A Gentleman

Came across this on one of my portable usb drives - it's a videoclip of me dancing Tango Salon with our Maestro and wonderful friend El Gallego Manolo after a class at Escuela Argentina de Tango in 2009:

After class with Martha and Manolo at Escuela Argentina de Tango, 2009

I used to cringe when I was watched it.  I screwed up so bad on some of the steps near the end! :-(

However my haircut was REALLY GOOD.  This was before my hair started to fall out from sheer frustration at having to learn to lead and not being able to do anything except turn to the left in endless circles.  And before I gained 15 lbs from homemade ice cream.  

After things like that one does not cringe anymore looking at one's past shitty dancing.  I am too busy admiring my lustrous hair and svelt figure in the video to cringe. 

"What I remember most about that video is that after you danced with Manolo, Manolo apologized for YOUR screw up!" said Man Yung.  "What a Gentleman!"

"Oh yeah, that's right!" I said, remembering.  Manolo is the epitome of a Gentleman.  He always makes sure that his jacket is buttoned when he gets up.  Opening doors for ladies.  Getting up from his seat and standing when someone is greeting him and kissing him hello.  His presence puts everyone at ease, he radiates confidence, courtesy, kindness and grace.

"Manolo is the perfect Gentleman, I agree.  Quite different from what I get from you!" I said to Man Yung.  "When I screw up following you, not only do you not apologize, you give me the evil eye!  And when YOU screw up following me, I apologize to you and you still give me the evil eye!"

"Ah, you know what they say," said Man Yung.  "Love means never having to say you are sorry!"*

*Yeah right! Love means I'M constantly apologizing.  And I've got dual British and Canadian citizenship which means I apologize at least 200% more! **

** Man Yung would like to say that since he is Cantonese Chinese Macho, he apologizes 200% less meaning there is a 400% apologizing deficit.  ***

*** He better treat me to a nice lunch and give me a foot massage because that's a reason for stabbing right there!

All the meat on the fire

Every Argentinian has their own secret asado recipe.  And it is the opinion of every Argentinian that their own secret recipe is the BEST asado recipe ever.  No self-respecting Argentinian will willingly admit that someone else's asado recipe is better than theirs - unless its their dad/mom's/grandparent's recipe or their husband/wife's recipe, in which case they will inherit the said recipe or have a hand in it, which means it's really their recipe and therefore it is still and always the BEST asado recipe ever.

I asked an Argentinian how this works.  How can every Argentinian's secret asado recipe be better than the recipes of all the other Argentinians?  Surely this is logically impossible.

He was not even ruffled by the question.  "It is perfectly logical.  Every asado prepared by an Argentinian at any given moment is the BEST ASADO THERE EVER WAS."

"What if there are two, or a hundred, or a hundred thousand asados being made at the same time? Surely they can't be all the BEST."

"Ah, but we live in a world where time moves forward.  Things happen consequentially, and not exactly contemporaneously.  The asado that comes a split second later is again the BEST ASADO THERE EVER WAS, and so on, and so on."

Ha ha.  But can Argentinians make a Chinese BBQ Squid?

He was rightfully stumped.

Actually BBQ Squid isn't really roasted, it is a marinated/stewed delicacy often found in Chinese BBQ restaurants/stalls.  That orange colour isn't from roasting, it is from tanning lotion.  But the Argentinians don't know that!  Shhhhhhh.....

This is a little known fact, but apparently every Argentinian's Tango is also the BEST TANGO EVER. 

Okay, I made that up.  But Argentinians who dance Tango do know a couple of things about how to dance it better than anybody else and in fact, they treat it like their asado.  

"All the meat on the fire!"  Don't hold back, just throw all those cuts of prime Argentinian beef, intestines, kidneys, sweetbreads etc. on the parilla.  They will all come out well done but the Argentinians like their meat thoroughly cooked anyway.  Rick McGarrey has already talked about it here.  While no Argentinian has actually said this to us in real life it is actually a very good Asado to Tango analogy.  Think this way and you are on your way to reach a mental and spiritual state to dance Tango well. 

"Hey Man Yung, do you think we can do a Chinese BBQ to Tango equivalent?  Like, all the Crispy BBQ Roast Pork in the....oven?"

Man Yung thought for a while.  "Not really.  Chinese Crispy BBQ Roast Pork, BBQ Roast Pork, BBQ Ribs, BBQ Duck, BBQ liver and hearts and BBQ sausage all have different cooking times and preparation methods.  Besides you know that your beloved BBQ Squid isn't even roasted, throw that on the fire and it will come out like a piece of charred leather.  BBQ Squid isn't really BBQ, it's been lovingly soaked in tanning lotion for it's sunny golden/orange glow....And don't even get me started on the marinated duck wings, duck heads, tofu, kidneys and seasoned jellyfish.  You can get all of these at the Chinese BBQ store but they aren't roasted AT ALL."

I made a face.  "DUCK HEADS."  Gross little fellas, consisting of soy sauce halved duck heads with the bills attached.  Man Yung likes them with beer. 

This is why I will never dance Tango as well as an Argentinian.  You can throw all your duck heads into the soy sauce, but would you want to eat them afterwards?* ** ***

1. * A local (Non-Argentinian, but excellent and exceeding popular, not always available for cabeceo due to being busy with hanging out with supermodels) dancer recently described to me the same concept.  "The old guys always told me, 'All the meat on the fire!'  That's how you can dance the best Tango."

I saw this as a splendid opportunity to fish for a compliment.  "You're right!  Now, in your opinion, who in Toronto dances with all their meat on the fire?"  

Hint:  Me!  Me!

 He rubbed his chin pensively for a few seconds.  "Nobody really."

Darn.


2. ** Man Yung said, "Irene, I know you have a thing for avoiding soy sauce duck heads but that's not the whole extent of your problems with dancing Tango well."

"What do you mean?  There's something else?"

"Every Argentinian thinks his mom's cooking is the best.  I think my mom's cooking is the best.  Do you think your mom's cooking is the best?"

I vaguely remember spitting out my mom's cooking and trying to hide it behind my rice bowl at precisely the angle opposite from where she was sitting so she couldn't see what's going on. 

Darn.


3. *** Man Yung wanted to add another nail to my coffin of being able to dance Tango well.   "Well Irene, what do you think of our cats?  Do you think they the most beautiful cats in the world?"

I look at him suspiciously.  "Come on!  What are you getting at with this?"

"Well, do you? Because I do."

I looked at our cats.   A bunch of old grumpy lumps.  They are cute and everything but realistically, they are not THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CATS IN THE WORLD. 

