Fudy is NOT Argentina's Answer to American Food, But it's a Start

A few weeks ago, we found some frozen food items at Walmart that got us very excited. The brand is called Fudy and their products made our mouths water... at least initially. So let me tell you more about them.

1. WAFFLES

We have two waffle makers at home, one of which we had to throw out because it no longer worked. So to have the convenience of pre-made waffles on hand was just too good to pass up.

But did they measure up to Eggo Waffles from the States? Well, not exactly. Eggo Waffles are round while these were square shaped. Of course, the shape is irrelevant as long as they taste good. But did they? Well, if I'm being honest, they were a bit dry, but that's something we easily fixed with some butter and some honey. 

I wish we had Maple Syrup but there's only one place in Cordoba that sells it: Almacen de Mario. Unfortunately, the last time we were there they only had the big bottles, which were about the size of a gallon of milk and were a bit pricey. So the honey was a quick fix.

Would I get them again? Absolutely. They're easy to make every morning, but only 6 come in a box, so it looks like we'll have to pay Walmart a visit soon. Hopefully, the product is still available once the store transitions from Walmart into whatever it's supposed to become in 2021. Now on to the next product.

2. ICE CREAM COOKIE SANDWICH

They probably have a variety of ice cream cookie sandwiches in some of the Argie's ice cream parlors, but I haven't seen them. So, this was a nice surprise for me. The best thing is that Fudy's ice cream cookie sandwiches are ready to eat. You simply open the individual wrappers and serve on a plate. The instructions recommend that you let the sandwich thaw for about 15 minutes, but who has time for that? Am I right? This one was definitely a winner!

3. CROISSANTS

We've been craving Pillsbury croissants for almost 9 years now, but there's still no indication that they'll ever hit the shelves here in Argentina. So, naturally, we were very excited when we saw that Fudy offered croissants in a box. Now most locals will probably say, "what's the big deal?" Well the "big deal" is that the croissants made by Argentine bakeries are sweet. And whenever I ask them if they could make a salty variation, they look at me as if I've grown a second head. Fortunately, the VEA supermarkets around here offer salty croissants that are adequate. But the ones on the Fudy box seemed more in tune with the ones we're used too. So we gave them a try.

The croissants weren't really a hit but they weren't necessarily a miss either. They were okay, but they didn't have that fluffy, warm bread texture we've come to expect from a decent croissant. Still, if you add a little butter on them like we did, they'll be just fine. But would we buy them again? It's a safe bet that we won't.

And while the other three items didn't exactly ring our bell, we wouldn't exactly call them an epic fail like the last product on this list.

4. CHOCOLATE LAVA CAKES

Chocolate lava cakes were a must in every Domino's Pizza order we made when we were living in the Bronx. For those of you who have never tried it, it's basically a small pyramid shaped cake with liquid chocolate in the middle. Once you stick your fork into it and take a piece out, the chocolate will spew like lava, hence why they're called lava cakes.

Unfortunately, they're kind of tricky to make just like a soufflé. If you don't cook them right, the whole thing turns into an epic food fail. Well, that's exactly what happened to us. We followed the instructions to the letter. 

Once we took them out of the oven, we waited for them to cool for about 10 minutes. Then we flipped one of them over and it disintegrated on the plate.

At first, I thought, okay, maybe the box was wrong and it needed more than 15 minutes in the oven. So I tried saving the last lava cake by placing it back in the oven and allowing it to cook for an additional 10 minutes. But when I flipped the cup over to drop the lava cake on the plate, I had the same results. It was more chocolate lava than cake.

We were really disappointed to say the least, so we will definitely not be buying this again.

********

Did we get our hopes up too high that the Argies were finally introducing products that were more American? Yes! But fortunately, there are other things down here that can truly put a smile on our faces. And I look forward to telling you more about them sometime in 2021.

