Here’s our first cooking interview, with Andrés Ruggeri. Andrés is a lecturer at the Facultad Abierta in Buenos Aires and is particularly interested in recovered factories. At first, he though we were going to be the ones cooking for him. When he found out it was the other way around, he suggested a dish that is supposed to be ‘básico pero muy Argentino’: churrascos con ensalada – grilled round steak with salad.
We were a bit anxious as we waited for him: it was our first try and we didn’t know if we would be able to handle chatting (in Spanish!), cooking and filming. But we did it! There’s clearly room for improvement, but overall we’re quite satisfied.
In between cooking, eating and drinking, Andrés told us all about recovered factories: businesses that have been flourishing in Argentina since 2001, when a lot of factories went under due to the economic crisis and were abandoned by the owners. Workers, however, did not give up and decided to occupy them instead. The phenomenon grew, and now there are around 350 worker-managed factories that give work to 25,000 people. We talked about these models, how workers represent themselves, the challenges they face, Argentina’s situation, the 2001 movement, the Kirchner government and much more – but this deserves its own post.
For now, let’s look at the recipe, which is pretty simple.
The ingredients for 4 people are:
4-6 round steaks (depending on how hungry you are) – lettuce – 3 carrots – 2-3 tomatoes – 1/4 red onion – salt, oil and vinegar
You should heat up the grill while you prepare the salad, so that the former is hot when you put the steaks on.
Wash the lettuce, carrots, tomatoes and onion; cut them up and season with salt, oil and vinegar.
Put the round steaks on the grill for 4-6 minutes – depending on how well-cooked you like them – turning them over after a couple of minutes.
According to Andrés, if you want to eat churrascos the Argentinian way, you should salt the steaks – but don’t season them!
And… that’s it. We drank Shiraz, but we’re sure that a nice Barbera will do the trick as well 
Enjoy your meal! And enjoy the video!
*** Translated by Beatrice Gechele***