"They're ok but I'm not going to say they are the most beautiful cats in the world."

Man Yung shook his head.  "Too objective, Irene.  I have the most beautiful cats in the world, I dance the most wonderful Tango steps and I communicate the best Tango musicality and feeling in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.  And my tango partner wife is the BEST TANGO PARTNER WIFE in history.  Can you think that?"

"Like, no.  Not unless I was like INSANE."  And whose freaking 'tango partner wife' was he talking about?  Must be some OTHER LADY judging from all his bloody whining and complaining about my dancing and housekeeping skills!   "And don't forget, I have stubby bendy legs."

"Precisely." said Man Yung.  

Darn.


As you can see, Irene may not be doing too well with Tango, but she knows a heck of a lot way too much about Chinese BBQ!  You can read all about it here and here.

"Sudden Consciousness" Hamburger

With the right state of mind, even this hamburger made of cloth and stuffing can be the most delicious meal you've ever had in your life

Man Yung didn't used to be a fan of hamburgers.

"But they are so delicious!" I protested.  "One of the most memorable meals in my life happens to be hamburger.  I had stopped in Aberdeen (on Hong Kong island) on the way home from school - probably to go to the library.  I hadn't had lunch but I didn't have a lot of money, so I went to McDonalds and ordered the cheapest sandwich they had - a plain hamburger with nothing but ketchup, onions and pickles in it.  Eating the hamburger super slowly while watching construction work next to the bus stop and waiting for the bus was a slice of heaven!  It was a taste explosion.  I relished every single bite."

Man Yung scoffed.  "Ah.  But you must have been very hungry."

"A growling, empty stomach added to my pleasure in eating the hamburger but do you understand?  It was one of my life's top culinary moments.  Perhaps even one of my life's top moments, period!"

"You obviously didn't go out much," said Man Yung, still scoffing.  "McDonald's hamburger! Objectively speaking, how could a hamburger taste better than a perfectly grilled t-bone steak?  Or 8 course omakase dinner at Kaji?  Or even stir fried double lobster with ginger and onion sauce?"

Although all experience is in truth subjective, I nevertheless set out to find the most objectively delicious hamburger for Man Yung, just to prove a point.  It wasn't easy.  The ones at the fast-food franchises are yucky and filled with preservatives.  He grumbled at the $15.00 loaded Angus beef hamburger at upscale burger joint M Burger, and found it dry and tasteless.  He refused to have the expensive ones with foie gras, truffle sauce and beef raised on Mozart and shiatsu massages.

I agreed, any burger costing more than $100 (or even $20) was kind of taking it overboard.

Ultimately, I made him a hamburger at home using one of Cook's Illustrated's recipes.

Bingo!  Man Yung had a taste and then looked at me in astonishment.   "Irene, you are right!  Hamburger is one of the most tasty foods around!"

So I kind of won that one...for the moment.  But it was easy for Man Yung to forget how great that burger was.  He starts scoffing after a while, like he couldn't believe that a humble burger could ever beat a plate of deep fried free range chicken marinated in fermented red tofu sauce (for example).  Or he would want to do something fancy with that burger, like put aged grated chenpi (mandarin orange peel) it, or eat it while standing on his head.  Or use a cut of beef of lesser quality.  Or a bread that is different.  Or skip the cheese.  Or pair it with an expensive red wine instead of the cheapo $8 Fuzion Shiraz Malbec we always get at the LCBO.

"Man Yung!  Stop experimenting," I said.  "The hamburger is good in and of itself, and it goes fine with the wine we were having.  It doesn't need to be fancied up."

"But you know I like to push the boundaries.  I cannot be satisfied until all possibilities have been tried and exhausted!" he said.

I don't argue.  I just serve hamburger again.  Man Yung will start eating, refusing to taste it at first due to mental clutter.  And then, in a moment of quiet, when his mind has emptied out....

"Wow Irene!"  He will look at me in surprise.  "How come?  This is one of the best foods I've ever tasted.  Hamburgers are amazing!"*

 * If only his mind would empty out like that when he is dancing!  Then he will realize that any tango he is dancing with me is amazing.  Instead, he gets all grumpy, spazzing out on the new steps he is attempting to replicate from Youtube because I don't get them right away.  And he wonders why dancing with me yesterday was not as great as dancing with me last week, when he hadn't been watching 150 hours of tango on Youtube!  Hurrrrrumph.   

For the curious, here's the recipe we have adapted from the Cook's Illustrated cookbooks for pan-fried hamburger - it's our own lazy version, but the results are good enough for us!

"Sudden Consciousness" Hamburger

Makes 4 Hamburgers

Ingredients:

1 to 1 1/2 lbs of beef (Skirt steak or flap meat is the best, with a good balance between taste, gristle and fat, but is hard to find.  Deboned short rib is also good, rib eye and flank steak also acceptable)

4 Large, soft hamburger buns (we use D'Italiano Brizzolio buns)

Sliced cheese (Real cheese, not processed cheese or spread.  But you don't have to be really fancy - Cracker Barrel or anything like that is good enough.  We use Cracker Barrel sliced mozzarella)

Butter

Method:

1.  Pat the beef dry with clean paper towel.  Mince the beef either using a food processor or preferably manually using a chopping board and meat cleaver.  People familiar with cooking chinese cuisine and a dish called "Yuk beng" or steamed minced pork will know what we mean - you just chop the meat manually until it has the consistency of a a very course grind.

2.  Shape the ground beef into four equal patties.  Don't smoosh them smooth though, the patties should be loose and rough on the edges.

3.  Season the patties on both sides liberally with salt and ground black pepper.

4.  Heat your frying pan to medium low heat.  Put a pat of butter on the pan and once it melts (which it will pretty quickly) spread the butter evenly on bottom of the pan. Put two split hamburger buns  (four pieces total) interior side down onto the pan.  Squash the buns lightly down onto the pan into the hot butter with a fish slice/turner/spatula, checking the side of the bread on the surface of the frying pan after a few seconds to see whether it has become toasted.  Once the bread is toasted a golden brown (around 30 seconds to a minute), remove them to a plate toasted side up.   Add butter to the pan, repeat with with the remaining buns.

5.  Turn the heat up to medium high.  Add a pat of butter, spread on bottom of pan and add the beef patties into the melted butter to start frying the patties.  Do not move the patties once placed in the pan.

6.  After about one minute, when the edge of the patties start to look cooked and gray, turn the patties over with the fish slice to fry them on the other side.  The side that was fried first should be specked with a cooked crust of a light to medium brown colour.