Gregory's Donuts: Pretty on the Outside, DISGUSTING on the Inside

They're pretty on the outside but DISGUSTING on the inside. I'm talking about the Christmas themed donuts from Gregory's Donuts.

When we opened the box, the donuts were so big and beautifully decorated, that we got very excited. The hubs even told me that it was worth dealing with the locals who didn't respect social distancing and didn't wear their masks in downtown Cordoba City.

But when we bit into the donuts, our souls left our body and disappointment and sadness took over. Now, I've said this once, and I will say it again. There could be 30 donut shops in Cordoba City but most of them have no f*cking idea how to make a decent donut. You can add Gregory's Donuts to that list. Their donuts tasted like stale bread with sugar fondant on top, and the filling was nothing more than a teaspoon's worth.

Donuts are supposed to be semi-soft and sweet. This company thought they could slap an American name on their box, call their products donuts and assume everything would be okay. Well, they might appeal to the locals as a lot of bakeries around here offer donuts that are just as bad as this. But they sure as f*ck didn't appeal to us.

We ended up eating the sugary outside and then tossing the rest, but the nightmare didn't end here. Gregory's Donuts had been advertising what they call their "donut salado" or salty donut on Instagram for a couple of weeks. I had assumed that this was their attempt to make bagels since it was visually similar right up to the sesame seeds on top.

But what we got was nothing more than stale bread with a burnt top. I could also taste the oil they used to fry their "salty donut." To be blunt. They were disgusting!

So, basically, this purchase was nothing more than money that went into the trash. Merry f*cking Christmas, Gregory's Donuts. I hope you go out of business soon. We also found a hair inside the box. Thank you so much for that! Wear a hair net when prepping food next time. It's a health regulation in the States that you would be wise to adopt here in Argentina.

Meanwhile, we will definitely be sticking with American Donuts while keeping our fingers crossed that House of Donas will reappear sometime in the near future.

Here's How We Stayed Merry in Argentina During Christmas 2020

Staying "Merry" during Christmas hasn't always been easy since we moved to Argentina, but we've been fortunate to have each other and some very dear friends to accompany us during the holidays. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case in 2020 for obvious reasons. But we didn't allow the pandemic, the extreme South American heat, the annoying neighbors or the usual limited water supply in our neighborhood from dampening our Christmas spirit.

Now if there's one thing you should know by now is that we love to decorate almost as much as we love to cook. That's pretty evident from the photos above. But we didn't want to make the same meals that we had in previous holidays like chicken, ham, Argentine barbeque or even international cuisine, like the Venezuelan food that we ordered last year from D'Lucas. So, after doing some brainstorming, we chose to make meatloaf with fried stuffed potatoes and rice for 2020. And everything came out delicious!

Of course, the hubs is the cook in the family. I usually just watch in awe, but this year, I decided to pitch in and help with what I could like cutting the vegetables and doing the frying. I even helped with the decorations for the desserts. 

Speaking of desserts: 

If I look a little frustrated in the photo above it's because I was! You see, I was trying to make Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer treats using Oreo's for the body, pretzels for the antlers and white chocolate pieces for the eyes. But the supermarket was all out of Oreo's so I bought a cheap version and ran into an issue.

The cookies barely had any cream filling, so there was virtually no space between the cookie pieces for me to slide the pretzels into. Fortunately, I was able to open them up to stick the antlers in. Then I closed the cookie pieces the best way I could. And as you can see from the picture below, they came out okay.

Right next to the reindeer cookies are two snowmen which we made with marshmallows for the body, pretzels for the arms and chocolate pieces for the buttons. For the nose we used orange food coloring. And then we used chocolate filled syringes for the eyes and mouth.

We also made this Christmas tree cake using cake mix and a tree mold. The aesthetic part was a combination of frosting, sprinkles and lots of love. But we also made another Christmas tree cake a few days earlier, which is the one you see below. 

