We went through the same process as we do each year in mid-September. Although it lasts less and less time each year, we still find it worth exploring.

How to celebrate mi marido’s birthday?

How about a pizza party? A dinner out at one of our favourite restaurants with our fav folks? Or drinks and dessert? I could make sushi? We could have a potluck?

After eight years of this, it’s become increasingly clear, however, that there really is only one way to celebrate and share with your friends the good life here in Patagonia - an asado.

Nothing else will do, nothing else makes sense, and nothing else really brings out the crowds! Year after year, week after week, an asado is held to toast any and every occasion. People here do not get tired of it, which still amazes me. It’s someone’s birthday, it’s the first day of spring, it was an awesome day of skiing, it’s Sunday, it’s Friday. What the heck, let’s have an asado! And so for Max’s birthday, an asado it was.
We rang up the gang, sent out the SMS messages and asked them to come a bit early (it was a work night after all), to bring their own dishes and some vino tinto. From 3 years old to 60 years old, everyone turned up except for Nico, Vanessa and their brand new baby girl Celeste.

Max and I hit the supermercado, the carneceria and the panaderia for a Black Forest Cake, his favourite. We picked up cerveza, vino, Fernet, soda, pan, garlic and parsley, and loads of beef.

By 7:30, the sun was setting behind the cypress trees and the dusty firepit in our backyard was getting hot. By 8pm, the vino was flowing, the tablitas de picadas were being nibbled at, and the beef was roasting away on the grill, far from the flames of course.

Maybe 20 minutes later, the asador - also the birthday boy- began taking select pieces off the grill, slicing them thinly on a huge cutting board atop our massive picnic table, and offering piece by piece amongst his cherished amigos. He knows who likes what, and he gingerly savours one amazing piece for each buddy. On their own, on top of a slice of baguette or with a dollop of chimichurri, the slices melted in mouths. You like rare, good to go. Prefer well-done, well hold on a second, please. Made to order, everyone got what the wanted.

Basically we all ate with our fingers; there were no plates and certainly no forks. People sat on dusty chairs, on the ground, around our picnic table. It was a lovely early spring night to be outdoors, but a bit chilly, so most had toques and puffy down jackets on.

We must have spent $100 on beef (plus sidebars like chorizo sausages and salchichitas), which is a lot of plata in Argentina. It looked like it would be way more than enough meat, maybe even left overs for a few days. And yet cut by cut (don’t ask me which cuts…..), we made our way through the giant stash of grass-fed, free-roaming beef roasting away on the coals in a pit in our yard. In the end, there was a sausage and a small piece of ribroast left over.

The asador got a hearty round of applause for his fine work on the grill, and also got to blow out his birthday candle twice. He got lots of hugs, some fine bottles of wine, and he smiled a whole lot. The buena onda flowed freely.

Shortly after midnight, when Silvina and Fede were the last to leave, we put out the fire, drank a last glass of wine and toasted a happy birthday.