7.  Cover the frying pan for a minute.  Uncover the frying pan, add one slice of cheese on top of each of the patties.  Turn off the heat and cover for 30 seconds more, or until the cheese has melted.

8.  Remove the patties and place them on top of the buns.

The hamburgers using the above method should come out rare or medium-rare, depending on the heat of your stove and the amount of beef in your patty.  Add whatever condiments you like on your burger.  I like to top with sunny side up eggs and bacon with mustard, mayo and ketchup.  Man Yung just eats it plain.   Serve with cheap and cheerful red wine.  Try to eat them with full and sudden consciousness!  They will be the best that you have ever tasted (subjectively speaking).

Trendy/Not Trendy

 A sunny afternoon on Avenida del Libertador

We just returned from Buenos Aires!  We have colds and we are exhausted.  But not too exhausted to tell you what is trendy/not trendy right now in the Tango Capital of the World!:

TRENDY:  Lionel Messi.  His face is everywhere on TV, in billboards, in the news.  World Cup in just a few short weeks!  The hopes of all of Argentina are pinned on him and the rest of the team.

NOT TRENDY:  Buenos Aires.  We have never seen so few tango tourists before in the city.  In 50% of the milongas we went to, WE were the only tourists.  In the rest, there would only be a handful more.  Is it the chilly weather?  Is it because tourists are timing their trip for the Campeonato?  Or is it because of the rise in crime?  Or the slow implosion of the Argentine economy? 

TRENDY:  Porteños "Just Dancing" at local milongas.  They are just desperate to dance, and many dance tanda after tanda after tanda.  No more sitting all night and waiting for one or two tandas with the perfect music and the perfect partner.   Or perhaps, due to rising prices and anxiety about the future, any music is good music and any partner is a good partner - the more you dance, the better bang you will get for your peso.

NOT TRENDY:  Exhibitions.  If the Porteños are there to dance, dance, dance, they don't want their dance time to be interrupted by a 15 minute show by yet another aspiring Campeonato couple. 

TRENDY:  Platform shoes.  Every shoe store stocks them, in heights of two, three or even four inches.  Will being taller make you feel better?

TRENDY:  American Fast Food chains.  Every year it gets worse - McDonalds, Burger King, Subways (!?!!? We have lots of these in Canada but we don't actually know of anyone who eats at these.  The ones in Buenos Aires are doing brisk business) every half block. Who wants to have expensive, quality ice cream at Freddo's when you can get two soft cones at McDonald's for 9 pesos?

TRENDY:  Skin-tight leggings in every colour and pattern and material.  Unfortunately, they do nothing to camouflage or to smooth over lumpy, jiggly behinds or thunder thighs - which have become more and more common since all the Porteños we have seen on the street on average seem to have gained a lot of weight since our last trip.  In 2007, we wondered why Porteños were so skinny even after eating all that pizza and pasta?  Now, we wonder why they have become so fat. Can it be the invasion of American fast food and American stress-eating habits? 

NOT TRENDY:  Nuevo Tango.  We saw a total of ZERO persons dancing in this style - ok, we go to mostly traditional milongas but pre-2010 you were bound to see a few silly souls still doing colgadas and volcadas like New Tango wasn't old and dead.  We were actually amazed to see a famous formerly Nuevo Tango couple dancing - Campeonato/Show Tango style!  He still sported the dirty beard, scruffy hair and raggedy clothing and was constantly staring at the floor while he danced like he was looking for spare change - but give him a haircut and put him in a spiffy suit and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between him and all the hundreds of Campeonato hopefuls soon to be invading the city.

NEVER OUT OF STYLE:  The love of family and friends.  Honesty.  Genuine smiles, warm embraces.  The feeling of just being happy to be together, once again, after a long time apart. 

On the success (or failure) of a Chinese Restaurant in Scarborough

You can get sweet and sour pork anywhere.  But really tasty crispy sweet and sour pork?  

That's not easy to find.

Remember this?  It was pretty traumatic, having our favourite chef and all the waiters walk out all of a sudden.  It was not a pleasant surprise - I believe we dropped our chopsticks in shock at the news.  Where were we going to eat?

We are happy to report that we are still eating at the same restaurant.  Even though the business has changed hands like, three times in two years, things have stabilized with the current owners, kitchen and waitstaff and we didn’t have to hunt for another place for yummy chinese food.

“So what makes a Chinese Restaurant succeed?  And what makes it fail?” asked Man Yung between bites of piping hot crispy roasted chicken (one of the current chef’s signature dishes).

1.    Great food helps...but doesn’t guarantee that you will have lots of customers

The first restaurant had a head chef/owner who used to work at a very prestigious seafood restaurant before he opened his own place.  His cuisine was absolutely delightful - from the basic Stir Fried Beef Rice Noodles and Seafood Fried Rice, to the very special (actually, quite unusual) Bitter Melon and Black Bean Sauce with Lobster, or Goji Berries and Chinese Herb Freerun Chicken Shabu Shabu.  He had a magic touch.

The great food made us repeat customers - but the chef kept on complaining to his staff that he wasn’t getting enough business.  In fact, there were always only a few tables of customers having dinner at his restaurant in the evenings.  What was the problem?

“Do you remember how the head chef always complained that he didn’t have enough ‘Family style customers?’” said Man Yung, “and that families simply stayed away from the restaurant during the evenings?”

“Yes, I remember.  Why, didn’t they like the food? We thought the food was tasty.”

“Well, the problem was the food was too special and too unusual - and it attracted the wrong type of customer.”

Yep, the waiters would come around recommending nightmarish dishes like “Sea Turtle Hot Pot” and “Screaming Wawa Babyfish stew” (it’s a fish that makes a high-pitched noise like a shrieking fetus - you don’t want to know) - we said no, but they were heartily gobbled up by rough-looking individuals who shouted when they talked, laughed outrageously with open mouths filled with food, expelled profanities every second word and thumped the table for emphasis.  What a strange lot they were - they had loads of money and were looking for culinary thrills.

We didn’t mind their shenanigans so much but we started to frequent the restaurant more for lunch than for dinner.

Man Yung analyzed the scenario for me.  “The regular chinese “Family” dining crowd stays away from restaurants with weird (even illegal) delicacies like turtle, wawa babyfish, bear paw or roadkill venison

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/closed-roadkill-deer-found-chinese-restaurant-article-1.1172323

- as well as restaurants with shady-looking patrons who are openly cussing, gambling or playing drinking games (and getting stinking drunk).  Is it all that surprising that despite the tasty food, the first restaurant was not an overwhelming success?”