If you're wondering why this cake had ornaments and more decorations than the other cake, the answer is simple. The water (which cuts out quite frequently here) cut out half way through our meal preparation and we weren't able to finish a lot of the other desserts we had planned.

The photo above shows a wooden tray full of donuts, but we didn't make these. We ordered the strawberry and coconut flavored donuts from American Donuts on the 24th.

But like Halloween and Thanksgiving this year, Zach and I didn't invited anyone over just to play it safe. However, we did have a quick Zoom date with one of our friends. And earlier this month, we met up at Tucson to have a pre-Christmas gathering.

Of course, with any holiday preparation, things don't always go according to plan. Case in point, there was a certain local donut shop here in Cordoba City that claims to have perfected the recipe for delicious American donuts (NO! I'm not talking about the shop called American Donuts). Sadly, they failed miserably, but I'm going to share our horrible experience with them and the name of the shop in a separate post. 

Another epic fail came from a series of food products from a brand called Fudy, one of which was supposed to be a lava cake. I'll tell you why this, along with their other products, were such a disaster in another post.

In the meantime, I hope everyone had a decent holiday. Now, if you'll excuse us... We have to start prepping for New Year's Eve. 

Thanksgiving 2020 With a Side of Pandemic

I know I'm not supposed to cuss or Google will penalize my post, but f*ck it! It's been one challenging year. So, I get to say and write whatever the hell I want! Now, last year we didn't invite anyone over for Thanksgiving because someone cloned one of our debit cards and used it to steal all of our money. So, we really couldn't afford to buy a turkey or any other items to make a nice Thanksgiving feast. I honestly thought that 2019 was the worst for us, but then, the pandemic struck and changed everything.

We aren't allowed to invite friends or family over for any reason by order of the Argentine government, which meant we couldn't celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends this year. It's why we opted not to buy a turkey in 2020 either. So, this is what we made and how we celebrated.

Chicken Breasts, potatoes, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, pumpkin mash and breadsticks

We watched NBC's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 2019. The 2020 one wasn't available on YouTube on the 26th.

Homemade apple pie

Apple pie with ice cream

I also wanted to share that a day before Thanksgiving, the hubs and I celebrated our 19-year anniversary. Although we got married in 2012, our relationship began when we met at Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida, in 2001. We've been together ever since (except for three brief separations). So, we talked it over and came up with a simple way to celebrate.

But we had to be mindful of the danger that lurked out there. And I'm not just saying this because of the recent hate crimes that have plagued the LGBT community in Cordoba City. Earlier this month, the pride flag in Parque Sarmiento was burned to a crisp. It's not the first time that homophobes have tried something like this. Over the past few months, they've managed to successfully take down the flag numerous times, but the city has always raised a new flag in its place. This time was no different.

And while going out during the pandemic is risky, the rate of infection has actually gone down significantly over the past few weeks in Cordoba City and Argentina in general. A couple of months back, Cordoba was seeing a rate of infection close to and up to 2,000 a day. Now the number of daily infections are limited to about 450 to 780 a day. I just hope the numbers continue to decrease until the vaccine becomes available.

Anyway, the hubs and I went to Tucson Steakhouse & Bar to celebrate because their menu is more in tune with the kind of meals we eat in the states. Here are some of the items we ordered. For those of you who have read my blog posts about Tucson earlier this year, you'll notice that we pretty much ordered items that we've had before. Thankfully, the prices haven't really gone up too much.

Chicken Rolls

Ribs

Their burgers are so delicious but very big!

Now, all we have to do is lay low, stay healthy, and prepare for Christmas. It's a safe bet that we're going to be celebrating the holidays on our own this year as a result of the health restrictions in place. But we've managed to pull off Halloween and Thanksgiving just fine. So I'm confident we'll be able to pull off Christmas 2020 without a hitch.

Spoiler alert! We already decorated the Christmas tree. Well, actually, three trees. But I'll show you what they look like in a later post.