour late, we rushed home to call in on Skype to the Kroff family reunion which was having the final day's activities in our back yard. After camping for two nights at Ophir, they had a BBQ of hamburgers and hot dogs. We were able to see and speak to several family members and it was so fun to see them all together. We know we missed out on a good time, but we're so happy that they were together bonding and having fun. Family is so important, and the realization of how precious strong relationships are become more apparent the longer we are away from our family members. We love all of you.