2.  Great food is sometimes less important than consistent food

The first chef got fed up and left and the restaurant was taken over by a former restaurant manager.  He didn’t know how to cook but he thought that he could keep the food standards up by terrorizing the kitchen staff.  Half the time we were there the owner was yelling at somebody.

Chefs didn’t stay long under this kind of abuse, and the food suffered.  One day my Pork tripe with Mustard Green soup noodle would have intense ground pepper flavour , the next day the same dish would have too many chives and garlic sprinkles, and the day after that there would be no chives, no garlic sprinkles, and more noodle than tripe, and the day after that there would be more tripe than noodle but with plenty of green peppers etc.  Every chef had his own interpretation of the menu and although they tried their best, we got tired of the roller coaster standards and started to eat at the restaurant next door.

The food at the restaurant next door was kind of bland and at least 15% more expensive.  But the restaurant would always be packed!

“Why is this restaurant always so busy?” I asked Man Yung.  “If I had a choice I wouldn’t come and eat here.  The food tastes like someone forgot to add salt.”

“Well, the patrons here might like the food - maybe they are health conscious and think flavour would kill them.  Or perhaps they have gotten used to the style of cooking - and every time they want, for example, blah blanched whole chicken or insipid soy sauce tofu (they NEVER had enough soy sauce in that dish - we always had to ask for more on the side) they can always come and eat and get exactly the same dish they ordered the last time.”

There’s a restaurant just half a block away that is the exactly opposite - the seasoning was always heavy-handed and the sauces were always way too thick, like congealed phlegm.  And there’s another restaurant two blocks away where the dim sum contains meat that has been ground so thoroughly that it feels like toothpaste on your tongue. But those places were always packed too!  

Now, I’m not saying that if you served food that tasted like you just boiled everything in water or food that is oily, salty and drowning in thick lumpy sauces you would be a roaring success.  However, if you keep the food consistent(ly bad), you might attract people who like their food watery/chunky/pasty.  Because there’s no accounting for taste and there’s lots of people in the world who can’t tell well-prepared, delicious food from badly-prepared, gross-out food.

3.  If there’s someone working in the restaurant who rubs you the wrong way, you will just stop going there.

We patronized the restaurant next door because we got pretty chummy with the waiters and we were too lazy to go out and try any other restaurants.

We only stopped going because a new waiter started working and we hated him.

“Why does he always have an expression like someone has killed his entire family?” we asked each other.  “When he comes over, he throws the menu onto the table.  When he takes our order, he doesn’t nod or say anything or even react - he just wanders off when he thinks we are done speaking.  When he brings the food, he just shoves it into any available space on the tabletop.  When we want to pay and leave, he snatches up our cash without a thank you.”

After a few weeks of this, Man Yung was prepared to go back to the first restaurant - inconsistent food or no.  “I can live with the tasteless food - but I can’t stand another minute of that kind of service.”

4.  You don’t have to be the best restaurant in the world but with all the right ingredients you can still be a success!

We returned to the first restaurant - by now, the belligerent owner/manager was gone (he gambled away his shares - one sure way to ensure restaurant failure is to gamble your restaurant away) and the restaurant was being run by the sous-chef and his brother.

Now, the sous-chef had been there since the beginning.  He wasn’t a brilliant chef - like, he couldn’t pull any rabbits (or turtles, or shrieking wawa babyfish) out of a hat (or a wok) and he probably wouldn’t be able to get a job as a head chef anywhere else.  We thought - uh-oh, this restaurant might be changing hands very soon again....

Pleasant surprise (for once!)  The restaurant business started off slow, but gradually it got busier and busier.  Now, whenever we go for dinner, there are lines forming outside the door and there are plenty of “Family” style customers filling the tables.

The sous-chef wasn’t a culinary genius - he and his brother didn’t put their effort into making very inventive or unusual dishes.  Their signature dishes were crispy roast chicken, and sweet and sour pork - every restaurant has these items.  However, they made them fresh with care and almost every table ordered a plate of one or both.  They stuck to the basics - beef, chicken, pork, fish, the most widely available vegetables, common shellfish, rice and noodle dishes - and put their heart in it.  

And the customers kept on coming back.

“So, do you think we can draw a parallel between the success and failure of a Chinese Restaurant and the success and failure of a Milonga?” I asked Man Yung.

Happy 2013!

We dance less Tango during the holidays, but that doesn't mean we stayed at home for two weeks and did nothing but wave a string at a handful of playing cats (sorry kitties!)

We put on our chicken and rabbit toques and cozy parkas and went out walking in the park almost every day.  We weren't deterred at all by the snow!:

A beautiful, sunny - COLD day at the park. 

 All our Argentinian Facebook friends shivered when they looked at these photos

All that walking meant we worked up quite an appetite - and there were plenty of opportunities to get together with friends for delicious hot lunches at our favourite Chinese restaurant:

Two different types of boiling hot congee, roasted squab with prawn crackers, 

and Szechuan shrimp fried noodles

When we did stay home, we stuffed ourselves with massive amounts of chocolate and gained 20 pounds each:

Just kidding!  We had a very disciplined approach to eating chocolate.  Once a day, we would each select one chocolate from the box.  Then we would cut the chocolate into half - and we would get to each eat two different halves - double the taste but with the calories of one chocolate.  

We can still fit into our pre-Christmas pants!

I made progress with my Alice Starmore Eriskay Fisherman's Sweater:

Almost finished - just half a sleeve to go.  I started knitting Eriskay on October 8, 2010.  

Thank god it is a timeless, classic design - because if it wasn't, it would have been out of fashion at least twice by now!  If you are curious, the yarn I used is from Frangipani in the UK - I love knitting with their high quality guernsey yarns and I have been their happy customer for many years.

And when we went out dancing, we Tango-Crashed a New Year's Eve ballroom party at Mad for Dance studios:

Admiring the New Year's Eve decorations at Mad for Dance studios

Even though Michael and Raija of Mad for Dance studios have not hosted a milonga for many years now, the very first milonga we ever attended was held at their studio, and we still practice at their studio once every week.  We still support them and look forward and enjoy going to their special dances throughout the year.  They put a lot of time and effort into decorating their studio for these special events - and they always had delicious treats and drinks at all their parties, even when they organized a weekly milonga (and we didn't have to pay extra for the food!)  The special dances they have these days have more ballroom music than Tango music as they hold the dances for their ballroom dancing students and friends, but we still have a blast at their parties.  We only know one kind of dancing (actually two - we kind of know the basic Chacarera but how on earth can we do that to "Black Magic Woman"?), so we just do that kind of dancing to all of the music.  Yes, we are such dorks! We're pretty sure that we must seem quite weird to all the ballroom dancing people because we don't know any "quick-quick-slow" or "left-right-left-right"!

We murder "The Foxtrot" and "The Rumba" with "The Tango".  Don't try this at home!

Hope that everyone had a relaxing and joyful holiday season and all the best for a healthy, happy and prosperous 2013!

The Crispy B.B.Q. Pork Equation 2: We explain using Tango examples why your Chinese B.B.Q. doesn't taste that good

 "I made this crispy B.B.Q. pork all by myself!"

We aren't having much luck with our Chinese B.B.Q. lately.

Man Yung is rolling his eyes in exasperation.  "Not again!  This crispy B.B.Q. pork is not only not crispy, it is oily and tasteless as well!"

And I thought that after the life lessons learnt in "The Crispy B.B.Q. Pork Equation", we would forever more only make totally failproof B.B.Q. purchases.  After all, don't we order crispy B.B.Q. pork by the "bone" and not by the pound? Are we not "chums" with the B.B.Q. chef and know all about "secret handshake"?  And aren't we always choosing the best B.B.Q. meats solely based on the flavour and texture due to the fat to meat ratio, irregardless of health and diet concerns?

No, we are not doing anything wrong - in fact we are doing everything right.  But as we all know by now, the Crispy B.B.Q. Pork Equation is not about getting $10 of value for $10.  It is not even about getting $8 of value for $10, or $6.99 of value for $3.99, etc.

Just look at these very annoying recent examples:

1.    I made it myself!

We got invited to a pot luck party recently.  In order for there to be variety in the food at the party, the hostess arranged for everyone to be responsible for a different dish.  Mr. White will bring the sushi, Mr. Orange will bring the roasted chicken, Mr. Blonde will be responsible for the salads, and Mr. Pink will bring the crispy B.B.Q. roasted pork.*

* And afterwards we all went on a diamond heist.  We have a very busy schedule on the weekends.

So everyone showed up at the party and brought their designated dish.  All the food was delightfully enjoyed by all - except for Mr. Pink's crispy B.B.Q. roasted pork.

"Come on guys!  There's still plenty left over!  Don't you want some?  It's good - I made it myself!" proclaimed Mr. Pink.

No, we didn't want any of the B.B.Q. pork.  Instead of being crispy, the skin was as tough as leather.  And instead of being tender and juicy, the meat was as dry as the Sahara desert.

Somebody quick, tell Mr. Pink that you can't make your own B.B.Q. pork in your oven to the same standard that you could get in any ol' B.B.Q. take-out in town!  The B.B.Q. chef roasts the whole pig at once - a small piece of pork would dry out in the heat of your oven just like that.  In addition, the B.B.Q. chef has perforated the skin with a professional grade needle brush like, hundreds of times in order to prepare the skin for roasting into a golden crispiness.  A couple of stabs with a dining fork will not give you the same effect.

And really, Mr. Pink - how much would it cost to buy your crispy B.B.Q. pork from the take-out?  $5.00 per pound?  $6.00 per pound?  Yes, you saved some pennies "making your own" but you really have wasted all your money and your effort when not even the dog would eat what you made.

TANGO EQUIVALENT:  Those clever dancers who "poo-poo" taking lessons since they could save their hard-earned cash and learn everything by watching Youtube!   And are they still wondering why no-one wants to invite them to dance at the milonga?

2.  Refried, refried, and refried again

There's a fascinating B.B.Q. take-out at Peachtree Centre in Markham.   Whenever we are in the plaza, we always make sure we pass by so we could gawk....in absolute horror.

"OMG Man Yung, just look at the colour on that piece of crispy B.B.Q. pork!"  I whispered really loudly to Man Yung.

Yes indeed, it was something quite special to see.  The pork was evenly BLACK - on the outside...and the inside!

The B.B.Q. duck, the honey B.B.Q. pork, and the B.B.Q. chicken didn't fare much better.

We've tried to surreptitiously take a photo of the B.B.Q. counter but the B.B.Q. chef was always hovering nearby glaring angrily at gawkers like ourselves. We didn't want to risk getting a meat cleaver thrown at us so we just pretended to pass by on our way to another store.

In order to save money and reduce waste, the B.B.Q. chef took the stale B.B.Q. leftovers from the previous day - and he just deep fried them again and hung them out for sale the next day.  Moreover, he never roasted a whole pig - he'd buy just a section, for example, half a rib cage, and roast that.  And as you can see in our cautionary tale in #1 above, the best results are reached in roasting the whole pig at once.  If you roast only a part of a pig (especially in an industrial-sized oven) or refry your meat again and again throughout the week, you will get a product that is closer to being charcoal than meat. 

And the most horrible thing was - some intrepid customers still went to eat at that shop!  Either they couldn't tell the difference, or they liked their meat to taste like coals and ashes - or, they were just cheap, because you can get a bowl of noodles with a side of really burnt B.B.Q. with a pop for like, three bucks.*

* But you can pretty much get decent lunch with a drink from any Chinese take-out for $3.00, so WTF, why are you guys still going to eat there?

TANGO EQUIVALENT:  When not so good Tango Dancers decide to become not so good Tango Instructors.

They may be of the "undercooked" sort - they've only been dancing for X number of months, they have learned either very little or learned something wrong - but now they have decided that they are ready to out there and teach.  Or, they might had been dancing for ages, but they learned how to Tango in the nineties from the luminaries of various "Traveling Tango Extravaganzas" - and therefore still have no clue about dancing in a social setting.  Or, they have never been particularly talented dancers or have particularly relevant insights into dancing, but they have been dancing so long, it's time to "Graduate" and become Tango instructors.

What these chaps have to offer is not good to begin with or quite possibly refried, but some oddballs will still take their classes.  As we had said, "Nobody could tell the difference/Some like the taste of ashes/Some are cheap!"  You go girl! (guy!)

3.  Looks good, but is not so good

We have been looking and looking for a good B.B.Q. take-out for ages.  We thought we found a good one at Midland and Sheppard - but then the quality of their crispy B.B.Q. pork has suddenly gone down lately.  We thought we found a promising one at Midland and McNicoll after we tasted some of the B.B.Q. duck there - but then we were disappointed AGAIN when we bought some crispy B.B.Q. pork today.

"I thought the B.B.Q. pork skin looked quite good on the outside, and it's kind of crispy - it has all the visual factors to indicate a well-roasted pig.  But why is the meat so fat, and so tasteless?" asked Man Yung.

"You know what, I knew something was wrong when you told me that your order of two bones cost $13.00.  As far as I know, the average cost of two bones is about $8.00 to $10.00 at the most." I replied.

As we might have mentioned before, the key to making delicious crispy B.B.Q. pork is to puncture the skin of your roast a sufficient number of times prior to roasting.  This serves two functions. Firstly, it changes the texture of the skin so that when it roasts, it becomes crispy.  Secondly, the holes allow the sub-cutaneous fat under the skin to liquify in the heat into oil and seep out of the skin during roasting.

It seems that B.B.Q. chefs have become quite innovative.  Perhaps it's because their costs are up - wholesale food prices have increased, as have utilities and rent - or perhaps they just want more profit.

Instead of puncturing the skin all the way to the fat underneath, the chefs have just punctured the skin, short of the layer of fat.  This way, the skin still ends up kind of crispy - but the fat has no way to escape.  The resulting roast is heavier - and the B.B.Q. chef will make more money from it.  So, our $13.00 has bought us the same amount of meat that we would have purchased in an $8.00 pre-B.B.Q. "innovation" order - but with $5.00 of extra fat.  Our order is less tasty too because the B.B.Q. chef has applied the same amount of marinade, which has to season the 30% of extra fat remaining in the roast.

TANGO EQUIVALENT: Championship Style Salon Tango Clones.  They look more elegant, they "walk" more fine.  They win more prizes, they have better resumes and marketing and they make more money!

But they don't taste good at all - where's the music, where's the soul?  Apparently , these "Barbie and Ken Championship Salon Tango dolls" are manufactured somewhere in China so that the people who are attracted by exterior appearance alone and can't tell the difference between "Zombie-like, by the rulebook going-through-the-motions movements robotically "timed" to the music (and yes, they can program that, down to the pauses and the footwork and stuff!)" and real, flesh and blood dancing will open their wallets for classes and more classes. 

And what should we do with the remaining crispy B.B.Q. pork?  "Don't worry, we'll add a little savoury shrimp sauce, some chives, and some Tofu, and turn this tasteless meat into a delicious "Big Horse Stand!"* said Man Yung.

* Big Horse Stand:  A Chinese Tofu dish using leftover crispy B.B.Q. pork with strong stinky salty shrimp sauce as seasoning.  This makes even the worst leftovers taste better.  They used to serve this at horse stations to open-air restaurant stalls - therefore the weird name!

Lai Lai

Lai Lai Chinese Restaurant (Arribeños 2168) in Belgrano - Buenos Aires Chinatown

When Jessie and Dorian from Vancouver visited Toronto a few weeks ago, they recommended that we try Lai Lai in Belgrano for some authentic chinese food during our trip - just in case we felt in any way homesick.  With a sunny warm Saturday morning free of any planned activities, we decided to make the long trek there from Santa Fe and Callao.

"Take the bus, it goes right there!" said Juan José, the friendly shoe shine guy on the corner.  Since we are adamantly not locals (you can even say blatantly touristy), we decided to take a taxi instead.

Even though it was the weekend, it was traffic all the way.  Lots of time to look at the streetscape of Santa Fe and Cabilde as we passed - and to ogle at lovers making out in bus shelters:

The trip to the heart of Chinatown at Mendoza and Arribeños cost 40 pesos.  It was just before noon, so Lai Lai and many of the other restaurants (like Todo Contento, another chinese restaurant we had tried before on previous trips) were still closed.  We took some time to walk around to re-acquaint ourselves with Buenos Aires Chinatown.  We haven't been here since 2008.

The last couple of times we were here we were on tight schedules - classes during the day or Camicando workshops with Martha and Manolo meant that visiting Chinatown had to be hit and run.  We got our instant noodles from the chinese supermarket, and then left!  When we discovered that we could get the same cup noodles at the Carréfour near our hotel (and in better, more Argentinian flavours, like Cheese and Tomato and Chicken) we didn't need to go to Chinatown anymore.  This time we could enjoy more of Chinatown.

It's pretty busy - there's lots of Chinese people but also lots of Argentinians, and every store and restaurant has some Argentinian staff.  We saw help wanted posters on the windows - asking for applicants with DNI.  When we were at Todo Contento, the boss there told us there is now a requirement for all stores to hire a certain number of locals, so you will find Argentinian (as opposed to Chinese or Chinese-Argentinian) sales clerks, waiters and chefs everywhere you go in Chinatown.  This is completely different than the situation in Toronto Chinatown, where Chinese stores and restaurants have 100% staff of chinese ethnicity.

We didn't see this the last time we were here:

Gates of Chinatown

The big election is next weekend so the supporters and campaigners are out in force everywhere we turn.  Martha told me that people over 70 don't have the vote (!!?!) and so I think that's why the people giving out flyers didn't hand any to our elderly taxi driver when we stopped at the traffic lights on the way to Chinatown.  We also didn't get any flyers because with our Tilley hats and other dorky accoutrements, we look like we are from outer space - and I don't think space invaders get to vote in Argentina either.

After a leisurely walk around the block it was time for lunch at Lai Lai.  Lai Lai means "Come Come" in Chinese - and Man Yung explains that one of the two most important hotels in Taipei, Taiwan (in his day) was called Lai Lai Fan Tien, with Fan meaning "Cooked Rice" and "Tien" meaning "Lodgings".  The most common word for "Hotel" in Chinese is "Zhou Tien" which means "Alcoholic Beverage Lodgings" which, strangely enough in the olden days of Man Yung's youth, meant much more basic lodgings several levels below "Cooked Rice Lodgings".  As for why it could be that a place where you can eat cooked rice meant a luxurious 5-star hotel while a place where you could drink alcohol meant a 2 to 3 star hotel, I don't know and I welcome any coherent explanations as to same.

Lai Lai was starting to get busy when we went in.  Apart from another table of regulars, we were the only chinese - the rest were Argentinians.  They like Lai Lai chinese food!

Ambience at Lai Lai - the wall trim has postcards of colourful scenery from all over Taiwan

We ordered  Rice Noodles (Ho Fan) with Beef, Fried Onion with Beef (we figured that Beef in Buenos Aires is a failsafe choice), and Hot and Sour soup.  The soup came first - it looked authentic and tasted great with strong peppery and vinegary flavour.

The proprietress came over to talk to Man Yung (people love to start a conversation with Man Yung wherever we go). She's been living in Argentina for 28 years!  She was part of the immigration wave out of Taiwan in the early 80's.  Man Yung explained to me that people were starting to make money in Taiwan starting late 70's and early 80's due to the manufacturing and technology boom.  Since the Taiwanese still feared invasion from mainland China, they took their money and immigrated to many different places in the world.  Many immigrated to Panama (Taiwan had close political, technology and trade connections with Panama because of the Panama Canal works) but others went to other parts of Central and South America too, including Argentina.

"There were only about 3000 Chinese in Chinatown when I arrived," said the proprietress, "Most were Taiwanese with 20% Cantonese.  Now there are more and more immigrants from Mainland China, mostly from Fujian province."  Toronto is also experiencing more immigrants from China and Fujian province in particular - enormously resourceful people.  Man Yung knows of many Chinese who made their way first to places in South America - and then bought a plane ticket to the States or Canada.  Some would destroy their identification and passports en route, arrive in Canada and declare refugee status.  Both Man Yung and the proprietress agreed that it was very daring - the Taiwanese and Hong Kongers usually went by the regular route and applied for immigration!

The rest of our food arrived:

Rice Noodles (Ho Fan) with Beef and Fried Onion with Beef at Lai Lai

Now, we ordered Rice Noodles (Ho Fan) as an experiment.  It is only in places with a large population of Chinese people that you can get the best Ho Fan - it has to be made fresh daily and delivered each day in order to have a supple but soft bite.  This is fine for places like Toronto with its own Ho Fan and Chinese noodle factories - but places a little further like Hamilton or Ottawa you may find it impossible to find good Ho Fan.  In fact, freshness is so important, Man Yung tries not to order Ho Fan at a restaurant any time after 8:30 p.m. because this means the Ho Fan has been sitting in the kitchen fridge all day and would have become stiff and hard. The Ho Fan used by Lai Lai tastes good, but it has a springy texture which usually means it was made from reconstituted dried rice noodles rather than the freshly made kind we have in Toronto.  "I've been to Toronto too," said the proprietress - "The Chinese food here can't compare to what you have in Toronto!  We simply can't get the same kind of ingredients."  The beef at Lai Lai, however, is of the finest quality - not like some of the beef you can find in Chinese restaurants in Toronto, which have been "tenderized" to death with baking soda and such.

"We tried to keep all our dishes authentic here in this restaurant," said the proprietress.  "Some of the other Chinese Restaurants cater to the people here and offer a mix of Argentinian and Chinese, but we stick to tradition." We asked the proprietress to recommend the signature dish of the restaurant - and she told us to try the "Three Cups of Wine chicken":

Three Cups of Wine Chicken at Lai Lai

Man Yung loved the tasty whole garlic cloves in this casserole!  We better not bump into any milongueras tonight.

So there you have it!  A day in Buenos Aires without food from La Madeleine.  If you get a chance to visit Chinatown, we recommend that you try Lai Lai for some authentic Taiwanese style cuisine.

* Some other interesting things we found in Chinatown:  A huge RAT running into a store of imported Chinese knick knacks!  It was so big I thought it was a dog.  And the people shopping in the store who saw the rat running in didn't even blink or jump when the rat leaped over their feet.  And in the Taiwanese Cultural Centre, there was a notice for... Tango Lessons.  A chica called Emi, apparently the 'Only Taiwanese to receive certification from the University of Tango in Buenos Aires' is teaching Tango there 'for improvement of health', with a practica following the class.  Too bad she is teaching on Tuesdays, we missed it.  Darn.

The Crispy B.B.Q. Pork Equation

My mother put a few dollars in my hand and a shopping list. I was nine and therefore finally old enough to be entrusted with the onerous responsibility of buying a few groceries at the clean new market - so off I went. Short, skinny, disheveled and wearing a tatty hand-me-down t-shirt two sizes too big, I ambled up the steep white concrete sidewalk in my flip-flops to "Chi Fu Commercial Centre", the brand new mall serving our brand new highrise neighbourhood of Chi Fu Fa Yuen.

Chi Fu Commercial Centre, Hong Kong

Mom kept it simple - my chinese was not good as I went to an English school and I wasn't too smart! I had to buy a few eggs which I had to hold up one by one to the lightbulb dangling in the egg section in the supermarket to check for "impurities". To this day I still don't know what I was looking at or looking for, but luckily I never bought too many rotten eggs! I also had to buy a piece of fish belly at the fish stall. It was fascinating looking at the still beating hearts and lungs of the newly slaughtered and halved fish lying grotesquely on ice.

The easiest part of my shopping expedition was the B.B.Q. pork. You can find cantonese-style B.B.Q. everywhere you go in Hong Kong and in expatriate chinese communities everywhere around the world. It's just as common, and important, to chinese people as asado is to the Argentinians - but chinese people are just much more low-key about it. In fact, chinese people eat so much chinese B.B.Q. it could almost be considered it's own separate food group.

Cantonese-style B.B.Q.

"Ask the man at the counter for $10 worth of Char Siu - extra lean," Mom said. So I did. The man at the counter unceremoniously took my $10 bill, grabbed a random piece of Char Siu hanging from the metal skewer, chopped it up, put it in the container, and shoved it back at me through the window. Mission accomplished!

Fast forward fifteen years later to Toronto, Canada. B.B.Q. pork is one of Man Yung's favourite foods - goes exceptionally well with Scotch. He was busy teaching karate class so he asked me to drive out to what he considered the best B.B.Q. joint in town at Sheppard and Brimley.

"Tell the man at the counter that you want 'two bones' of Siu Yuk," Man Yung said.

"What the hell is 'two bones'?" I asked. "How many pounds does that weigh? How much does it cost?"

Man Yung had to hurry back to class. "Just ask for 'two bones'!" he said before whipping back into the dojo.

At the B.B.Q. counter, I was still confused. What is "two bones" worth of anything? Which bones was he talking about? Leg bones? Head bones? Or was it some ancient chinese measurement like a "tael" or a "catty"?

It was my turn. "What do you want?" asked the man at the counter.

I looked at the $20 bill that Man Yung had given me. "Ummm...... how much Siu Yuk can I get for $20?"

I ended up with four pounds of the driest, leanest part of pork rump. Eating it was a little bit like munching sawdust.

"You should have asked for 'two bones'," said Man Yung as he choked down a mouthful.

It was a sad day when I started to realize that certain things are meant to be vague, mysterious and unquantifiable, and some things in life cannot be reduced to a series of logical equations. I wish that it was not so, and that Mom's way of looking at things would always be right. If you ask for $10 worth of something, you should get at least $10 of value back.

"That's what you may think," Man Yung said, reading this post. "When you went to buy your Char Siu in Hong Kong, I'm pretty sure the B.B.Q. place cheated you. What kind of idiot asks for $10 worth of Char Siu? It just shows to the B.B.Q. people that you have no idea how B.B.Q. works. That's why the man at the counter was so rude to you all the time. He could give you $8 worth, or $9 worth - and he knew neither you nor your mom would ever know the difference. You have to talk in his language to get his respect."

In all, you have to know the "Secret Handshake" of Chinese B.B.Q. to get decent B.B.Q.! From more than a decade of experience, I can tell you this is what I know now:

1. A "bone" of Siu Yuk refers to one of the ribs on a half pig. The rib is the tastiest part of the pig for "B.B.Q. connoisseurs" like Man Yung, and to people who make B.B.Q. The layered fat and meat means that this part is the juiciest part of the pig - and the meat will not be overly greasy, or have large chunks of fat attached. The meat will also be intensely flavoured because the spices and marinade are spread on the inside of the rib cage before roasting.

2. The rib is where the crispy skin, fat and meat on the rib are in perfect proportion to each other. On the other hand, bite sized pieces of the rump always have either too much dry meat or large pieces of fat. Since the meat and fat are thick on the rump, the marinade will not reach the meat and it tastes bland.

3. You always order two, or at most three bones for a meal for the average family. One bone is too thin and therefore almost impossible to slice accurately from the hanging carcass, especially if the roast is piping hot from the oven. "Goddamn that woman asking for one bone and ONLY one bone! I almost burnt my fingers off!" we overheard the B.B.Q. chef say, talking about the customer ahead of us in the line one day.

A request for "four bones" will elicit the question: "Do you want that chopped or not?" People usually order four bones so they have a whole intact piece to put in front of the altar at the temple as an offering to the gods or to the ancestral spirits.

Six bones, on the other hand appears to be default amount for people holding a "thrifty" wedding banquet. Chinese people must have roasted pork at their weddings for good luck. The rich can afford a whole roasted suckling (unfortunately, the little ones are more succulent) pig at each table of the wedding banquet, but the poor may have to make do with just a large piece of a big pig. Nowadays the wedding guests eat the roasted pork right at the banquet, but in the good ol' days, the groom received the bride first into his house - and if she was a virgin as advertised, the groom's family will send the bride's family a roasted pig on the third day.

To this day, my parents are still waiting for the roast pig delivery.

4. Asking a B.B.Q. chef for "$10" or "a pound" of rib Siu Yuk, or even Char Siu, means that you don't know what you are talking about or that you are looking for trouble. In order to make it exactly to "$10" or "a pound", the chef will have to leave half or a quarter of rib, or a part of a piece of Char Siu still hanging on the skewer. He's going to have a hard time selling to another customer what you didn't want in your quest for the exact "$10" amount or "a pound", and he will curse you for it.

5. To the B.B.Q. chef, rump of Siu Yuk is the favourite of people who don't care for flavour: for little kids who want the fat to be clearly demarcated from the meat so they can spit it out ("Fat! Ewwww!") and for upper-class people over-fastidious about what they eat ("I'll just have a little bit of white meat on the side, thank you. Just a tad. And no sauce. I'm watching my cholesterol"). Ditto for "extra-lean" Char Siu - it's for kids who don't understand the flavour in a little fat, and people watching their diet. Health be damned, B.B.Q. in its most greasy, juicy, burnt, salty, intense glory is to be savoured and enjoyed!

Order "two bones" of Siu Yuk or a piece of "half lean half fat" Char Siu from the B.B.Q chef and you can sometimes watch him smile secretly to himself and go dreamy-eyed. He's thinking back to old days when people knew how to order B.B.Q. and weren't so picky and uptight about getting their $10 or a pound's worth of B.B.Q. He may also be thinking about how wonderful it would be to chew on a couple of ribs of Siu Yuk accompanied by a shot of rice wine in front of the t.v. after a hard day's work. Not only do we get a smiling B.B.Q. chef happy to serve us who will recognize us and treat us like regular customers right away, we may even get some extra B.B.Q. for free!

So as for Chinese B.B.Q., it is for Tango (you knew that this was coming, right?)

If everything works in Tango as my mother thought it should for Chinese B.B.Q., the amount of effort I put in Tango should equate to the Tango result I get at the end of the day. But is this true?

When I'm well-rested, wearing comfortable shoes, dancing on a very good smooth floor to the best music, does this mean that I will dance my best?

No.

When I've danced my best, will I be able to achieve my best again if I try consciously to duplicate everything I did on that former occasion (down to the adornments I was doing and the perfume I was wearing)?

No.

Do dancers who have taken classes with fifty or more "big name, big hype" teachers dance better than someone who has only followed one or a few local or less well-known teachers?

Not necessarily.

Do dancers who have spent $$ on private classes always dance better than dancers who have only taken group classes and never spent a dime on a private class?

Not at all.

Will a dancer who has traveled to Buenos Aires ten times, or has spent ten months (or more) in Buenos Aires end up dancing better than dancers who stayed home?

Not in Toronto that we've seen.

Will channeling "Fino Rivera" or "Tete" or "Fabian Peralta" or "Javier Rodriguez" or "Chicho Frumboli" or "Pablo Veron" or the current ubiquitous trendy "Campeonato style" in posture, step repertoire, haircut and fashion details make you as good a dancer as the original (or at least getting there?)

Humbug.

Would the ability to write good resume, to craft an ambitious "Tango World Domination Master Game Plan" and plenty of effort in self-promotion make you better at Tango?

As George W. Bush once said: "You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." But it won't make you better at Tango.

Unfortunately, it seems from our tango experience that $10 in Tango input does not equate in a $10 Tango return. It may even result in considerably less!

"What kind of idiot is looking for a good rate, or equivalent rate of return on their Tango investment?" asked Man Yung. "Why can't they just enjoy it without worrying about what they can get out of it or what kind of status they can achieve with it?"

Scientists and economists have not yet been able to identify and measure units of Tango. Sometimes, grasping at all of Tango's mysterious, nebulous Tango-ness can be quite frustrating.

Luckily, Tango is one of the things that can give you a lot more than you intentionally put in. On good days, Tango can even give you a little bit of the infinite.

Happy 2010 to everyone and may everyone find vast amounts of Tango bliss wherever they go!